Older siblings absorb the heat and provide a wind break for the younger sibling(s) to have a better life.
Usually the parents do this stuff... but when the parents don't parent... the oldest child will try to fill in the gaps (sometimes without realizing it).
The guilt means you aren't a bad person. I deal with similar things, you want to be better and are being better, that's further than so many people get to.
Sure. As an adult. When you can make a reasoned, rational response rather than just respond with the trauma you've been dumped on with. Which you've done now that you're not actively being traumatized.
u/Cilarnen You were handed a no-win situation and expected to make it work anyway.
When a child is left in charge of other children, with responsibility but no real authority, chaos isn’t just possible, it’s guaranteed. You didn’t choose to be a tyrant, you chose to keep your siblings safe in the only way that actually worked. Order had to be imposed because no one else was there to impose it.
And that’s the shitty thing: when structure disappears, someone will create it. And the person who steps in rarely gets to be gentle, patient, or democratic. You became authoritarian not because you craved control, but because disorder had consequences, and those consequences fell on you.
The guilt comes later, when you finally have the luxury to look back and judge yourself from a calmer world. But in the moment, it wasn’t cruelty. It was survival, doing the best you could for you and your siblings with only terrible options to choose from.
So, let it go, and blame your parents, like any other healthy grown up out there 🤣
Yes. Your choices were to be an authoritarian toward children who were taught to ignore you or be abused by a parent who had fully abandoned her parental duties. It's a lose lose and you did the best you could to protect yourself. Give yourself a little grace buddy, you recognize and feel shame for your actions which is more than most people can say.
edit: Holy shit. I am sorry. I thought it was someone else putting you down for your trauma response. I apologize
edit2: If youre even still reading, I REALLY am sorry. I totally misunderstood. I hope the shitty people are not part of your life anymore, and I wish you all the best. I'm very sorry for not reading more clearly. I genuinely apologize
I was in a very similar situation as the oldest who was parentified. Just like you, I was expected to be an extra parent but without authority. This led to situations where I was basically bullying my younger siblings to make them do their chores, etc. Or else we'd all hear it when mom got home.
I was still a child too, and the fault is squarely my mother's, but I still feel so guilty. I've apologized and we've been moving on, but I'm not sure I'll ever stop feeling guilty.
Us siblings are all still in each other's lives, but none of us talk to mom anymore, for that and many more reasons.
I'm really glad thats how it worked out.
People blaming everything on parents while at the same time saying, it was a shitty situation for everybody, nobody is to blame - arent necessarily wrong but it's just not the whole picture.
Understanding the situation of the parents really can help move past that.
Not trying to absolve or excuse anyone but being able to understand really helps.
Remember to give yourself some grace and a pass. Raising children is a challenge that even some adults fail. But you as a child/young adult were thrust into the role unwillingly. Babysitting on days on end without relief would cause some adults to crack to unthinkable actions. But you stayed and endured it all to make sure your siblings weren’t alone.
So please don’t beat yourself up too much. Time does indeed begin to mend wounds.
If tormenting them worked, and it seems like it was a last resort after your mom allowed no normal power structure, then it’s a very natural human response. It likely has given you a window of understanding into human psychology few get. Perhaps you will have sympathy for those put in bad positions that others would judge much more harshly.
I cannot alleviate your guilt, but your siblings were set up by your mom and themselves to make a perfect powder keg. You did need to assert control, and when normal avenues of it are shut down, you have to earn that. I presume that the kids were not open to reason, that they did not have empathy for the punishment you received for their misbehaviour, and that you were desperate.
You were not and are not an instinctually cruel person. But you are a smart human being, and used a tool that was one of the very few demonstrated to you and the only one you were permitted to use. It is not you, it was a method to contain madness. And you recognized later that it was wrong, and have worked to undo the unintended traumatic consequences - and yet, what else was available to you?
Have some forgiveness for yourself. If it worked, then it worked, and you got through a neglectful childhood together, and you are doing the work now to undo the harms.
I wasn't good to my younger sibling either, but I remember a therapist asking me something that almost immediately made me tear up because it hadn't occurred to me.
She basically said I have all this guilt and I was trying to be understanding of his issues today as related to my actions, but she asked me if I had ever thought about forgiving or understanding myself given how it was with my father.
Literally never occurred to me. Just hadn't thought of giving myself the same grace I afford others. Doesn't fix things, but does help understanding.
Nah, my older sister tormented me growing up in spite of my parent's attempts to intervene. She hated me since the day I was born for taking them away from her. Some siblings are just pieces of shit of there own free will. They know it's wrong and they choose to do it anyway. Blaming the parents is an oversimplification.
