8 Types of Sibling Issues From Childhood Trauma

[Music] recently in a video that i did on the highly sensitive person in childhood trauma i discussed how in my practice it is usually just one family member seeking change through therapy about their family of origin and in that video i also mentioned that when it comes to siblings it's very rare to have two siblings working on recovery from family trauma and abuse who happen to discuss it together or they're connected this video is going to try to be of help in making more sense about what happens to our sibling relationships when it comes to growing up in childhood trauma and abuse and those dynamics with siblings can often be a large part of our abuse story and or that those relationships are woven into our story in the abusive family system no child walks away untouched despite how it might seem or despite how it might look we can have huge resentments towards our siblings from anything from drinking the parental kool-aid to the sibling actually being one of our perpetrators growing up and we can have total heartbreak for siblings who don't see the trauma stuff and are caught up in the effects of trauma without knowing it like say having a sibling who was now married to an abusive person and doesn't fully see it and is really stuck we can also have immense loneliness about siblings who have no concept of showing up to our relationship with them or showing up for us we can often and this is big be more let down by our siblings even than our own parents in the abusive family system because it feels like that the siblings should know better so there's that but if we can have a different perspective and have some clarity and name dynamics about our siblings we can have a better chance of moving on from the resentment and the grief and even maybe the rage we can even let go of our own codependent issues with them such as hoping that they get it someday or how we might try to control in various different ways for reasons good and bad so i'm going to present some types of dynamics or types of siblings in this video and hopefully give you some perspective on them from the lens of childhood trauma in the abusive family system first a little bit about the dysfunctional family system roles from the adult children of alcoholics literature also known as acoa we have the classic dysfunctional family system roles such as the hero the scapegoat the enabler the lost child the clown or the mascot even the manipulator and there are different variations throughout all different kinds of years and literature on the dysfunctional family system stuff so these roles often go hand in hand with what is called the upside down family system where the kids are taking care of their parents or each other or the kids are vying for dominance or attention because the parental system is so off and compromised or toxic or neglectful and just or simply very irresponsible there is no adult who has it together to steer the ship that is the family or be emotionally responsible keep this in mind while you're watching this video the upside down family is not unlike say a small business where the owner is absent or abandoning or is is substance addicted and they leave the business to be run by employees who need the business to survive the dysfunction starts up top in the system and the employees are both abandoned yet exploited which is a tricky combination in a healthy family system there's functional leadership meaning the parents and it's top down in a good way there are healthy and authentic roles of the children meaning the parents allow authentic identity they essentially get out of their children's way to help them become who they were born to be or who they want to be and there is an understanding of development which is the main loving goal i mean why have kids unless you want your kids to really kind of develop and thrive in in a really powerful way or really healthy way you know and also there is sanity and guidance and justice and consistency and stability in a healthy family system where the kids don't have to fight each other to be seen or be parents for each other and i really want you to take the viewer to take this in a healthy family system being loved or seen or valued isn't at the expense of another child that might be the biggest takeaway or the biggest point to this video when it comes to sibling relationships meaning in the upside down family system the golden child or the enabler or the hero is loved usually for being compliant and there can be a sick appreciation or over identification with that child on behalf of the parent at the expense of the scapegoat or the other kids like even when an old school parent would say something casually like you know why can't you be more like gayle your sister gail and just eat your broccoli she did and it makes gail superior and more valued at the expense and the destruction of the scapegoated sibling who can't deal with the broccoli like a normal like a normal and healthy four-year-old and there is wreckage to that sibling relationship into the individual kids because it's divide and conquer to the point where the sibling bond is wrecked or kind of ruined intentional or not gail won the love game about the broccoli and the four-year-old failed at being lovable about the broccoli and i'm giving a super light but kind of sad example here the same dynamic can be done horrifically over time in such families to greater intensity or contempt for the scapegoated kid or the other abuse kids if you're new to me or new to the channel welcome if you like this video feel free to hit some buttons on the screen preferably the subscribe button or the like button you really can't miss with any of the buttons subscribing to the channel greatly supports the channel as well as creates a wider community here on youtube and if these videos are helpful to you and to your recovery you can consider supporting the work that goes into this channel over at my patreon i do not take on any third party sponsorships on this channel because i think