A friend sent me this link today saying, “Found this and thought of you.” What a compliment!
Only five minutes (on 1.75x speed), which I will bet serious money that anyone with the name of this blog won’t actually be able to sit through.
This one is also very validating, at least until he starts talking about the “spiritual” aspect and the karma of past lives… oh, well.
Ideally, we should be able to renegotiate our relationships with family as we become adults. (This doesn’t apply if there are abusive or dangerous factors involved. We’re not obligated to negotiate with people who have harmed us.) I know very few people who have been able to do this successfully.
What tends to happen instead, is one of two things:
People stay enmeshed and kind of codependent on their family, even while still being treated as an outcast. In other words, they keep taking crap from them, waiting to be treated better. Or,
They become increasingly withdrawn from their family, to the point where they start to dread holidays and family gatherings. They might rely on them in case of emergency [HAH!], but that’s about it.
Dysfunctional families also tend to have black sheep. The black sheep is viewed as a scapegoat to bully and receive all the rage, aggression, frustration, emotional pain, and general negative feelings of the other family members. In dysfunctional families, being the black sheep often connects to being functional.
When these families “other” a family member, it’s essentially projection mixed with bullying. Dysfunctional family members feel better once they’ve released their negative energy onto another person, unwarranted. Making someone feel even worse than they do brings satisfaction. The truth about the black sheep is distorted to paint them in a negative light, and the black sheep is often ganged up upon. Many black sheep voluntarily leave situations like this — who wants the acceptance of these people, anyway?
I recently had cause to reflect that I’ve FINALLY gotten ALL of the garbage people out of my life: mom, sister, SIL, MIL, to name the major ones. Also arrogant brothers who think they know SO much better than me (and I’m talking about more than one of them)…
And what a great feeling that is!