Learning to Love

Cooperation and love aren’t inherent qualities; they are taught and nurtured from parental figures. Emotionally mature role models help children peacefully get along by modeling and teaching life skills such as: conflict resolution, emotion regulation, self soothing/calming and assertion skills. They also tend to offer resources like: love, praise, attention, education and time freely and equally to each member in the household. 

But, this isn’t the case for everyone and can lead to competition between siblings for attention that isn’t normal or healthy. In families where competition between siblings has been created and even encouraged, there is often a black sheep or several black sheep in the family.  

Emotionally immature parents have trauma from their own lives that is unresolved; that they have done little or no work on in therapy – or don’t even recognise may need attention. As a result, they carry trauma narratives into their relationships with their children, and isolate and/or abuse certain children who remind them of their own abusers or narratives.  

Show me a family where siblings are pitted against one another and I will show you a family who most likely have one or more parents with narcissistic and/or borderline personality traits. 

A relative of mine was the first born in his family. At first he was treasured and had all the attention because he was a baby, and the first boy. After his younger sisters were born, he found himself with a mother who couldn’t stand him – rejecting, ignoring and physically abusing him daily. This happened because his mother was subconsciously acting out trauma narratives of abuse that men in her past had done to her. She shunned and hurt him, making him pay for damage done from males in her past. He couldn’t understand any of this, of course. None of it was fair or made any sense. As he transitioned from golden child to black sheep, he became emotionally scarred for the rest of his life. 

This is a classic example of a child becoming a black sheep in the family due to unresolved parental and generational trauma. It’s standard for this narrative to repeat, until someone in the family is educated and brave enough to stop the pattern. 

If you are a black sheep in the family, know: 

• this is not normal
• most likely has to do with unresolved generational trauma that the people in your family are repeating 
• has little-to-nothing to do with you personally  

If you want to learn about and stop generational trauma I highly recommend these books:

• “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents” (Lindsay Gibson, PsyD)
• “How to Do the Work” (Dr. Nicole Lepera) 
• “What Happened To You” (Bruce Perry, MD, PhD, Oprah Winfrey)
• “It Didn’t Start With You” (Mark Wolynn) 

You can also pair with a therapist from WWC who understands attachment wounds and the need to heal generational trauma – book with a WWC therapist today.

Be Well,