it must things up for the viewer in addition you can go to my website to do some childhood trauma e-course work that i have there including a recent webinar recording that discusses working on childhood shame triggers through an inner child exercise called dialoguing you can also get in touch with me through my website and you can connect with me to my instagram or through my tic toc and i will have all the links in the description of this video below so here's a list of common dynamics and issues or types of siblings that come up with childhood trauma that i see a lot in my practice this is not an exhaustive list and feel free to leave a comment if you like to bring something up or something that i didn't touch on here and there can definitely be overlap and you might identify yourself in some of these issues with each issue i'm going to be giving some possible childhood trauma reasons on why the issue is there between the siblings and i'm not trying to get viewers to really explore compassion up front i think that that's one of the last steps in healing is develop compassion especially for the siblings who are perpetrating like it comes later so i'm trying to say and i'm just trying to give info here to have a healthier perspective in the here and now on these issues so let's dive into it number one is the sibling who attacks or makes you responsible kind of scapegoating this is a sibling or siblings like in that small business analogy of the upside down family that gets very aggressive when you set boundaries or you start to talk about the truth or you want to talk about what happened all of which is usually interpreted as being selfish or complaining usually and it looks and it feels like this i can't believe you're not coming to thanksgiving you know what dad puts up with with mom and you're just being totally selfish i show up and i bring my kids for because it's family and you just want to get out of not dealing with mom so kay and i will have to deal and help dad i guess so i guess we'll be doing all the dishes like um and being on the receiving end of that is probably not new this sibling or these siblings have their abuse around things like codependency or authoritarianism where you'll often hear me say that the toxic family tends to protect the biggest perpetrator and these siblings protect the dysfunction of the family thinking it's that it's the morally right thing to do you know but the healthy view would be how about dad gets a divorce and the family stops allowing itself to be abused by mom what's sad about it is that the parenting has created abuse that has rolled downhill to all of the siblings and you lose them and they lose you due to protecting the mother which is modeled by the father most likely and the attacks are about a drama story of victim rescuer and perpetrator or what is known as the cartman triangle which abusive families can thrive on that drama triangle knowing that formula is very helpful and you can check out a video that i did on it called cheap intimacy do you have cheap intimacy in your family siblings like this can display highly narcissistic or self-consumed martyrish behavior which are signs of trauma in and of itself they they are often so traumatized that they don't feel the loss of their siblings and there is incredible shaming pressure coming from a sibling like this which is also a clue to their trauma i often see siblings like this as like lifelong soldiers for the abusive family system and imagine a life fighting for the wrong side of things only to have been let down by the parents as well moving on number two is what i call the sibling who never look back but glumps you in and is above it all this is a type of sibling that either physically or metaphorically got out of the family and never looked back they look like they really have it together and in some ways they do whether it's by achieving or by looking good and say you all grew up in chaos and violence and poverty and this sibling became a high-profile high-paying professional or leader and just did really well for themselves and it's not a bad way to cope but you never know that they grew up in all of that given how they behave and act and sort of come across but they might associate you with all the ick of that and glump you into the fray that is your family and they can't bridge with you or separate and see you for who you are they just associate you with the trauma that they usually don't really ever acknowledge and this can overlap with another type on this list which is the oblivious golden child that we'll talk about later so let's look at why this sibling might have this going on every child growing up in trauma comes up with their own version of survival that actually serves them well you know achieving repressing drugs acting out those are all survival examples that are driven by shame and trauma and this sibling survival coping strategy of looking good and getting out works well on some level but they are also abandoning in cold which may have been learned from the their parents on some level your parents and it looks good it looks like very convincing and powerful but you lose them and you lose they lose you because of their kind of compartmentalizing which is very much an intimacy killer they also most likely compartmentalize themselves and their feelings around what happened in the family system itself so number three the sibling who is enabled or protected this sibling looks like they've taken a special place in the dysfunctional parent's heart but it is usually the abusive parent over identifying with this sibling and there is something about the parent who looks at this child and says oh they're just like me and they have my story and i'm the only one who understands them due to that this sibling is often infantilized which can look like you can't possibly make yourself a bowl of cereal at the age of 10 so i'll do it it can also look like you can't possibly survive on your own and you have such bad luck that i'll support you and your dysfunction or your addiction