r/GlassChildren

My (26F) brother (22M) was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at 3 years old, and he nearly died in the process. That’s all he’s been diagnosed with. The follow ups to that diagnosis are that now, he doesn’t have great feeling in the tips of his fingers due to the constant pokes and thus has terrible handwriting and accommodations around that for college. Otherwise, though, he’s able to live a normal life. He does have to do his maintenance tasks, but he can and should care for himself. However, my family doesn’t see it that way.

They have treated him like he’s incapable of fully caring for himself for so long now that it has actually become a very difficult thing for him to do. He makes poor choices and I am constantly expected to save him from those poor choices, including things that aren’t even life threatening, like needing to schedule a doctors appointment or send an email. It’s just assumed that “Your sister can help you with that”. I just graduated veterinary school, my lifelong goal, and somehow I’m still the disappointment child while my brother is praised or at least treated normally when it’s taking more time for him to finish his undergraduate degree due to poor choices and some poor luck.

Meanwhile, in the last four years I found out I have a connective tissue disorder of some sort with chronic pain, ADHD, likely autism (level 1-2), and I use a cane with a seat to get around about half the time. They still act like I’m faking my own pain, like I’m supposed to be able to get over it just as well as they brushed all my previous problems under the rug in order to support him better.

Basically, I’m mad because all of y’all have siblings with actual medical or support needs, and my brother could have been taught to care for himself early on and given just additional support from my parents, and I still feel like I can relate to a lot of the feelings here. I feel like I don’t count because my brother’s issues are so small, but my parents and grandparents made it into a big enough thing that I relate heavily to the glass child type. In fact, when I paused the TEDx talk done by a woman who posts on here some to go blow my nose and dry my eyes, I heard the telltale beep of my brother’s CGM saying that he needed medical attention either from himself or someone else. Sometimes I wish they had a tear alert for me, so I could get attention when I need it. It seems like that’s the only way I’ll be getting that attention.

P. S. I’m on family vacation that’s why I am in the same house as them. Otherwise, I don’t get alerts and I tend to avoid spending extended time with my parents because I get to feeling like this.

For context, my brother is 16 and has autism + ADHD. Right now, he has an inhumane amount of anger, lashing out at anyone who is even NEAR him. Even my mother, who somehow still loves him and makes food for him and cares for him he will constantly harass everyday. He also somehow hasnt made the connection after 16 years that he shouldnt be rude to the people who put up with his shit daily. Not only that, hes a lazy bum who hasn't been in education in an entire year and is planned to be put into college due to missing year 11. My family has faith he'll miraculously go back to how he was a few years ago and head back to education by September. I don't share this faith. I know this will end with a student or teacher getting hurt and him being kicked out within a month. My question is, in 10 years time what could happen to him? My parents will either be dead or bed ridden by that point and I wouldnt have the mental bandwidth to take care of him for more than a week. Is there anything he can do or will he just end up dropping dead like a pet without its owner after a week?

I was at the doctor's office this week and there was a couple with a (very cute) non-verbal toddler who has seizures in the waiting room.

The mom is visibly pregnant again. The receptionist congratulated her and the dad said, "We figured we'd better have another one so she has someone to play with".

I don't necessarily blame the parents for their naivete. It's also possible the 2nd pregnancy was unintended. But inside, it made me cringe as the younger sibling in a special needs family. Can you relate?

hey, first post to the sub. about a month ago i (19m) started thinking about my childhood. this was the first time i've ever done this since i've been dissociating for what feels like my entire life now. i have 4 older brothers, 29m half brother, 3 22m triplet brothers. oldest was from my dad's teen pregnancy and has been super successful, he's my biggest inspiration but it feels like our age difference has kept us distant. first triplet brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and diabetes before he was even 10, going from OCD, autism, adhd, etc. diagnoses his entire life before landing on that. other triplet was born with a limb threatening leg infection, spending his entire life going through i don't even know how many surgeries, many of which were out of state forcing my mom to frequently leave for multiple weeks with him. last triplet was actually healthy (other than severe adhd, of course) most his life until he became extremely suicidal as a teenager spending time in a mental health facility and countless therapy sessions.

