Disgrace To The Family: A Personal Letter for All The Black Sheep

Let’s stand out together, be alone together.

Trigger warnings include: Cutting ties with family and mental illness.

Dear my fellow black sheep:

I understand the nights when you can’t fall asleep; maybe it was the fighting next room keeping you awake, maybe your heart is still racing from the argument you just had, or maybe the words that hurt you are still lingering.

There is no comparison. It’s not a competition to see who’s had it worse. You’re tired, and we’re tired. Sometimes, I wish finding a place that welcomes us doesn’t have to be challenging. But here we are.

I was never close with my family, perhaps when I was a kid, but the good memories never stick like the bad ones, and no one, at least not me, would recognize the place where you grew up as something toxic or harmful, the house was your home, and the home was your world.

I can list everything that separated me from my family and what darkened my wool; I am the only gay person in the family, the first to leave the house, the only one who got a degree, and the only one who’s gone and never looked back.

It’s kind of like the ageless question; I couldn’t quite pinpoint whether it was the fact that I was gay or the household that made me so alienated. Egg first or chicken, nature versus nurture.

I remembered the night I was pushed to the corner and the moment I switched off my affection for my blood-related family. A few days after I came out to one of my brothers, he banged my bedroom door open, refusing to share the same laundry basket with me, I was clueless about what had happened, and when I told him it was ridiculous, he punched a hole in my bedroom door.

It felt like my safe haven had been breached, the only place that I could rest and regain my courage had been lost, and I could hear something in my brain, or perhaps somewhere deeper, the sheer will that endured the suppression for way too long, was finally broken through.

I would, later on, find out that the reason why he refused to share the laundry basket was, in fact, that he was terrified of getting STDs from his queer brother, a decision he made right after I came out to him.

And even though the emotional switch has been turned off, this did not hurt any less than it should.

After running away for two days, I begged to move out of the house. Before turning 18, on a cold night when the school had not even started, I moved all my stuff into the tiny student accommodation, basically all the things I had brought with me, because I knew I couldn’t go back.

I left the cat I raised since it was just a newborn at home; she would grow old, not recognize me, and the books and birthday cards from my childhood would be thrown away one day when they’d clean the house. And when the holidays came along, all the friends left to be with their families, and I would try to find places to enjoy myself but wondered:

If only my family were as loving -

And you had to tell yourself to stop, not fall into the deep spiral. You distracted yourself with work and school and friends and maybe substances. But deep down, you’re always worried for the other shoe to drop. Because they always drop, no exception.

There’s no if, only when.

You became anxious, so anxious that you thought you would scare people off, and on one of the bad dates, you decided that you might not be worthy of love. It made sense because you didn’t grow up loving yourself. And when someone shows you even just a bit of attention, you feel seen and mistake it for affection.

When shit happened, you weren’t bothered. You didn’t look bothered, and with a weak and weary smile, you murmured:

“I told you so.”

It’s like we wanted terrible things to happen as if we deserve to be punished, and the anticipation manifested itself. Or it was the only things we knew would be certain, the bad, the ugly, and the conflict.

Then years of therapy, trying to figure out what made you so fucked-up, was it childhood trauma, was it your relationship with your parents, or was it just you? And when you felt like the person with the shittiest luck in the world, you had to stop victimizing yourself.

Because someone had it worse, some people didn’t even have parents, some didn’t make it, and some weren’t as lucky as you. And you felt bad about feeling bad for yourself.

It’s simple, really. When the place you grew up was the world you understand, you couldn’t think of it as a bad environment or see it as a threat; you’re in it, to begin with. And it takes time to rewrite your beliefs, the beliefs that were programmed into your consciousness, about family, intimacy, and love.

I am here to tell you, black sheep. Feel bad about yourselves, drown yourselves in your villain origin stories, and just for a second in your lives, stop rationalizing everything because it’s not going to make it feel any better.

Just recently, after five years of not hearing from my family, they reached out, and I inevitably got into an argument with them. Instead of just shutting them out and ignoring them like I had been doing this whole time, I stood up for myself.

My brothers, called me a disgrace to the family, wishing that I would leave them alone, and saying I was just like a leach sucking everything from them.

And at that moment, I realized I had to be selfish.

So I agreed with them. In Asian culture, providing for your family, especially the parents, is the most important thing in the world. And I apologized for not being able to do that this lifetime and said I needed to be on my own.

I had left the herd, so I made up my mind this time. I’m not going back. I had felt like I was nothing, a nobody because of them, to a point where I started believing that I was the problem, the root of all evil, and, overall, a bad person. But that is not what a family is supposed to make you feel, and if there’s nothing left here for me to stick around — Why do I even bother?

No matter how right it felt for me to make this decision, it still wasn’t easy.

In the current society, the solidarity of a family is widely celebrated. Pick a mainstream movie or TV show; the family would face adversity and still come out on the other side as a family, stronger and closer than ever, despite the random selection of our nature. Being part of the family is merely the connection of what’s running through our veins. And yet we value this relationship because it makes or breaks one’s future.

Remember, we couldn’t choose our herds. How could we have known we would be chased away because of our uniqueness and feel guilty for our differences? Did it ever occur to you that the world beyond your original herd could be so vast and wide and free, and maybe -

You weren’t even sheep, to begin with.

Black sheep, I hope you find your chosen family, and I sincerely wish you can discover your true identity, the place you’re destined to arrive, and the people you’re meant to bond with. And for what it’s worth, you’re not alone; many of us left because we couldn’t go back, and each of us had dealt with the situations that were so different, it’s impossible to compare. But know that you’re the focal point in your own narrative, the main character in your own story, and your feelings and experiences are valid.

With love, and most importantly, kindness,

Your Fellow Black Sheep

Would you like to read more stories? Do you also have a passion for writing but don’t know where to share your thoughts? Click Here to join Medium now! For a small fee of $5/month, you can read unlimited articles and write your own stories. (This is a referral link, I will get a portion of the fee if you decide to join using my link.)