well into your 40s this sibling can also be an abusive disaster but they are never held accountable abusive to other people in their life abusive to their siblings and as a side note this can also be the sibling who was ill growing up or needed special accommodations or services and all the parental focus and resource go into such a sibling for good or bad like they could just be sort of the kid who had medical abuse i'm not saying they're abusive but that's where all the focus and energy went to and i really see that it comes from the parents own stuff or their trauma story that makes them single out this child and to me it's a sign or a clue that the parent might struggle with significant mental health problems such as cluster b traits when that child is overly precious and the other children are not to the parent the parent often creates division and specialness with this child and the sibling relationships get destroyed either due to neglect or inappropriate expectations even just simple contempt for the other kids when this child grows up into adulthood they are often not expected to show up for their siblings and they see their siblings as simply doing better and not understanding their plight or their struggle and lastly there is usually a story created by the parent to which that this child is entitled or enabled and this sibling really believes that as truth they believe that narrative that the parents created about them moving on number four is the sibling who runs from the reality of it perhaps similar to the sibling who never looked back this sibling who runs from the reality simply can't tolerate the feelings of discussing the family or getting involved in division they usually can be part of or tolerate the abusive family system but they somewhat live in like la la land about say going to that thanksgiving dinner where it is toxic this sibling usually gets freaked out by talking about it talking about the family they usually shut down around conflict and they may people please and really do some sneaky soothing or smoothing of the conflict they are not really against anybody which is really the problem you know they can be abandoning in that not taking any sides we might really be drawn to helping them or trying to connect the sibling with the reality but they're not having it you know they there may be love there but it's just too much for the sibling to deal with like there may be a good relationship or a good enough relationship with a sibling but they can't meet you there they can often be caught up in very toxic personal relationships themselves and they have an extremely high tolerance for abusive people which is just a top-tier childhood trauma symptom and to see them struggling with that this might be the trickiest sibling because it seems like there's potential there and our heart breaks for them but they can just really abandon you and not dealing with it like you called them the day after your wedding about a parent destroying said wedding and this sibling will change the subject and try to get you to look forward to your honeymoon they might get off the phone like freaked out and exhausted by you being in pain or not dealing with it or the sibling can be half safe they can hear you about the abuse may even tell you what it was like for them but they cannot do the work on their own or feel comfortable fully with you setting boundaries with the parents or with the other siblings their trauma and survival is rooted in repression which is really sad it's like this isn't happening right now kind of existence and their major mo is to make things okay because it has to be for them to survive this was their survival stance and you lose them and you lose the intimacy or the realness with them for them not taking a stand or seeing what that wedding might have been like for you or for their guest or for their day or god forbid themselves moving on to number five is the sibling who needs parenting from you this one is you know wrapped up in very early roles i think and is especially true for younger siblings for those of you who are parentified and who are older and these old family habits are hard to break put simply this sibling looks to you for parenting on some level and they may see you as a financial or emotional or the guidance resource that should come from really the parental system but that system is totally compromised and not safe and you've created that safety over the years for them what is hard about this is that the dynamic is usually a one-way street it can range from a little bit of entitlement to simply both parties kind of enjoying this dynamic like you've always gotten your little brother or your little sister more gifts or you've given them more help than what is given because you love them or that you totally feel responsible for the whole lift in the family by the abusive parents that's part of your trauma which is slightly different than theirs on this issue and despite the feelings of love and responsibility there can be the bad feeling of it being a one-way street and it usually needs to be addressed it does need to be talked about it just depends on the situation like the age if that sibling can take it in and you may have always been there for them like a parent and the work is about being siblings on equal footing eventually the sibling who benefits had trauma around it not coming from a parent just like you did and they also will have some guilt about you providing this for them but needing an older sibling to take care of us growing up is also tragic as our survival is at the expense of the older sibling and we're probably aware of that on some level like the older sibling who is helping you pay for your prom stuff because mom and dad aren't and that sibling is also in college working you know you were both set up by the parents to have feelings of guilt and shame and responsibility around this dynamic next is the lion's den which is mutual hatred and dysfunction this is really when siblings will turn on each other in childhood or adulthood and