so my mom already didn't have much time for me, but it didn't really help that my parents were actually in the middle of an extremely messy mutli-year long divorce when they conceived me, so dad was never in the picture, other than texting, video calls, or the occasional visit. he's struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction (didn't know about the drugs until very recently, had to pay to get my parent's divorce record just to find this out) all his life, so he's always had really bad mood swings and what's now obvious to me now, a bad drug addiction. i never really had much of a bond with him, as he's basically been the equivalent of a AI dad chatbot, until he's withdrawing or drunk. then he just yells and swears at you, which is why i blocked him and cut off contact when i turned 13. so while my mom took care of us she went back to school and became a child attachment/trauma therapist (a little ironic). while she was doing this we stayed at my grandparents house, who had brain cancer and the other heart disease complications. my mom took care of them too until they both died peacefully when i was 8. weirdly i was the only one not woken up when they both died.

i've always been labeled the "perfect" one by my triplet brothers, or "so independent and understanding" by my mom. but lately i'm starting to realize just how much it feels like i missed out on, how different i could have been. missing birthdays because my mom had to work, or being late for my own birthday plans because my brother's therapy session went an hour over and my mom had to drive us both. forced to be homeschooled, only asked to go to public school once and didn't press the issue again to not be more work for my mom. i feel like i've literally never had any of my own hobbies or friends, because that would mean my mom has to drive me somewhere, taking up more of her time in her 60hr work week on top of all my brother's appointments. even things that felt as little as being told not to act excited in front of my brother's when i got my driver's license because "they would feel bad since their disabilities stop them". i didn't even think of this until recently and it genuinely made me cry because why would i be told that. like i couldn't even be excited about this one achievement, this one part of the high school experience that i could actually get.

there are so many examples i've been realizing recently actually has made me really resentful and bitter towards my mom and even my brothers. i didn't even go to college because i've had such crippling anxiety my whole life but have been masking it to not add one more thing to the list for my mom. i could never actually do my school, even when applying for colleges and scholarships i felt all alone, as i remembered seeing my mom sit with my non-mentally disabled triplet brother for hours applying to schools and scholarships just a few years before. in the mean time i've managed to become the assistant GM at my work, first in the running to get his job when he leaves at the end of the year. but i just feel like all my potential has been completely wasted. i've just been so depressed lately and wishing i could have just lived a normal life, like i don't even feel like i'm real right now. it's just been getting worse and starting to abuse whatever substance i can find now is almost making me feel like my dad. i want tell my mom so badly and just cry in her arms but it feels so impossible at this point, like what's the use it's just been so long

My brother is in a wheelchair, and I spend most of my time in my room to avoid being around my parents. My mom has a lot of unchecked anxiety, and my dad is emotionally absent. Both my parents keep a roof over my head, and I have never been physically deprived of anything, which I am grateful for, but I feel no emotional connection to either of them. Both of them have been verbally abusive to me as a child (ie calling me stupid, selfish, comparing me to a family member they don’t like). I can’t be around my mom without feeling like I’m walking on eggshells, and she complains or gets annoyed nearly every time I’m around her. For example, my childhood sports coach and neighbor died recently, and my mom cared more about me getting a helix piercing. She didn’t even ask about his funeral details. I feel like she wants me to play the role of her daughter without even liking me as a person and needs me to be a certain way regulate her emotions.

the only person in my family I am fond of is my brother. I want to someday distance myself from my family, but I feel guilty because my parents immigrated from another country and went through a lot. I also don’t want to leave my brother behind. He also resents me for being so distant from my family and says I’m ungrateful. Basically, I feel like I should be doing more for my family, but every ounce of my body wants not to. I am currently in college slowly working toward my independence, but I live with my parents during breaks and am not financially independent yet.

i don’t know how to start this but i’m broken. i never got any love or comforting from anyone my whole life. from an early age they saw me as the independent child. i still share a bedroom with my disabled brother (Down syndrome) who would hit and curse me and scream all day long, and no one does anything about this. even when i record videos for my mom to show her how violent he becomes, she doesn’t care. he stays at home all day, we live in a small apartment, a family of 10, and i have nowhere to cry, not even the bathroom. so i stay on my bed and hear him scream in the tiny room, and i’ve tried headphones, earbuds, anything to make me not hear his voice, but nothing helps. my whole life, till now, he would touch and break my stuff, and he was the one that got all the love and support, and i was the angry/disrupted one. no one ever cared that i was crying or depressed since i was a child, or that i don’t have friends, or that i hate everything about me. they would only blame me and say that i share bad energy. so i started to create a mother character who would care about me, like people i see in real life, and i’d start crying. that was from 14 years ago till now. hope i can move out one day and heal from this.

