Maybe it’s because you felt, understood, and responded to things differently than other members of your family/peer group/community. Maybe it’s because you looked or sounded different. Or your life choices went against the grain of what was “normal” where you grew up — whether that’s because you spoke up when others didn’t, you moved away from your hometown, or you chose to love, work, and politic differently. So maybe your sense of feeling like the Black Sheep of your family or early communities was subtle and implicit, nothing directly said out loud but rather always a slight sense of the back of your mind and heart.
Or maybe your feeling of being The Black Sheep was more explicit and you were physically and relationally rejected by your family-of-origin, your church, or your early communities for who you are and how you move through the world. Maybe you were disowned, emotionally cutoff, kicked out of your house, or treated visibly differently. Maybe it’s never been a question for you that you were the proverbial Black Sheep.
However and for whatever reasons this may have manifested for you, I think that so many of us can identify with “The Black Sheep” archetype and, while this is predominantly a pejorative term in our collective lexicon, today’s blog post is all about reclaiming the power of that archetype – diving deep into what it may mean to be the so-called “Black Sheep” from both a cultural and psychological lens, exploring the pain of what it can mean to embody this archetype, but also the power, gifts, and opportunities of it, too.
What does it mean to be “The Black Sheep of the Family”?: Understanding Family Black Sheep Syndrome
“Do not cringe and make yourself small if you are called the black sheep, the maverick, the lone wolf. Those with slow seeing say that a nonconformist is a blight on society. But it has been proven over the centuries, that being different means standing at the edge, that one is practically guaranteed to make an original contribution, a useful and stunning contribution to her culture.”
– Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.
So let’s be clear: The phrase “The Black Sheep of the Family” isn’t a term listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the cornerstone diagnostic bedrock book for us mental health clinicians). It’s not like there’s one single, defined, universally-agreed-upon definition of this term (and certainly not clinically) but it’s nonetheless a phrase that has largely infused our collective cultural lexicon over the years.
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So where does it come from, what does it mean, and why is it important to your psychological journey?
The phrase originally and objectively was used to describe what happened when a recessive gene resulted in the birth of a sheep with black rather than white coloring. Obviously, these black sheep stood out from the flock, and, apparently, their wool was traditionally considered less valuable. (The not-so-subtle devaluation begins…)
