what is a sane siblings dynamic anyway

[godace]

i know i ended up talking about my brother a lot on this platform, and i hate that i've been so vocal about a person who's never going to know what i say and how i say it, even if it's generally done because it's relevant to an ongoing topic. i don't like to print our relationship onto the internet, i feel such a bond belongs to two people ; but i need to know, i need to understand and lodge into my system of logic, what's sane and what's not. 

 

it seems that every time my brother is mad at me, he was originally mad about something else and he went to find me. practically every time, he opens my door or knocks, i tell him to come in, he says unpleasant things, i answer with short words, and he gets uber pissed at me. starts saying this is why living with neurodivergent people is insufferable, saying he can't be holding all these strings anymore. i say "please leave" with imploring eyes and a calm voice, and he just snaps. i say "i asked you to leave because i don't know what do to and you didn't" and he says "you always give weird signals, i don't get you". yesterday he broke a trivet made of wood and mosaic in pieces by slamming his fist onto it. i liked that trivet. i know he's in a difficult moment, his best friend is being problematic, he's starting a new job in a few days, he's about to move, but i'm in a nerve wrecking exam period and i'm doing my best to, myself, hold all of my strings together. and it seems that whenever he's pissed, he straight up goes to my room and starts talking about how difficult it is to have me for a sister, he says he's had enough of my "sterile autistic answers", and that he wishes i acted normally. last summer he scared me so much i had to run out of the appartment and hide in the corridor of the first floor. because he kicks doors violently enough to break them or print his shoe soles onto them, and when i asked why he'd broken that trivet he said "i do too much exercise". 

 

is this just a crisis situation, is this just hard because we're in a hard time, am i going insane, am i a bad sister ? i want to know if you personnaly remember having periods like this with your siblings. where whenever they enter the appartment your back stiffens. where the house pet becomes agitated and wants to leave when they're around. i want to know what it looks like when a sibling might be going too far. i'm already making mental excuses for him and going back to thinking he's right, and i hate to slip back in those shoes. 

 

i don't know what to do or how to end this. am i a clown ? am i oversharing ? i know this isn't the place to complain. might delete this later

[@crazydreamer]

You aren't a clown and you aren't oversharing.  I have ADHD and two older brothers so I get the feeling of them not understanding you.  I had trust issues for a long time growing up because of SA so I was often hard to control and my brothers were always confused because of that.  The worst time I had with them was when my brother punched the wall so hard, his knuckles bled but that was a really stressful event.  I haven't had consistent violence with them.  When I was younger my brothers did often get mad with me for small things then end up yelling about overlying issues. but my experience doesn't seem as bad as yours.

[Rynn]

Uhm. Yeah no that's not normal. Do you have a lock on your door? Can you get one?

 

And about the oversharing stuff, dunno man you're pretty anonymous, don't think it can do much harm if nobody finds out who you are.

 

I have a brother and a sister. I have an autism diagnosis since recently, they don't (but we all know they'd get one if they'd actually try to get an assessment). None of us would ever insult each other like your brother seems to have done (though we often insult each other playfully, knowing that it's not meant to actually hurt). None of us would ever show that level of violence. Or any level of violence.

 

We boop each other in the stomach. We throw pillows at each other's faces. I jump out from behind doors to scare them (they also try this on me, but they suck at it). We all know that drinking from a tap near a sibling will probably result in a shove and a wet face, which is then repaid with a splash of water from the shove-ee to the shove-er. We fake kick each other, slowly, without hitting, yelling "Heeyaaaaa", but it's slow enough that the other person usually ends up grabbing the leg and then the person doing the kicking is the one in trouble because good luck keeping your balance on one leg with someone pulling on the other, trying to flip you over. The 'cold hands in neck' maneuver is also a favorite. My brother's main line of offense is hug attacks, where he grabs you and hugs you and squeezes you and because he's so much bigger than me and my sister, well, it's effective, you're stuck until he lets go. He calls it grappling. I don't know if you play DnD, but he's tall and lanky and his arms stupidly long, so we've decided that he has a reach of 10ft while we only have the normal 5ft and that's why he keeps winning.

 

When we were smaller I would sometimes be the one to take things too far. But going too far meant I would tickle my brother for too long and the 'stop' actually meant stop and I didn't stop, and he'd cry. Or I'd hidden my sister's favorite plushie for too long, and she'd cry. My sister sometimes got really angry at me and she'd kick and hit and bite, and it would actually hurt sometimes. My brother's way of playing was to take shit apart, and then be unable to put it back together. I cried about a ton of toys lost this way.

 

But we were tiny lil kids, and it never got to a point where any of us were legitimately afraid of each other. I mean that's just unfathomable to me. That's just not normal, not healthy, we don't do that here. We don't yell at each other. We don't deliberately hurt each other, ever. And if hurting each other does accidentally happen, well bruh you apologize like normal people do.

 

Nowadays when we fight (which is maybe once or twice a year), there's really not much fighting. There's mainly a stern exchange of words, possibly one or both of us stress cries (because meltdowns have never really been a thing here, we stress cry), after which both sides retreat to their rooms, and I don't know what my siblings do but I end up writing down my feelings and why I'm right (lol) and then I'm too chicken to actually send that to them or to ever bring it up again, and then that's kind of it. We usually don't talk about it anymore, but usually it's about silly shit so that's alright. I actually cannot remember a serious fight. It must've happened at some point, but it must've been years ago, and it was probably also dealt with through conflict avoidance mainly. 