i also want to add that i’ve been doing online therapy and i don’t feel like it’s helping. i pay everything i have for a 45 minute session, and the whole time i stutter and say things that don’t mean anything, and the therapist says i’ll get better in the coming sessions. i’m on my fifth session now. i have one friend, and i feel like she doesn’t really care much about this, and i don’t blame her at all, but i’m very depressed and i feel a loneliness that no one could ever understand.

First of all, I'm really glad I found this subreddit. Today I realized just how deeply exhausted I am from living the same reality every single day, and I needed to find people who actually understand what this feels like.

So... here it goes. I have an older brother who was born with a condition that prevents him from walking or talking. He's completely dependent on my parents for everything, and they literally live their entire lives around taking care of him. And I honestly find myself wondering every single day... why did they decide to have another child after him? (For some context, I have an older sister, then my brother, and then I was born three years later.) Why? What was the reason for having another child when things were already so difficult? Just thinking about it makes me so frustrated. From the bottom of my heart, I wish I'd never been born into a family like this. I've spent my whole life dealing with my brother's meltdowns. He cries, screams, throws things, breaks things, and he also has epilepsy. Living with all of this has given me constant anxiety. I always feel like I'm waiting for the next meltdown. When it happens, I have to hide because seeing people makes him even angrier. I put my headphones on at full volume because the sounds he makes terrify me and trigger my anxiety. Everything about it makes me anxious. I'm also constantly scared that he'll have another seizure. And I keep thinking... if something serious happens, how are we even supposed to get an obese adult man to the hospital? Thoughts like that never leave my mind. It's exhausting.

He eats all day long, and if he has to wait too long for food, he gets angry again. Every single day revolves around this cycle.

Lately, though, I feel like I'm reaching my breaking point and what scares me the most is the future. I'm terrified that one day I'll be expected to take care of him after my parents can't anymore. I definitely don't want that. I feel like a horrible person for saying it, but I'd rather die than spend the rest of my life living like this. I just can't do it anymore.

I've been seriously thinking about moving away. My older sister is lucky enough to live at her university, so she's rarely home. I honestly envy her. But even then... she's not far enough away. I feel like I need to go somewhere really, really really far.

Anyway... I just needed to get this off my chest. Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this

I don't really know where to begin here. I've made other posts. I have two severely autistic brothers. Both are adults, mentally they are the equivalent of 3 and 11 years old. Everything has been about trying to set boundaries and having them cross perpetually. Whenever I feel like I get two steps forward I end up getting pulled five steps back. I think what I'm going through right now is the process of grief of knowing that any amount of respecting boundaries has always been a lie. I just came out of a chapter of caring for my dad as he died from a really awful disease. It was helpful in seeing that I am a good person but the circumstances in which everything happened was just chaotic as hell.

There are no other siblings. My hell when I envisioned the future when I was a kid was that I would just end up being the caretaker for both my parents and both my brothers. And this is intended by design. I am not viewed as the daughter who deserves her own life but rather as the lucky only normal child who, by the way is also neurodivergent, suffering from C-PTSD... but it doesn't matter because at least I'll be able to take care of everyone.

My mom started flipping out at me on the phone because she was never the co-conservator of my brother's, it was just my dad. And she tried passing the buck on to me before she takes on that role. Obviously I shut that down but it's been a wild process as the court calls into question why she was never co-conservator of her own children in the first place. So even though over an email with the lawyers she stated that I would not be taking over she then turns it around and starts flipping out on me about how I will potentially need to step in if she's not able to get all seven powers of limited conservatorship.

She's somewhere between BPD and NPD. I just am finding myself especially since this happened a couple of days ago regressing in terms of my behaviors and habit patterns. I feel like for all of us association is such an easy thing because the escape into disassociated minds is some of the only peace. But it's not healthy and it's not helpful. It just hurts that when my dad was alive you never respected these things and my mom was never going to but all of this is awful.

