When Disappointing Your Family Means Being Yourself

Sometimes, disappointing one’s family is almost an obligation in order to be free, to reassert oneself as a person, as an individual deserving of one’s own happiness and as a manager of one’s own independence. Breaking or questioning certain family injunctions is a healthy act that renews us from the inside and the outside, and which then gives us the tools of the complex and necessary crusade which consists in accepting ourselves as we are or letting ourselves go. .

It is not easy. Throughout the first stage of the life cycle, there is always a moment when the child wakes up and becomes fully aware of these subtle incongruences that inhabit many family dynamics. He perceives with amazement, for example, that his parents do not apply at all what they nevertheless advise him with severity. He also feels with discomfort this bitter distance between the expectations which crush him and those which he freely constructs, feels and esteem.

“There cannot be deep disillusionment there is no deep love.”

-Martin Luther King-

Family orders are like little atoms colliding with each other. They create an invisible matter of which no one is aware, but which suffocates. They come from intergenerational strength, our system of beliefs, demands and unconscious codes. They are expressed not only in the type of messages given in communication, but also in tone and non-verbal language.

So, and almost without realizing it, we are shaped by a series of attributes and beliefs that we internalize in silence and through heavy pain. Until all of a sudden we felt that we did not fit into this puzzle. We realize that our “functional” family is perhaps not so that much, because there lives too many silences, too many downcast glances which avoid crossing each other. It is then that we decide to make a decision, a clean path that will sometimes have a high cost: disappoint our own.

The complexity of certain family ties

When Lucas first came into the world, his mother was 41 and his father 46. For her parents, having an only child was not a choice but the result of a very difficult process. Before him, his mother had suffered from four miscarriages and after him, she had to face one more. Unwittingly, of course, he’s always been that lonely survivor onto whom his family has thrown a whole manual of expectations, a whole lot of hopes and dreams.

However, Lucas was never a good student. He was neither docile nor calm, let alone obedient. Worst of all is that during this period of school failure, he had to live with the specter of his invisible siblings, those who were never born and that his parents always had in mind . “I’m sure one of them would have been an engineer like me”, “I’m sure one of them would have been more balanced, more responsible “…

In addition to this constant and imaginary idealization of his parents, Lucas also had to contend with inappropriate messages from his uncles, aunts and grandparents: “Pay attention to your mother, stop the music and focus on a career. Your parents suffered a lot to have you and it would cost nothing to make them happy for once… ”

Now Lucas is at an age where he can finally take responsibility for his decisions. He takes the direction of a foreign country to enter the conservatory. He is aware that he will disappoint his people. He knows he will cause pain, but he is unable to conform to this family paradigm inhabited by fantasies and impossible expectations. Lucas needs to realize himself, to aspire to a cohesive life in which he can say: “I do, I say and I feel”.

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When disappointing involves opening the eyes of others

Last year, an interesting study was conducted at the University of Utah in which it was explained that strategies exist to help those people who see themselves as the “black sheep” of their families. Everyone understands that this type of situation, beyond the symbolism of the term, is extremely complex. So much so that many of our emotional problems have their roots in this difficult clash of values, needs and beliefs that we have with our own families.

“Blood forms parents, but love forms families.”

Knowing how to react, knowing how to effectively manage this type of reality is essential for our well-being. So the three conclusions that were drawn in this study can help you if you go through such a situation.

• We must see ourselves as “resilient black sheep”, people capable of reacting to adversity in order to move forward, but without forgetting all that has been lived, all that has been learned.
• Finding help, support and direction outside of the family circle is essential for understanding other perspectives, for bringing together strength, self-confidence and courage to make decisions.
• It is also necessary to be assertive with your own family, because expressing your own needs, thoughts and desires out loud should not be a threat if done with respect, maturity and conviction. If disappointment occurs, it is only an effective and necessary way of putting them in front of a fait accompli.

Finally, it is important not to see yourself as “marginal”. Even if many “black sheep” apparently don’t care about being this “provocative” element of the family nucleus, sometimes they end up becoming the slaves of a label that has been placed on them and in which they have found a some comfort. For example, someone may systematically oppose an unwritten family norm or desire, even though they would prefer another option.

So let’s relativize this biased value that we have been assigned for a long time, and also understand that disappointing is not always negative. It is an act by which we reaffirm ourselves as an independent person with a personal opinion.

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Images by Łukasz Gładki