i think siblings will get aggressive with each other because the parents aren't available or safe to do that with all the trauma manifested each other in blame shame and rage and this can happen in a big sort of emotional or dramatic brawl or it can often be in sometimes in some more one-on-one instances if there's more than two kids i often think of when an abusive parent will pass away and many of my clients see or experience extreme abusive dysfunction from their siblings over things like estate planning or prepping for funeral services and it tells us about how the system works and how each child's trauma manifests in such situations or simply when there is like a crisis in the family when one child is managing the footwork of say hospital visits and they could even be taking that over and using it as leverage another sibling is making demands but not contributing the closest sibling proximity wise to the crisis is they might not be sober or they might not be invested enough to contribute anything or a narcissistic sibling is making it all about themselves and there's text battles and threats and lawyers and mess this is a crazy making cacophony of stuff flying around and in my mind it's all the the end result of horrific parenting and dynamics kind of coming to a head over time what's sad about this is of you siblings and abused people in general often fight battles in the wrong places taking their stuff to the wrong arena after such events like a crisis like this or a will reading or emptying a parent's house where the siblings may be officially done with each other in a really marked big way it's it's tragic and i'm not saying like depending on the circumstance about it just something that just is but it's a legacy that might actually feel predictable and this really overlaps with the first example that i gave of the attacking sibling so there's that moving on number seven is the diplomatic sibling or what i call the codependent agent briefly this is a sibling that can overlap with the sibling that's kind of risen above it like i mentioned earlier or who runs from the reality of all but this sibling does a specific keeping the ship afloat behavioral wise without ever being real about the parental or the family system itself it looks like i know you said you never wanted to see dad again but i'm wondering if you'd reconsider for this thanksgiving you know i've spoken to mom and i'm happy to not have you sit near dad and blah blah blah blah like really being diplomatic and reaching out to you the sibling doesn't see you and uses diplomacy to make everything okay and that's their codependency that they're not aware of they're like a trained diplomat like working between israel and palestine they are very polished and they are usually all business their trauma i think is wrapped around repression and compartmentalizing they may also have played a hero role growing up and it's sad that their only alliance is to making things work as opposed to being in their own feelings about what happened this sibling may not be able to deal with how a sibling not coming to thanksgiving actually looks in the greater scheme of things which is sad as opposed to just feeling the weight in their feelings around having a fragmented family there is a lot of shame and pressure that will come from this sibling even say gaslighting and they usually don't believe in therapy but they really do believe in unemotional all business negotiating moving on to number eight lastly on this list i have the oblivious golden child and capital o oblivious they have a great relationship with the parents but they are terrible say being an uncle or an aunt to your kids or just simply being a sibling to you or maybe even in their other kind of arenas of their life they may have never fully known what to do with you and the other siblings and they are terrible at making connections with seemingly lesser people to them i'm not exactly saying they're narcissists while that is possible i'm saying it's like they have always had an easier and more pleasant experience than the rest of their siblings and in some ways they kind of lived in a separate little like you know family within the family i've had clients who go on a family vacation with parents and who are now grandparents or they go to a family event and this golden child sibling just does their own separate thing on their own terms and they are literally oblivious to you and your spouse and to your kids it's as if they feel like a cousin who came from like better circumstance it feels that foreign their trauma well it's hard to see it as such is about being told that they're better or performed better or they're more valuable i think that their oblivious it's like it's like as like a celebrity not wanting to get entangled with fans when they're out and about like real family relationships might be messy and distracting to this golden child what's helpful to think about is how they lose you they are usually not knowable due to their inability to do intimacy and it looks like they have the life of riley conscious or not but they saw their rise at your expense and then when they were six or when they were ten they witnessed how their how abused their siblings were but they might have benefited being the example kid and i think that choice kind of wrecks children and they may eventually end up somewhat dead inside like either the good kid or the golden child seeing the demise of their own siblings kind of makes them check out to their emotions a much less intense version of the oblivious golden child is simply like the good kid who tried to do everything right but just had to watch their siblings demise and the good kid is usually more empathic but they are also unable to connect with their siblings fully or connect to their own emotions fully some items of note in this stuff is every sibling has a different childhood story you might be the oldest and your trauma was pre-divorce while your youngest sibling their trauma was wrapped up in post-divorce and while there are differences