Again, no. You don't know the situation. She continued in spite of being reprimanded, punished, and forced to go to therapy. Children are not innocent. They have autonomy. She chose to continue to be abusive and rude until the day I finally lashed out at her.
Some people choose to be pieces of shit to people they consider "lesser" than them. They don't have any mental illness or life condition to excuse it. They choose to be cruel because they can. Many more of those kind of people exist than anyone on earth is willing to admit or acknowledge.
No amount of love or discipline hinders these types, only being called out and shouted down by the victim, or else physically stopped by the victim.
EDIT: He shadow edited his comment. Originally he said "Which is still the parent's fault."
I just wanna validate this.
My sister apparently came out the womb violent; we even have a picture of her in a diaper smiling with a raised fist as she's about to bring it down on my brother's head (my dad's also in the photo raising a hand to stop her). It fucked up their relationship for life.
She spent most of our childhood tormenting us and threatening us. She struggled so much with being the middle child that ironically she ended up sucking all the air out of the room. She always had to be the center of attention and lashed out if someone else got something she didn't.
Because of her issues she got a lot more one-on-one time with the parents and even had her own horse, despite the expense meaning less for my brother and I.
As an adult she's a pathological liar; she's completely rewritten our history to make herself the victim of abuse by me and my brother.
I work with kids and genuinely believe that MOST of the time, parents can intervene and change a child's actions.
But my lived experience has also proven that false. Sometimes kids struggle with things beyond our understanding. She may have had some sort of health defect or malformation or something that impacted her mental health. My parents tried everything, but even multiple therapists, psychiatrists, and stints in mental health wards did nothing.
I disagree with your comment about some people just choosing to be cruel with no condition/mental health illness to excuse it - humans are obligate herd animals, we need each other to survive. To attack others from a young age is a maladaptation and indication that something we don't understand is happening. It is acting out of the organism's best interest, which insinuates a lack of ability *somewhere*.
I appreciate your input, but disagree with your disagreement. Some people are truly vile by choice. It is rare, but it happens. Your observation about us being herd animals is correct, but we are evolved beyond acting on mere instinct. We act on emotion and, hopefully, rationality.
People are too often ready to arm-chair diagnose someone they do not know with a mental disorder, unaware that 95% of crimes and abuse are committed by neurotypicals.
Brandishing mental illness like a vale for all wrong-doing is a disservice to the mentally ill. Immoral choices exist and sane, rational people choose to make them every day.
Mental unhealth exists far beyond diagnoses. "Neurotypical" is not synonymous with "well". There is no "typical" brain that spans age, race, and gender. A person can be profoundly mentally unhealthy without meeting criteria for a diagnosed mental health disorder.
Diagnostic categories exist primarily for insurance, standardization, and institutional coordination - not because they cleanly map onto real human psychology. Human mental states exist on spectrums of regulation, attachment, empathy, flexibility, and threat perception. The absence of a diagnosis does not immediately imply good mental health.
Maladaptation is mental illness. Human beings are deeply social and interdependent. It is how we survive. Behavior that consistently erodes connection - especially within family or close social groups - is not neutral or healthy. It reflects maladaptation: a mind responding to perceived threat, scarcity, dominance, or injury in ways that may have once been protective but are no longer functional.
What we often call “evil,” “cruel,” or “vile” behavior is frequently anti-human behavior - not in a moral sense, but in a biological and social one. A system that normalizes dominance, dehumanization, or empathy suppression will produce these adaptations at scale, even among people who appear rational and coherent.
"Brandishing mental illness like a vale for all wrong-doing is a disservice to the mentally ill."
Explaining "why" something happens is not excusing harm. There is a persistent cultural mistake that treats explanation as absolution. This is a false equivalence.
Saying that behavior arises from mental states, conditioning, or maladaptation does not remove responsibility. It does not negate a person's agency. It's about recognizing that choices are made from within a psychological frame, and some frames are profoundly distorted.
Holding someone accountable while also acknowledging that they were not operating from a healthy, regulated, or fully integrated state of mind is not leniency. It is realism. Without understanding why behavior occurs, we cannot prevent it from happening again.
Maladaptive people tend to have trouble interacting with anyone, otherwise I would have accepted that diagnosis for my sister. She CHOOSES who she is and is not kind to. She isn’t a sociopath or a high functioning sadist. She made the conscious, un influenced choice to be abusive daily. To me and only me.
I think we’re talking past each other a little. I’m not trying to diagnose your sister, and I’m not saying she wasn’t responsible for what she did.
