Does anyone else feel uncomfortable, unhappy and trapped by their family role?

[toptramp]

I have been doing a bit of research and I have figured that my sister is the golden child and I am the attentionseeking blacksheep/scapegoat. I am not happy with this role at all and would rather be my sister.

During our teens I rebelled badly and while I got decent grades and got into uni I chose a very alternative, abusive boyfriend and had to drop out. Although I did go back to uni I didn't do medicine as my parents wanted me to. I am now working in a low-paid but worthwhile job. I am also a single mum.

During my sister's teens she worked steadily, avoided men and got into medicine. She is now a consultant psychiatrist and is happily married.

Whilst I am very proud and happy for her I feel very uncomfortable with our roles. I had mental health problems when I split from abusive ex and my sister told me to stop feeling sorry for myself and get a grip. It was at this point that our relationship deteriated and I didn't feel supported by her (not her job but still)
I guess I feel that I have the role of the looser patient whilst she is the high achieving doctor. It is a real power imbalance. She probably feels pressure to succeed at all costs whereas I am almost expected to fail.

I also feel that I will never be as good as my sister and I will always be a failure in comparison to her. I love her and I am proud of her but I am upset that there is such a difference between us and that we are not closer. i am alos a teensy bit jealous even though I know how I have turned out is MY fault. At family parties everyone crowds round my sister having intelligent adult conversations with her whilst they ignore me as I am "only a single mum".

Our mum passed away and I am gutted although she could be abusive at times. I a fed up of feeling liek I am a failure and swimming through treacle and it only rubs it in my face when I see how successful and effective dsis is.

No matter how much I achieve I will never be a doctor like her so therefore I won't be good enough. I would have loved to be a doctor but at the time I just rebelled. Is there anyway of braeking out of family roles?

Sorry you are feeling upset.

However, you seem to be looking at things in quite a binary way:

golden child/scapegoat
doctor/not doctor
success/failure

I don't think that your friends and relatives would view things that way - they probably see the good and bad in both you and your sister, recognise the positive points in each of your lives.

There is no 'finishing point' at which your relative success will be judged. Your gravestone won't mention what you did for a living, just that you were loved and will be missed.

May I ask how old you are? The reason I do is that, having had some similar family issues, I found it all became a lot less relevant once I hit my mid thirties.

On the other hand, if you are unhappy with your life why not do something to give you that feeling of achievement and satisfaction?

I am 33. I don't know why I see it in such a black and white way. Partly because I feel that I failed and I hayte to admit it because I am jealous and wish that I made the decision sthat my sister did. I know I need to snap out of it and look to the future and imprve my own lot though.

I guess another part of it is that I do try and do things with my life but because I didn't choose medicine at uni like my sister did I feel liek a failure in my parents' eyes. Especially my late mum who was proud of me but also worried for me and mybad decisions.

Firstly stop comparing yourself to your sister
You dont need to compare yourself to anyone, that only allows you to feel good if you are doing better than someone.
Try and concentrate on yourself and fulfilling your own potential. Be the best you can. If you want to go back to college, then do. If it is a priority you will find a way. My dh went back to full time uni at 40 and was sitting his last exam on the day I was being induced on my dd. Look at the things you have achieved, your child, job satisfaction etc..... You dont know how your sister is feeling or how happy she is. Try and forgive your parents, take responsibility for where you are and move forward. We all have dreams for our children and it is hard when you see a child not reaching their potential but as a parent I know that each child has their own set of strengths and challenges. Some will make really bad decisions but if they can learn from them and move on then that has to be worth alot. Some people need to make mistakes to learn others can learn from the mistakes of others. Set yourself some realistic goals and review them periodically to see how you have progressed. With regards to depression, your sisters response is a common one and one that is held by many people who are able to "just get on with it". Instead of focussing on her negative points, try and see how you can get on with her and where you can be a good sister to her. Best of luck

Hi Sariah, Thanks for such a lovely, supportive and sensible reply. I am starting to see it in a different light. I love my sister and I should stop comparing myself to her and I should also not put myself in the looser role. Many thanks.

I have studied at Uni and did very well, not quite in the area tat my parents wanted to go to but with very good results indeed.
Then in my 30s I realized that that 'perfect' job wasn't what I wanted and it was actually making me miserable. I spent sometime finding what I wanted to do and what was important for me and retrained. I have ajob that wasn't as 'sucessful' as the first one. My parents felt I was going backwards. And it's not aying as much. But I now have a job I love. So much better all round. My parents are lovely but they aren't me. Same goes with you. You talk about a worthwhile job so I assume you actually like it?

What about your dsis? She did what her parents wanted her to do. But does she love her job? Because her reaction to you ('get a grip' and 'stop feling sorry for yourself') looked surprising re her job as a psychiatrist. Did she do it because she wanted to or because she felt she had to?
Being the golden child has its dark sides too and isn't always easy to cope with: You have to acheive, fear of failure and not be loved if you don't etc...

And what about the rest, how other see you and your dsis, that she is happy, has all what anyone can ask for. Happy family, good job, etc... well I am afraid that there isn't such a thing. everyone has problems and difficulties. What is different is the way we approach them and how we deal with them. also what we learn from past experiences. Stop comparing yourself and start living your life. Whether your dsis is happier, richer or whatever has nothing to do with you and how happy you are and how you live your life.
stop iving in the past (Ah If I had done X or Y) and start living in the present. That's the only place to be and the only place where you make things happen and be happy.