I feel so much pain inside thinking that no matter what I do it's not enough. If I take care of my dad as he's dying it's not enough. If I do the same with my mom it's not enough. I will be judged and shamed and banished from people's lives if I choose not to take on the roles with my brothers who physically and emotionally abused me. It's just so much grief. So much loss. And so much waste. The negative thought loop I have in my head is that I hate my life even though I don't really feel that way but this is part of the regression talking. I just need to talk to someone who understands. Yes I'm in therapy.

I know this is going to make me sound like an awful person, but I need to know if anyone else relates.

I come from a South Asian immigrant family, and growing up as a glass child wasn’t the only thing that made my childhood difficult. My parents were very flawed. They were often emotionally neglectful, not just because of my brother but because of so many other things. They made terrible financial decisions that affected me personally, they’ve taken money from me, they let extended family treat me horribly, and I spent most of my childhood feeling like everybody else’s needs came before mine.

I don’t even want to get into every little detail because I think a lot of people on this subreddit already understand how complicated growing up as a glass child can be.

But I genuinely feel like my life has been exceptionally hard.

I’m only 20 years old, and I honestly feel like my life has just been one crisis after another. Sometimes I feel like, with the exception of my best friend, almost nobody has ever really seen me, valued me, or made me feel like I mattered.

Despite everything, I’ve always tried so hard to be a good person. I love my younger brother more than anything. I’ve tried to be a good daughter even when I didn’t feel like I was treated very well. I work hard in school. I try to be kind and empathetic. I feel like I’ve spent my whole life surviving while still trying to do the right thing.

Then I look around at people my age who had supportive parents, stable homes, close siblings, money, friends, relationships, and now they just… keep getting more. More opportunities. More people who love them. More people who admire them. More happiness.

And I know this sounds horrible, but sometimes my brain literally thinks,

“I’m better than you.”

Or,

“I deserve that more than you do.”

Not because I think I’m perfect. Not because I think they’re bad people.

But because I look at everything I’ve survived and I think, if you had lived my life, would you still be standing? Would you still be working this hard? Would you still be trying to be a good person?

Sometimes I feel like I’ve had to fight ten times harder just to get to the same place other people started from.

I know these thoughts aren’t healthy. I’m trying to work through them. I don’t want to become a bitter person cause I already struggle enough socially. I think underneath all the anger is just so much grief over the life I never got to have.

I’m just wondering… does anyone else experience this? Does anyone else compare themselves to people who had much easier lives and feel angry that life just seems to keep giving them more?

I just found this community and I wanted to share my story. It seems like it isn't as severe as many of the stories I've read here, but I do still feel like it has had a pretty strong impact on me.

I'm the older sibling with 1 younger brother. Ever since I can remember, my brother made my home life very difficult. I was never made aware of any diagnosis of anything he had, but given what I know now, I think it was likely oppositional defiant disorder and/or intermittent explosive disorder. In contrast, I was a mostly quite well behaved kid, but I am now realizing in my late 20s that I am neurodivergent myself, which of course was not picked up on when comparing me to my brother.

Doing absolutely anything was a fight. Nothing was easy with him, and I was just so tired of the fighting. I learned all of his triggers, what exactly I needed to do to appease him, and really understood what he was feeling better than anyone else. I wasn't doing this for him, or even for me. I was doing this because I felt bad for my parents. I could tell how much they struggled to deal with him. So, I hid away all my needs, did well in school, and lived my life at home only to appease my brother. My parents never said anything about this, maybe they didn't even notice. But it hurt so much feeling like I was giving up so much, and my parents seeming happy as a result.

This constant egg-shell-walking throughout my childhood has really impacted me as an adult. Even slightly inconveniencing another person causes me extreme anxiety. I even get anxious when I win at games, because that would be basically a guaranteed temper tantrum from my brother.

I have such an extreme sense of empathy that I sometimes literally cannot figure out what I want in a situation, because all I've considered is what's best for the person whose most likely to be angry with the outcome (which is never me). I've become friends and lovers with people who make me feel the same way, walking on egg shells at all times. It weirdly feels like home to me. I hate that I'm extremely good at it, making people who really struggle to make connections feel secure. But I just completely lose myself in the process.