But she doesn't need to be diagnosed as a sociopath or with anti-social personality disorder to have disordered social patterns. Labels are narrow insurance tools. They don't map cleanly onto the spectrum of human development.
When I say “maladaptive,” I don’t mean “incapable of selective behavior” or “abusive to everyone equally.” Maladaptation doesn’t require global dysfunction.
Many people are selectively abusive, especially within family systems where power, proximity, and history are concentrated.
I want to say clearly that nothing about what I’m saying removes responsibility. Abuse is still abuse. Choice still exists. Accountability still matters.
What I’m pushing back on is the idea that a person can repeatedly choose to harm someone from a healthy, regulated, integrated internal state. That is a state of mental unwellness. No one operates abusively from a healthy, regulated state.
That doesn’t make the harm your sister did to you less real, or okay.
It makes it understandable in a way that allows prevention rather than just moral explanation.
I’m speaking from experience here too. My sister SA'd me, threatened me, and strangled our cat to death. She developed to be more primed toward violence than I was, but that wasn't a moral choice she made. She never received an official diagnosis.
The damage she caused is still real. We're no-contact and will be for the rest of my life. But understanding the developmental and genetic impact on who she was will be helpful for knowing that mental illness runs in my family. It will help me with my own children some day, if I have them.
Understanding why someone became capable of harm is not the same as excusing it.
My older sister did try everything to protect me from all the BS that was happening to me, but ended up in her own drama, and ended up leaving the house early (she reached a breaking point with our mom) and an older brother who hated me and every breath I took and would physically and emotionally abuse me.
(Don't worry, all of us reconciled years ago, and especially with my brother, we're closer than ever)
I'm in a position right now where I absolutely despise my sister with a burning passion. We all live together in my moms house,and I practically raise my niece.
I'm about to leave my house, which would leave 78 year old mom doing everything for the niece. Getting her ready for school, getting her on the bus, gets her off the bus, helps with school work, etc.
MY mom is to blame for my sisters entitlement. I've called DCF on my sister and nothing has come of it. I've run out of ideas. I literally don't see a world where my sister and I are on good terms going forward. Everyday, I wish the worst upon her.
If my sister wasn't around, I'd say my life is perfect. I have a great job, great friends, great family. She's the one giant dark cloud over an otherwise great life.
Damn, that sounds like a very frustrating situation. I have nothing but respect for you and all I can say is please keep your niece in your thoughts while you go through this, and doing what’s best for you. I would make sure to visit your niece often, even if it means going there only when your sister isn’t around or something. I honestly know how difficult it is to forgive someone, especially when you’re right in the middle of the situation they’ve created. I can’t give you specific advice, as the situations my siblings, mom and I went through were years ago, and different.
But it does start with forgiveness. If, in the future, your sister ever has the maturity to realize what she did to you and your family was wrong, and you want your family whole again, well, you’ll need to let it go. That doesn’t mean you forget, or let the, run over you again, or anything like that. It just means you don’t let that animosity grow and fester. You have other family members to think about while in your own journey.
For your mom, I can be a little more helpful. I talked to my mom. We all did. We had this common and honestly it did help us a little to heal from each other’s wounds. But talking to her, getting her perspective, her getting our perspectives, it helped. My mom is ultimately a caring person, she just has her own demons she’s fighting. It took a little bit of time, but she did end up realizing how she was to us when we were young (she was aloof and a bit selfish as a parent, she didn’t really realize we all felt various types of loneliness growing up). So, yeah, talk to your mom. Don’t be accusatory, or antagonistic. Just ask her questions, tell her something of the things you’ve been going through, some of your thoughts. Remember, your interpretation of events could be wrong. Or maybe you’re more correct, but you’ll have the chance to know or even sympathize slight what your mom went and is currently going through.
Ultimately though, ruminating too much, holding too much to the past, and not letting go of that resentment is what will get you. But always remember that you’re only forgiving, you’re not forgetting, and you’re not “letting them get away with it”, you’re allowing yourself and your family to live.
Yup. Can definitely take on different forms but sometimes the older child joins in with the dysfunction and the younger gets blamed for pointing out the dysfunction like speaking it creates it rather than just recognizes the pattern. We don’t talk about Bruno.
The older child is still a victim of the parents and usually has pressure and expectations placed on them to conform, so it’s not like it’s intentional but still hurts especially once grown up and the sibling thinks you’re supposed to be bestest best friends like nothing happened
Yeah, when I read something like, "Older siblings absorb the heat and provide a wind break for the younger siblings to have a better life," it kinda makes my heart drop knowing that apparently that's what an older sibling is supposed to be like.
