Does every family have a troublemaker amongst them?

It depends on how you define trouble maker. Every family will have somebody deemed to be the most mischievous in the family, but that doesn’t mean they will be notably destructive.

Are you saying she deliberately causes trouble by faking a depression?

oh yes Rangie….have an aunt that I would like to find a new home..ummm…couple thousand miles would do loll long story….but, has to do with my elderly mother who is in the first stages of Alzhimer’s!

Well, every family has someone who is cast in that role in the family dynamic.

@BoBo1946 I am sorry about your mom. Is the aunt her sister? My grandmother would always makeup stories about her sister, which would cause trouble.

I don’t know that every family has a troublemaker. I can safely say that our’s doesn’t. But I DO think every family has a “black sheep”. We DO have that.

@wundayatta No, no, I was just saying she would be happy if she wasn’t causing trouble somewhere in the family. so and so said this about so and so , causing a rift between them. That kind of stuff. Just thriving on misery.

@jbfletcherfan I use to have a little white lamb. no, just kidding. What does a black sheep do?

@Rangie she was reared as her sister…mom’s sister got into the wrong “wood pile” at a very early age and my grandmother raised her as my mom’s sister. She did not find this out until she was in her sixties! She is a “know it all” and likes to run other people’s business. To say the least, we don’t get get along!

@Rangie “the black sheep of the family” is one who is just different from the rest. An outcast, so to speak. I have a cousin that’s our black sheep. All the rest of the family did good with families & careers, & he’s just a big loser. He has nothing & he IS nothing. So he’s our ‘black sheep’.

There has to be one black sheep.

I said sheep not goat.

@jbfletcherfan I just wanted to see if I had any black sheep in our family. Guess, what? From your description, Our black sheep not one in the same. Our black sheep is another sister. She played at working while seeking out a husband with money. She is now on her 3rd. None of them have any money.:) She pretends she doesn’t belong to our family. Her morals are locked in a safe, I think. She is really different, we can’t understand her.

@ChazMaz would that be get your goat? :):) Bullies always want to get your goat. People that tease always want to get your goat.

Not the ones that have balance where everyone gets along, I was classed as the trouble causer in our family while growing up!? Yet I was the youngest & easiest target for bullying, I guess I was the trouble causer for always complaining about being beaten up :-/
It was me who broke that vase in the living room window! Me too who spilt ink onto the new beige carpet & yes it was me who brought the Police to my Mothers door….. I was nothing but trouble!! Still,,,, all has been forgiven! Just about anyway :-/
I’m still “THE BLACK SHEEP” of the family…. Lol…

@ChazMaz reminded me of a funny! the goat thing

To perform some memorable but not especially significant act which is so widely publicised that it makes people ignore any possibly more significant work you may achieve thereafter.

It is derived from the classic joke:

O’Reilly was sitting in a bar and he goes to the bar tender
“You see that church over there? I built it with my bare hands but do they call me O’Reilly the church builder? Nooo!
You see that school over there? I taught there for 30 years but do they call me O’Reilly the educator? Nooo!
But you “f” one goat….”

@BoBo1946 LOLLLLLLLL…oh, boy.

@Rangie Yep, it sounds like you have one, alright.

I don’t think every family has one. Mine doesn’t, neither does Alex’s family. Though my mother is incapable of controlling her negativity.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir, do our mothers know one another?

@rpmpseudonym No, they must just have one textbook on how to be that mom

@Simone_De_Beauvoir, I believe it was a hand-me down book from their grandmothers.

@rpmpseudonym I completely agree – because my grandmother is exactly like my mother and treats her the way my mom treats me – it’s ridiculous how mom’s unable to see this

@Simone_De_Beauvoir, seriously, where did you hide the camera in my parents house? My mother is rapidly becoming more & more like her mother (my grandmother) everyday. With her negativity, constant complaining & never being able to just be damn happy for once. I once said to my mother after a yelling match, “You’re just like your mother.” I talked to my dad a few days later, he said that when I left, she cried that night. I felt bad, but a smile still came over my face. p.s. I’m loving this conversation, it’s like free therapy. I get to vent with someone who is on my side. Thank you.

