I don’t know if anyone else identifies with this or understands what I mean … I have a brother, eighteen months older than I am, and we both had a bit of a difficult time when we were children and especially as adolescents. In adulthood we sort of had twists and turns and I think on the outside of things I probably looked OK … I had a job and a house but actually my life was quite dysfunctional and chaotic. Then we were both having a hard time and we actually were living together for a bit. So it hasn’t been a ‘standard’ brother / sister relationship.
He has autism and has had problems with addiction and so he’s had quite long periods where he hasn’t worked whereas I haven’t, and I think that’s separated him from ‘normal’ society to a large extent.
I met someone six years ago now and I think lockdown accelerated our relationship, we are now married with two children, I have a stable job and home, things are good for me mostly although life is obviously hard with very young children. My brother though … it sounds awful but he’s like this constant shadow over my life. He can’t really cope alone but he also doesn’t fall into any categories where he qualifies for support so that all falls on me. But because he can’t read the room he is just a nightmare. This morning for instance he’s walked into the house three times and I ended up having to shout at him to stop. But he just doesn’t understand why it’s no longer appropriate to do that when for so long it was.