there's also huge overlapping similar issues like say mom's narcissism and related to that it's just profound trauma or not how siblings are so different from each other and there are some interesting theories out there that point to that sibling relationships can shape us more than parental relationships like the firstborn being an athlete and the next one an artist and that children see what's already been done and make their mark on creating a different identity from the sibling who was born right before them another item of note is there are often step siblings who feel like strangers to us and we kind of don't know what to do with them but they were also maybe caught up in the abuse like we were conscious or not and i didn't include the scapegoat here because i planned to doing a whole other separate video on the functionality of a scapegoat within a toxic family system and last note i have that in some of these examples with our siblings you might experience that the main perpetrator in your childhood is a sibling who exhibits like sociopathic highly manipulative behavior and that can definitely manifest in such families where there might be hereditary or like a learned pathology coming from parents wanted to acknowledge that so here are some final thoughts in all of this i wanted to make a point to address why your siblings might have these relational issues going on with you as childhood trauma survivors we usually feel like we're the most affected person in the family but my main message is to point out that your siblings were greatly affected too it's just confusing when they can't or they won't acknowledge that it happened to them as well in some form i also find this to be true that trauma survivors who don't do some kind of work on some level will always have their trauma pop up and bite them in the ass at some point and these siblings have all that going on and i think it runs them and i think it runs their intimacy issues subconsciously like with that sibling who has risen above it all they might have their marriage failed due to their inability to do real intimacy and i'm not saying this to enjoy seeing them in pain like that would be weird but to point out how trauma catches up with people eventually in our siblings included i'd like you the viewer to be able to see the bigger picture even if a sibling is say even a perpetrator not for the sake of having like gushing compassion i think that that never has to be gushing um i think it comes a lot later it's the last stage of healing is to if it if it comes at all but i'm more saying this stuff to have perspective for yourselves to kind of see it in a different way when we were all kids say from the ages of zero to 20 despite differences our siblings usually witnessed our abuse and vice versa and i use that term witness because they're the only person on the planet who was there when you both had to say hide in closets from parents or when dad left and mom kicked him out or something mind effie or horrific happened at the kitchen table that's what i mean by a witness like if a sibling would be able to say like remember christmas 92 when dad's sister came to live with us but mom like threw a tantrum and threw around and screamed at everyone for a week you were both there and it's sad that you're both not healing from it and i do get that as the oldest like say you might have moved out when your youngest sibling was four and there's no real connection or no real witnessing but you're both a witness to the types of parents that you had that's what i mean by that so the only homework i have on this video is to do some journaling do a little bit of journaling about your siblings on the following topics number one is what role were you given and what role were they given and really think about it as assigned roles why were those roles given and what what was the function of it number two is how might you both have lost out on each other due to the trauma coming from the parental system number three is can you include the abuse of parenting more in the story about what happened between you and your siblings think about this in terms of like say what i call the setup such as did your parents set you up to be the hero or to be the good kid and set up your sibling or you to be the scapegoat no one would have chosen these roles if we were given the choice as young kids so we were set up for them kind of like all roads lead back to rome kind of an idea here and the last prompt number four is what steps in your therapy or your self-work do you need to address about your siblings like do you maybe need to stop going to a certain place with your sibling like trying to get them to get it do you need to grieve the loss of the relationships do you need to process their abuse of you do you need to see them as both victims of childhood trauma and also see them as a sibling who refuses or is unable to show up for you it can be both it doesn't have to be one or the other coming up next if you'd like to explore more about siblings you're welcome to check out my inner child episode that i did on sibling abuse you can also check out a video that i did on cheap intimacy in the family which is the cartman triangle that i mentioned and you can also check out a most recent video that i did on being a highly sensitive person so i hope this video was helpful i would love to hear about your experience or your stuck places with your siblings in the comments and as always may you be filled with loving kindness may you be well may you be peaceful and at ease and may you be joyous and i will see you next time take care [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Patrick Teahan LICSW

Views: 271,991

Keywords: psychology, health and wellness, childhood, family, ptsd, childhood trauma, emotional abuse, abusive parents, childhood ptsd, narcissistic mother, narcissistic father, narcissistic parents, repressed memories, emotionally abusive parents, abuse

Id: Vo59czUVSuc

Length: 29min 20sec (1760 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 26 2022