I don’t think so. I have three siblings so people always think there has to be a “black sheep”, but there really isn’t. None of us have ever gotten into any serious trouble or have caused serious trouble for our family.

@rpmpseudonym You’re welcome. Not to derail the conversation any further, if you want to talk more, pm me

A lot of the time the ‘black sheep’ factor or the acting out family member is, in actuality, acting out the dysfunction of the collective. This is a psychological fact.

It then becomes easy for the supposed ‘together’ family members to put their focus on the trouble maker instead of their own issues, dysfunctions.

I’m always suspicious whenever anyone claims the blame is anothers fault 100%.

@Coloma and a lot of the time people are who they are. Some are more social than others, some are silent shy types, some are more hermit like. Come on Just because we are all different you can’t blame that on dysfunction. People have labels and initials for everything anymore. Nobody is blaming anyone for anything. That person in the family is different from the way the rest functions. So what, we don’t dislike that person.

@Rangie

Of course, that is true. And there is truth in what I say as well.

I am just sharing another possible perspective, that often a family unconsciously picks out and sets up a scapegoat to distract from other dysfunctional members.

Unhappy parents do this to their kids all the time.

Their dysfunctions get expressed through the problem child who is the triangulated object of their own dysfunction.
As long as the focus is on the childs behaviors, issues, the focus is not on the parents troubled relationship which is the cause of the childs acting out.

Maybe your sister is just a depressive personality, or maybe she is the recepticle for the collective painbody of the entire family.

@Coloma The family has not discussed this at all. This is my perception only. She is simply a selfish, self-centered individual. She doesn’t seem to have a bond with the family, except she is very easily manipulated by her husbands.

@Rangie

She sounds like a very sad person, thats too bad. :-(

@Coloma Yes it is too bad. But, she doesn’t know she is that way, she thinks she is above her siblings, and she believes it. She is not a trouble maker, she just does things none of rest of us would think of doing. She was indeed the pretty little girl, the baby in fact of 4 girls. She was always told how beautiful she was, and it made her feel somewhat superior. Unfortunately she doesn’t realize that the beauty goes away, when ugliness rears it’s head.

I would have to say in my family, It is me!

@slick44 And how did that happen? Do you like it? you are funny.

Im the youngest and for some reason, trouble always seemed to find me.

@slick44 so is my sister the youngest.

No

I don’t know, but mine is certainly full of crazies and weirdos.

You’re lucky if you only have one troublemaker.

It seems that a branch of our family has nothing but trouble-makers. My branch is pretty benign, of course, I may be the trouble-maker that’s why I don’t see it on our side.

I think so! I’ve got an aunt who pretty much took over the family facebook page and lives in there to be a stalker to everyone. IRL she doesn’t know me well, has met me in person a handful of times yet feels it’s okay to tell other people things about me she doesn’t even know for sure or are out right bs.

Tip to pass along. In this day of facebook, I created a separate account just to participate in family threads, more like to show I exist but not really participating. This keeps them off my back to hit me up for the account I share with friends and want kept secure and enjoyable.

In my family we all used to be troublemakers in one way or another….. but no-one ever challenged my dad for the title of ‘king car-crash’.

@janbb ain’t that the “dang” truth!

No. Mine doesn’t.

@Rangie… thats really wierd, maybe theres a connection there, the young ones are the trouble makers.lol No that cant be true. My midddle son is the, shall we say ”“hellcat” fpr lack of a better word.

@slick44, maybe your youngest just hasn’t shown his stuff yet. lol In our group of siblings, it is the oldest for troublemaker, and the youngest is the Black Sheep. That leaves 2 of us in the middle. We must be the buffers for the other two. hehe

Well i am the black sheep trouble maker. lol that cant be good.

@slick44 You are in trouble. Don’t you have any other relatives you can dump one of the things on? lol

@Rangie .. Its ok, i think i have outgrown most of my trouble making years. i hope.lol