On a more practical note, counselling?

Hi again. I've had cbt but I can feel another round coming on! Many thanks all. I think part of this is due to the fact I am grieving for my mum. I am spending a lot of time with dad and it's nice to have the support in some ways but in other ways I need space.

It's right that at certain emotional points in life you reassess your place in everything. I've had three such times in the past 20 years, two of which were mostly concerned with my siblings.
I was the golden child. I was mostly the golden child because I was aware of the stress that my sister was causing with her wild behaviour and didn't want to cause further stress. So I kept my head down, helped out around the house, got educated, had steady boyfriends, bought my first flat at 21, got promoted regularly. Blimey, I wish I'd had the front to go off backpacking at 18. Or even to stay in the job that I loved but which parents felt had no prospects - I had to move on and up, that's what good children do.
However, I always felt that Bad Girl was more loved than me. They worried themselves witless over her. Bailed her out (financially) so many times, every time she left home 'for good' she was welcomed back in a few weeks and all her money later. When my father died I realised she had never paid her own car tax (she was 41 at the time!). One of the last conversations I had with my mum was that her request that I keep an eye on Bad Girl.
We had to confront and adjust our relationship both when mum died and when dad died ten years later. We've managed to do this successfully. I suppose we had the underlying truth that we love and need each other.
Now that we are late/mid 40s we have a great friendship and are a huge support to each other. She earns more than I do now, her dc are almost grown, whilst I am skint surrounded by dc and dogs.

toptramp - I could be your sister (well, apart from the high-flying career bit .

If you spoke to me and my sister about our childhoods you could be forgiven for thinking that we were brought up in different families.

I was lucky that all things academic came easily to me, whereas my sister worked 10x harder but with less success (though she still did more than good enough and it was actually very unfair of our parents to compare us in the way that they did).

I was allowed to do things younger than my sister (typical of the second child) and afforded more flexible boundaries.

She had a disastrous abusive, 6-month marriage at 21 (she'd been with him since 17). I am ashamed to say that when the marriage split, I blamed it all on her and added to her grief when I should have been supporting her. She was also on ADs.

Meanwhile, I was on course to graduate with top class honours and seemed set for a wonderful life.

Our mother died in the aftermath of this, which compounded my sister's 'guilt' in having 'let everyone down' (she didn't - we let her down - but it has taken her years to see this) and never got to see her rebuild her life (she is now happily married to a wonderful guy and has emigrated to another country).

We are closer now than at any time in our lives. The turning point was having children. It gave us an empathy for each other that hadn't been there before, and once we started talking, all sorts of things came out (like the fact that her marriage had been abusive). It was very uncomfortable for me, because I realised how low she'd been (she'd been on ADs for a while) and how unsupportive and actually adding to her problems I'd been. Needless to say, I apologised unreservedly. I can't undo my behaviour in the past, but I have definitely learned from it.

A few years later, I managed to take up with an abusive man myself and end up a homeless single mother. Being quite lucky and financially independent, this didn't hold me back for long, but it also made me realise a few things about how abusive relationships work and it taught me the value of humility. There are a lot of us out there who think that "that sort of thing will never happen to me" whereas I've realised that life is "there but for the grace of god". We are all only one car-crash/job-redundancy/psycopath away from having our lives changed forever.

The balance in our relationship has changed because I have acknowledged her past hurts and we both now realise that neither of us is 'better' than the other. We have had different lives but we choose to be supportive rather than judgemental and take joy in each other's achievements rather than being competitive about them.

How is your relationship with your sister now? If she can be a positive influence in your life, it will help enormously, but you can still change things without your sister's involvement if she continues to be judgemental (my sister started her recovery long before my turnaround).

My sister got counselling, which helped enormously, but the upshot of that was to concentrate on her strengths and assets and to work towards something that would give her a sense of achievement (which doesn't have to be employment related at all). Always remember that the flip side of a great career is that you can lose your identity. You become the 'banker' or the 'Dr' and when people ask you to describe yourself in terms that don't include your job you can find it almost impossible to do so... Whereas you are in a position of making an impression on people solely because of who you are - your personality. You sound like a thinker, with empathy, a person who is quick to accept responsibility and someone who refuses to be held down even when the cards are stacked against her. Can you see how admirable that is? Add in some hobbies and interests and your own unique idiosyncracies and you are definitely a person worth knowing and a person worthy of respect in your own right. How you measure up to anyone else is completely irrelevant.

Sorry for the essay. I hope some of it is helpful.

Toptramp I can relate to you too. But I advise seperating from your family a bit, and looking at yourself with new eyes. Yes you were formed in that crucible, but now you are an adult and there is a different crucible, one within which you have a great deal more freedom, and other people to go up against. And learn from.

I would advise stepping away for a bit, and having a good think about what you want to drop from your life - behaviours, things you no longer want. Forget that bad self image too, it can't be true otherwise you wouldn't be thinking of yourself in potential new terms. get a plan together for yourself. You could get qualifications on the quiet and then train as something else. Life is long, you can grow.