We all have an opinion about siblings, no matter if we had them or not. We are upset and annoyed. We want to hug them. And we cannot live without them. Sound familiar?
I will speak of one of my siblings, my younger brother. I have an older sister. I will talk about her later. My brother, Dan, is exactly a year and four days younger than I am. My earliest memories of him were being woken up for school by him. We used to share a room together, the three of us, and he was the youngest.
When you grew up in a narcissist household, it is difficult to describe where one thing ends and another begins. Relationships shift often and the narcissist chooses who gets to be what. Growing up, Dan and I never got along. He had his own room. He was the only boy. He also got away with anything!
And what did I have? Living in a poor family as I did, not much compared to him. Lesser clothes and attention and I was not male. Polish families are notorious for favoring males. And well, I was not the golden child, but neither was he.
A story I remember was from when I was a senior in high school. They were doing pictures of seniors who had siblings in the school. My brother and I obviously fit the bill. So, while everyone else posed with hugs and love, we showed ours differently.
Dan is tall, like over six feet sort of tall, and he has big feet. I am big boned and kinda short at 5'4. So, hugs were not in order. I looked like I was going to punch him. He towered over me, taunting me. It looked like he was going for the hit too.
The thing is, we still were not getting along at the time. We agreed on this. The photographer was horrified, of course, but we explained that we had to tell the truth. We were not the loving siblings everyone else pretended to be. We had to be us.
And we still do it today. We do get along a lot better these days. We are working through the trauma too. And this week, he is physically here. I can hug him (with his permission, of course)!
Namaste!
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