 

Oh actually, I remember one conflict, and you may not believe it but it was pretty high up on the scale of how serious conflicts get over here. So we were switching around cooking turns, and my dad ended up with one more day a week than he'd like, and he was really unhappy about it, because he felt like he was working too much already. We were talking about it during dinner and the rest of us weren't really giving in to him, and so he kinda just did a hmpf and gave up. My mom tried to bring it up with him again later in private but he was still not willing to talk about it, so my mom asked us to take over that day and now we rotate it between the three of us, without ever having discussed it with my dad. That is how we deal with conflict. We fix the issue with the least amount of conflict as humanly possible. Is that normal? Idk probably not. Is there a normal? Probably not.

 

 

As for your brother, this is pure speculation, but I think it might be a case of 'I can't express my feelings but I need emotional support, the only emotion I know won't societally make me seem weak and effeminate is anger so I guess I'll do that.' And then when you can't catch his hints that he needs support (because, as a fellow autistic, I sure wouldn't catch that shit), he gets annoyed that he needs to spell it out for you because talking about feelings is hard enough as it is.

 

I don't think you should feel guilty about this. He may need support, but that doesn't mean he gets to demand it from someone, and it sure as hell doesn't mean he gets to abuse that person when they don't respond to his liking. You're within your rights to decline, especially if he's being this much of an ass about it. Dude needs therapy and you aren't a therapist.

[N8ty L3asT]

Being a blood relative doesn’t give him the right to bully and harass you, he should be on your side in those types of situations.

 

 I would avoid him as much as possible, if your studying for most of day I would either do it at a library or park depending on the lockdown situation where your at.

 

My relationship with my brother is very strained as well, we work with each other every now and then but outside of that we don’t have a personal relationship just strictly business and even then he puts me on edge.

[abandoned-account]

When I was growing up I thought it was normal for your sibling, especially a much older one to resent your existence and only use you as an emotional punching bag.
These days though mine just doesn't talk to me anymore. I guess it's different for everyone.

Also unrelated but @godace I like your Shaggy avatar lol.

[Guest]

People always tell me "Wow you and your brothers must be close." and I tell them to fuck off. My older brother wont seem to acknowledge my existence. My younger brother will tell me everything about himself and swear and threaten me. 

 

I would not hesitate to push them off a cliff because I know they would. 

Media seems to give people this idea that siblings are like a best friend and Im like no no no. 

 

I have been bullied and humiliate by my siblings repeatedly. 

The only time my brother is decent to me is when it involves our mother or when he needs something. 

[Milque Toast]

This gave me a whole new perspective of what some peoples' sibling relationships are like. Me and my brother have legitamtely been best friends since forever. Honestly, I wish when I'm an adult that I could just live with him because I don't see the point of having to cultivate a whole new relationship with someone else, just to get what I already have with my brother. Growing up, I know I heard that some siblings had fights, but I assumed it was uncommon. I guess not? Some of the things I read here were really shocking, and I'm truly sorry you had to put up with these kinds of things. It's true that just because someone is blood related to you, does not mean you have to call them family, but I suppose it is also nice when they are?

[Perin]

OP and possibly others, you might like to read my response to a sibling thread I started today, where I talk abt the concept of the ‘skeleton in the cupboard’ and the family whipping boy. Might shed some light. Idk. 
 

Best wishes in your struggles. You have my full understanding. 💚🖤💜

[abandoned-account]

5 hours ago, Padparadscha said:

This gave me a whole new perspective of what some peoples' sibling relationships are like. Me and my brother have legitamtely been best friends since forever. Honestly, I wish when I'm an adult that I could just live with him because I don't see the point of having to cultivate a whole new relationship with someone else, just to get what I already have with my brother. Growing up, I know I heard that some siblings had fights, but I assumed it was uncommon. I guess not? Some of the things I read here were really shocking, and I'm truly sorry you had to put up with these kinds of things. It's true that just because someone is blood related to you, does not mean you have to call them family, but I suppose it is also nice when they are?

That sounds awesome! Glad you can be so close.
It makes me a happy some siblings/family members (biological or not) get that have that kind of connection as it's something I could only wish for in my upbringing.

[rebis]

My oldest brother has had issues with anger and aggression his whole life, and on top of that is just kind of a bully, by his natural personality. That is, he is totally fine to use intimidation to get his way and he lacks ability to immediately empathize with someone who is afraid or hurt by what he is doing. If he is able to reflect on it much later, when he is calm and the issue is in the past, then he may be able to recognize that he was out of line. In the heat of the moment, he is right, and everyone else is wrong -- for how they are treating him, no less, despite that he's the one who is being scary and threatening.

 

He is not an evil person, and I care about him. He is my brother. But I would not live with him again, and none of my family would, at this point. His presence just causes tension for everyone else; even though he has not really been actively or directly physically abusive to anyone ... the emotional volatility is hard to deal with, because you can't know that a person who is yelling and hitting walls and that sort of thing is not going to hit a person. They are clearly not in complete control of themselves at the moment, so even they don't know for sure that they won't.

 

This kind of behavior is not healthy, but it is unfortunately not really uncommon. The solution in my brother's case seems to be, just don't ever let him live with you. He's able to be decent and supportive, when he's not sharing your space 24/7. Why he is just a monster to live with ... well, I suppose, none of us is perfect? Not saying it's okay, because emotional abuse never is -- which is why no one should ever live with my brother -- just saying, I guess, there is something to be said for recognizing someone for who they are, and what they are capable of, and what they just are not. 

 

Anyway, not saying your brother will necessarily always be that way. Hopefully not. But, yeah -- how my family has handled my brother's anger issues is to ultimately make it clear, you are welcome when you can be a decent human being. When you're going to be angry and accusing -- none of us wants you around for that. Nobody was born to be your punching bag.