What does family mean to you? Is it love or togetherness? Family also represents unity and strength.  There are however some families who make the mean girl club seem like a church choir. The rules are simple – you MUST have similar outlooks, beliefs and goals, you need to fit in or you’re labelled strange or worse – THE BLACK SHEEP.

1. As a child, you may have been considered to be difficult, uncontrollable and hardheaded. Stubbornness ran rife. Authority was never a thing for you and you would never just do things because they were expected of you. Your view? “Just because they’re adults doesn’t mean they know best!”

2. Did you ever feel like you were born into the wrong family? Did things ever feel out of sync as a child? Even into your teens, there may have been a rift between you and the rest of your family. Subconsciously, you may even feel like your life experience is more of a karmic lesson. Dreaming of the day you could just up and leave, you wish to only see them when necessary as an adult.

3. Able to conceive the ability to do completely unorthodox things in their eyes, you leave them wondering how. They often question where you get your ideas from as they could not possibly have come from them.

4. Ever been threatened or warned not to embarrass the family? You don’t care! You know who you are and will never be ashamed of the brilliance you possess.

5. Following very different aspirations than that of your family, you will go against the grain. If you come from a line of very successful ballet dancers, guess what? Ballet will bore you and you’ll most likely take up something in a completely different genre like welding or architecture. You literally take being different to a whole new level!

6. Who ever said you couldn’t be radically different? Is your family traditionally Christian? You may find yourself more drawn towards spirituality. As divergently different as possible, some of your interests may be New Age, Metaphysics, Atheism and even the path of the humanist! You would never blindly follow their path just because it’s expected.

7. Being fixed in their ways, your family will never truly accept you for your unique weirdness. No matter how hard you try. Forget about it and move on.

8. You tend to say things and express opinions in a way that may leave your family in dismal confusion. Many family members may be wondering what next will come out of your mouth, wishing that you would just agree and move on, which of course, is NOT a possibility.

9. Your family seem to merely tolerate you, being a relationship described as cordial at best. They somewhat include you in their lives, as it’s expected.

10. Rebel number one, iconoclast to those who yearn to break free from their family structure, you are their role model. Don’t ever forget this! Remember, you are the one with the balls to stand up and break away from a calcified, amoebic family.

The best part of all of this is you are the BEST YOU that you could ever be! So celebrate it and never go cold! Wake people with your presence!

 

Thanks goes to HubPages for the motivation to write such a moving piece