Forgotten.

I can explain it best if you picture a lake. It’s a hot summer day in July. Your skin is warm from the sun, and you just spent your whole dollar wisely, picking out your favorite treat from the ice cream truck. You and your siblings are enjoying your firecracker popsicles, and snoopy ice cream bars before retreating back into the lake for the rest of the afternoon, sprinting to the water to outrun the hot sand on your feet. It’s your first day without swimmies, so your mom stands, wading ankle deep in the water, supervising. You’re ready to show her all you’ve learned in swim class! You’re time to shine! You adjust your plastic yellow goggles as she counts down from 3 to 1, take a deep breath, and plunge under the water to proudly sport your first doggy paddle as you kick your little legs with all the heart you’ve got! And you’ve done it! You swam on your own for the very first time! You come up from the water grinning ear to ear, waiting to hear claps and cheers from your parents… only they’re no longer watching. Your sister dunked her head under the lake and started coughing up water, taking over your parents’ attention, as they rushed to her aid. They’ve missed the whole show. All your hard work to be taken away. Your big moment, gone. Being the good sibling you are, you go see your sister. You tell her you’re glad she’s okay, as she sits on your moms lap, attached to her like a leech with eyes swollen from crying. You give her a hug and your parents tell you how proud of you they are for being such a good big sister, and they’ll watch you swim next time you come back to the lake. That’s what it’s like to live with siblings of addiction. You will never be the main focus.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • •

If you are a sibling of an addict, my advice would be to toughen up. Harsh, yes. But at-least I’m warning you. That was a lesson I learned on my own. For the rest of your life, everyone you know will be so concerned about what your siblings are doing and if they’re healthy, that you stand in their shadows. Because you’re the good one. And no one, truly no one, will ask YOU how YOU are doing. You’ll bump into an old neighbor at the supermarket and they’ll ask “How’s your brother doing?” You May have a run in with an old teacher who will ask “How has your sister been?” Your brother might die, and someone’s first question to you may be “How is your mom handling things? And Dad? Is he ok?” But I promise you, no one will ever ask “How are you?” And believe me, inside you’re cracking. Almost to the point where you don’t want anyone to ask how you’re doing, because you may accidentally unleash 27 years of trauma that not even a licensed therapist may be equipped to handle. So you politely respond “they’re ok” and smile through the rest of the conversation and go about your grocery list, until you get to the car and fight back the breakdown that’s been banging at your metaphorically emotional door. For years.

You are the tough one. You are the brave one. You are the one who is always laughing. You are the one who has her head on straight.

And so, it is presumed that you are ok. You are forgotten.

You accept the way things are. You want your siblings to get help of course, but the focus on getting them help leaves you in the dust. So you move on. You do things for you. And in the midst of this you subconsciously build a wall, and while most of the building is done unknowingly, you eventually become aware of how high this wall has gotten, and still you add more bricks. You make your friends your family- add 10 bricks. You move away- 20 more bricks. You stop speaking to your siblings all together- 35 more bricks. I wonder how high I can build?

Doing things for you feels like the right thing to do. Everyone is so enveloped in your siblings life that you have to make your own path, without any help.

But you’re used to that by now.

After all, you’ve always been capable of taking care of yourself! So no one ever needs to be worried about you! You’ve always been fine! Remember, You’re the good one. Just keep being the happy, fun person we all know and love, you’ll work things out!

So you go, and you get accepted to school, in a very hard program, and for the next 2 years engulf yourself completely in bookwork, too busy for family- 25 more bricks. And you’re so close to finishing. And you look back at how hard of a road you’ve been down and think to yourself how your parents might notice this time, and be really proud of something YOU did instead of worried over something your siblings didn’t. This could be your moment!

But your perspective is put back into place and you’re smacked in the face with a cruel reality check the moment your dad asks you if you googled how to take care of a broken foot, when that is the very thing you spent 2 years learning how to do.

And you remember you’re always going to be overshadowed. And simply, forgotten. Keep adding those bricks.