But now, as an adult, be seems to be doing okay, and I hate to admit this, but I hate it. Having been the child that needed nothing, I completely burned myself out. I'm in my late 20s working a minimum wage job, still rebuilding from a completely burnout that stopped me in my tracks. Meanwhile, he's working a pretty good job, getting promotions, is engaged and everything seems to be going well for him. On some level I am really proud of him, and I do love him, but it also just feels so unfair. I feel like I gave up so much to not cause turmoil in the house, which he was the source of, and he'll never realize that. I feel like he benefited and I'm the one struggling now, and it just really hurts.

Thanks for reading, sorry if some of it didn't make sense, I'm really just going off the top of my head here. I look forward to reading more stories on here and getting a better understanding of how this dynamic impacts others

What if i want to have a family of my own and have my own kids that mayyy have an actual life that's worth raising than a practically someone you couldn't even have a meaningful interaction with?

Why impose it on your other children?

Not gonna lie i might start use this excuse intensely although i dont really have a plan to go through it. When people play dirty with your boundaries might as well defend it using ridiculous methods

To be honest the idea of my parents sending my 2 autistic siblings to my house is. Insane. Sorry. I would rather be demonised as the "relative who can't take care of his autistic siblings" than setting my life for a lifetime of misery.

Cant my other relatives step up in the future? Or the state? Do i have to literally move out of state to save myself? Thinking all of this shit hurts.

One day I'll be free.

Going ANYWHERE is a fucking nightmare.

Doing ANYTHING is a fucking nightmare.

Even BREATHING is a fucking nightmare.

Meanwhile, normal ass families get to go anywhere and do anything without having to worry about forgetting an extra set of clothes because a 20-YEAR-OLD MAN MIGHT ACCIDENTALLY SOIL HIMSELF.

And just being SEEN by these normal families is fucking MORTIFYING. Strangers are whispering amongst each other, while relatives are rolling their eyes, having to think about accommodations because bringing him to any place outside of the home poses significant problems and risks.

I JUST WANT TO BE NORMAL.

Or at the very least, I just want to LOOK normal.

It’s bad enough having the personality disorder with the WORST fucking name and being a social reject for it, but on top of that, I’m having to compensate for having a I-can’t-even-say-that-word brother.

AND GUESS WHAT? THE SAME FUCKING BROTHER IS THE PRIMARY REASON WHY I HAVE THAT PERSONALITY DISORDER TO BEGIN WITH.

IT’S ALL HIS FUCKING FAULT AND HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW IT. HE’LL NEVER APOLOGIZE, AND I’LL BE A FREAK FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE BECAUSE OF HIM.

Is it not ethical to have a second child if the first one is disabled?

I wouldn’t say I felt lost, but the best way to describe how I feel after finding this sub would be ”found”. I suppose after repeating this story in my head and having countless deep thoughts in the shower, it may be a good idea to put it in writing and what better place than here? So thanks in advance for reading and any kind words or advice would be greatly appreciated.

So I’m a child of divorce, parents split up when I was 7ish and they had split custody over me. My dad would take me every Wednesday and every other weekend and my mom would have me every other day. My mom did her best to set rules and boundaries and for the most part I was a good kid. My dad, on the other hand, was more of a “friend” if that makes sense. Not much discipline when I was with him (when I wasn’t pawned off on grandma and grandpa when he would decide to spend the weekend drinking and partying) so it was pretty much anything goes when he had his weekends. As a kid, that was my escape and at that time he was my “favorite parent”. Nothing against my mom, it’s just when you’re a kid, you want no rules more than rules. Just the way it goes, I suppose.

Not too long after, my mom remarried to my stepdad and fast forward a few years, my brother was born (10 year age difference). Since the day he came home from the hospital, the kid was a little hellion. Temper tantrums, screaming and crying all the time, to even hitting. Eventually he calmed down and he became a pretty stand up kid! However, 3 years after he was born, my mom and stepdad had another kid, my sister. At this point I’m 13 and in one of the most important developmental stages of my life. The problem was that my mom and stepdad had their hands full with my problem child brother and my new sister who come to find out, has Asperger’s. My needs were put on the backburner on my mom’s side since they were more than occupied with my siblings and since I was pretty much out of the way and a good kid, I’m assuming they figured that I could just be left to my own devices and be ok.

