Have You Any Wool?

I've had a pretty good week, spending much of it with family members.  Two cousins came to visit, and one of them looks up to me alot and takes a corny sense of humor well, so I try to hang out with him as much as I can when he comes in to town.

In his absence from his last visit, I forgot how things usually go when he is in town.  It only took a day or two to remember how stressful it can be when he is around.  Not because of him, but because of the way he is treated.  He's constantly being treated like a child, though he's going to be a sophomore in high school, and if people treated me that way at that age I would've been flipping tables over in frustration.

He's had some troubles in the past with attention deficit disorder, and because of this, it seems like the family treats him like some sort of mental patient.

So it is with this current experience in mind I remember the concept of a black sheep.

I have before felt this way, and can understand the sort of isolation that comes from it.

What I want to ask is how families all over the world can manage to ostracize their own flesh and blood, when the person they isolate is often flocking to them to be sheltered from the world that is telling them they are flawed, freaks, and frustrating? (And any other word that starts with 'f' to fit my love for alliteration)

It both saddens me and enrages me at the same time.  It's hard to know how to act with a blend of these feelings.  I suppose for now, I will just ask each of you to find the outcast in your family, either literal or figurative, and be sure they know that at least one person will not be counting them out next time they come around.