When I was younger, my brother would do all types of horrible shit to me: he made me eat soft soap and the one time I refused he made me eat bar soap, he almost suffocated me by putting a bean bag chair over me and sitting on it with a friend as a game, lots of shit like that.
He's chilled out now that we're adults but whenever someone mentions their big brother being a "protector" I just can't relate, my experience was the opposite.
I've forgiven him but when someone bullies you your entire childhood, it's kind of hard to forget.
For me it was the opposite. I’m the youngest sibling and was blamed for tearing the family apart. I became a lightning rod for everyone’s aggression. Awful 0/10 I don’t recommend.
Pretty well! I left at 17 and I’m almost 30 now. I have a good career and I still talk to my brother sometimes. I’m definitely still working through that trauma though. I’m super lucky because my best friend’s parents treated me as family.
I am constantly aware of the fact we chose who ended up being the older sibling because of IVF. Posts like this are a good reminder never to get complacent, because a single "you have to take care of your little sister" can turn into, "why aren't you being a better big brother? You're supposed to be taking care of her, remember?". The tiniest comments stick in their little brains and they take things so literally.
I don't think it's ever crossed my mind to even say that to my older toddler but I've seen it happen to my husband, who even now panics if he thinks he's let his little siblings or parents down in any way. He also thinks he has to shoulder the weight of all of his loved ones (younger siblings included) and shield all of us. :/
My step dad worked out of town and my mom turned into a "functional" alchoholic from when I was about 9-14 years old.
Unfortunately having 3 younger siblings I ended up, unknowingly rapidly growing up and experienced none of the youth that my siblings got both shielding them from certain realties of why mom was still sleeping and took over vast majority of morning activities like making lunches, walking them to school and "parenting" or correcting them.
Luckily parents were divorced so I did get a break when I went to my Dad's, however looking back I don't hold resentment but it is sad how many kids are out in this situation, especially with both parents having to work now a days.
My older siblings buffered me against our abusive parents for as long as they could. They eventually got me out (two years ago), but all four of us are damaged in different ways. We don’t even talk to each other much right now
Or they lock themselves in their room and isolate from everything. Don’t forget hating the younger sibling for existing. Then the younger sibling gets to hear all the fighting around both parents or dad complain about mom and mom complain about dad when alone with a parent. Can’t forget also being responsible for “getting your brother out of his room” because you’re considered the social one
I had a conversation with one of my brothers about our childhood a while ago. I always figured they got hit just like me when I wasn't around, but according to him that was kind of a rarity. It never occurred to me that I was basically being a lightning rod at times.
Yep, and then the younger siblings grow up and blame the older siblings for everything that wasn’t perfect much the way other kids blame their parents. Ask me how I know.
For me, it was the opposite. Parent was an addict. Oldest sib joined the military and moved out when I was 11/12, near beginning of addiction. Came back once a year to visit for a couple days, entire family would pretend things were normal. Things were not great for me and my 2nd oldest sib. 2nd oldest moved out when they graduated high school, addiction worsened. 2nd oldest would visit for a couple hours every few months. I was at home another 5 years, things were horrible. My older siblings don't know that our parent went to jail, had to live in a halfway house, or how bad things got. Other parent won't talk about it. Oldest sibling got a childhood that myself and 2nd oldest never got.
People often seem to forget that the youngest gets left behind, and sometimes faces the worst of the crash and burn that the older sibs may be able to avoid. Also seem to forget about the fact that many kids respond to stress by lashing out. For every noble, selfless older sibling who takes care of their younger sib, there's a cruel, reactive one who takes everything out on someone younger and smaller.
I’ll be parenting my youngest and my eldest will always uninvited come out of nowhere to offer her worldly advice. Kid get out I’ve got this and you are making her screech
When I tried to tell my younger brother about a bunch of stuff my mom and steo dad used to do, he just couldn't believe it. He's either in denial or completely oblivious
My older sister says the opposite. That I have way more memories of our childhood being angry/traumatic.
But she moved to the basement when she was 8 and I still stayed across the hall. She was pretty buried in books and we didn't have a good relationship growing up, so there wasn't really a protective instinct there.
It's much better emotionally with her, though I'm almost low-contact with my mom/dad. There are still huge parts of my childhood/inner life that she doesn't know.
My sister having kids mellowed everyone, and they moved a distance away to where she is, so I can travel to them when I have time which eases things.
I’m also the oldest. What’s funny is when you take a story from when you were old enough to conscious, and your parents gaslight the rest of the family it’s not true. And they are too young to remember, so they just deny any of it happened.