Couldn’t be further from the truth. I failed many classes in high school and subsequently had to take summer school and night school in order to graduate on time. What put my ass in gear was one semester a report card came home on a day my dad had me and he saw it was straight Ds and Fs. For the first time ever, my dad showed me how disappointed he was. Might not have even been disappointment in me, but maybe disappointed in himself. But either way, I felt it and it lit a fire under my ass.

Fast forward to today, I’m working a regular job, nothing fancy, and I can’t help but feel that my situation would have been a lot better had I gotten the care and more importantly the attention from my mom that I desperately needed. Looking back, I was clearly screaming for attention but just never got it at home.

What’s even worse is how my mom is a shell of who she once was and I blame my siblings for it. She’s in a constant state of “brain fog” and just burned out right now and has aged herself beyond her years. Part of that is how she has always just been an enabler. When my sister was diagnosed with Asperger’s, the school advised her that the best option would be to place her in classes where they can help her, but my stepdad shut that idea down and demanded regular classes for her. To his credit, she did do just fine in school and even graduated college, but has gotten 0 amounts of help with her social skills. After she gets her second degree, I have no clue what she’s going to do because there’s no way she’ll make it past any kind of job interview.

No one has explicitly said that it’s up to me to take her in once my mom and stepdad pass, but I’m sure the implication is for me to do so and I just won’t. It’s not so much that she’s an Aspie, but she’s an asshole. Doesn’t talk to anyone, not because she can’t, but because she thinks she’s above everyone and that everyone is annoying. Worst of which, she treats my mom and stepdad like shit and they just take it due to their enabling characters and just continue to treat her like a kid (she’s in her 20s).

Anyway, I know this is jumbled, unorganized, and all over the place, but it’s the best I got for a random impulse post for a new sub I discovered. Thanks for reading.

Anyone else dealing with siblings who never really grew up, still live with your parents waiting on them, and not working full-time jobs? My younger sister (32F, autistic) and my younger brother (30M, mental health issues), are both still in their childhood bedrooms and basically adult teenagers.

My sister has never worked, and I feel bad for her with her neurodivergent challenges, but I also feel like my parents coddled her and she was probably capable of at least a part-time job. My brother (who’s probably as traumatized as I am from being a glass-child), does work part-time, but not using his degree my parents paid for and no motivation to do better or move out.

I’m the oldest (34F), and the only one who managed to get a “big person” job, move out, and pay my own bills. My parents are approaching 70 and I worry about what will happen to them when they pass. Just curious how many other millennials are dealing with failure-to-launch sibling(s), and what you plan on doing about it (especially when your parents pass).

TW: child abduction

I hear a lot in this subreddit about people fantasizing about being hurt or sick so they could finally get some attention for once. While I had that fantasy too, I had a darker one in addition.

Before anyone goes on to lecture me about how serious and awful kidnapping is, yes, I know it is awful, but this was a childhood fantasy, and children are not known for their logic, nor are they known for their complete understanding of the horror humanity is capable of.

My home life growing up was utter hell. So much so that being locked up in someone's dark basement seemed like a vacation to my child brain. I would be alone for long stretches at a time, and I could potentially get some sleep. I didn't think I'd be missed because, in spite of my parents saying they loved me, their actions (or rather, lack of) and criticisms told me differently. Between the noise, the embarrassment, the disgust, the violence, the destruction, the screaming and wailing, the daily reprimands I would get from my own family for not doing enough or not acting the way a big sister with an autistic sibling should, my sister taking every bit of food she wanted straight off my plate, and no real escape from it at the time, I would dream of some sort of rescue every minute I was with my family. Someone, anyone, to take me away, but no one I knew outside my family would intervene when I told them what was happening in my home.

So I started hoping someone would grab my hand while I was out shopping with my family while my mom was distracted managing my sister's meltdowns at the grocery store or mall, or that someone would break into the car I was left in with my sibling because the babysitter quit and Mom and Dad needed marriage counseling.

I learned I wasn't going to get a knight in shining armor, and I didn't know what CPS was, but if someone was finally going to get me away from my family, I would not have fought them. I would have gone with them willingly.