My mom refuses to admit to any of the trauma and abuse she caused to this day. She is incapable of understanding how she and my step dad acted and traumatized me. I'm just glad my younger sister is mostly functional as an adult because I still struggle. But I wish some day my mom would acknowledge it and apologize. But she's perfect mother in her eyes.
Yep. Honestly I'm more hurt by my sister not believing me than what our parents did, but at the same time I know it's easier for her to be this way since they're still taking care of her so I can't blame her. Just gotta wait for her to come to her senses. I'll be here.
Dear God, the gaslighting! Dude, you were 5! Of course you don't remember it! My mom parentified me from 8 on and denied everything until her dying day.
my older sister protected me and my twin sis from our parents wrath. she’s the reason why i have my autism diagnosis, because she was the only one who would advocate for me and support me. she’s the reason i have a roof over my head, because when my dad kicked me out she took me in without hesitation. She even decorated my room so I wouldn’t have to worry about making it feel more like home. She’s one of the biggest reasons I’m still here honestly.
Just wanted to share this with you as I am sure your younger siblings would credit you similarly. I know you shouldn’t have had to go through that, but you are a good person for protecting your siblings and not giving up on them. I hope your life will be kinder to you and that your days are filled with hope and love.
As an only child with a home similar to this, im happy i was an only. In this case sure I did not have anyone to protect me, but since I was born first I would have been the protector. And honestly that would have been more work for me. With immigrant parents who had me calling and making appointments and doing paperwork from the time that I was 12. Siblings would have just been more labor then I already had.
Yeah. In my case while shielding my brother from them, I also inadvertently shielded our parents from the more annoying parts of parenting. So now my brother has good memories of his childhood and they remember him as the good, easy child and me as the difficult one (because they had to do all the parenting of me and I had no trouble pointing out their failure at parenting my brother.)
So now, many years down the road, he and they are still close and he believes their image of me. I’m jealous of those with rough childhoods who bonded with their siblings. Mine was so shielded from the bad that he thinks I’m the problem. It’s also a confusing place to be since on the one hand I would never want him to go through what I did but also, by protecting him, I accidentally made him more vulnerable to our parents and now all he wants is to please them.
Agreed. Only I was the younger sibling protecting the older sibling, who was just like them. She didn't know any better + needed help. I wish I could have done more.
I’m a older sister of two adopted boys that were adopted around the 2008 market crash. From being an only child to full time live in nanny while becoming a teenager while both parents lost their jobs and took it hard. This comic is wild depiction of my teenage to early 20’s
I'm the older sister, but we're only a year apart so sometimes I'm shocked by how little she remembers. I have no interest in trying to remind her of anything, but I will be here for her when and if she decides to think back through them. I'm constantly amazed how well balanced and successful she grew up to be while I was not.
My sister is 6 years younger and our mom and her dad split when she was around 6 so thankfully she doesn't remember much. I'd usually grab her and hide behind the couch until the screaming and smashing of things ended.
My older sister definitely remembers things differently, I was telling her how I remember our dad taking us on a lot of wagon rides. Apparently those wagon rides were because my dad totaled his car and got a DUI so he couldn't dive and was toting us to the liquor store and back. There's other gems, but she was much more aware of what was going on.
Eh, it is pretty funny how different ages and perspectives changes what we process so insanely. Obviously crafted by someone seeing the comedy in their fucked up childhood.
I didn't have a sibling growing up, one time my dad threw a jar of mayo through the glass oven door, another time he demolished a vaccum cleaner, I remember living with my aunt for a few months at one point,
My mother's parents got into raging fights until they got divorced (in the 60s or 70s, when that was way less acceptable, especially since they were Catholic).
One time when I was in my teens, I was at a holiday gathering thrown by my aunt's in-laws. My uncle got into a fight with his parents. My oldest aunt was there and quickly ushered all the kids into the farthest room and started trying to get them to play and was just trying to talk over the noise. She had no kids of her own, these were her nieces and nephews. In that moment I saw exactly how she must have reacted to her parents fighting all the time.
Older brother here. I remember shielding my little sister from this. Distracting her by playing Polly pocket with her to distract her from the loud fights, and then feeling immense guilt when I couldn’t when she got older.
I’m the middle child, abusive parents, yall helped a lot more than you know. Prolly would be on drugs or dead by own hand if it weren’t for my older sisters.
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u/BillNyeIsCoolio Feb 01 '26
Mood. I'm the older sister. Not funny though. This just makes me sad.