The devastating effects of mental illness have been well documented in films, books, and academia. But until recently there has been little said about the sisters and brothers of the mentally ill. Now researchers are starting to look at what they’re calling the “well-sibling” syndrome.
“As hard as parents may try, and they do, to meet the needs of their well siblings,” says Dianne Marsh, a Psychologist of the University of Pittsburg. “time and energy are simply finite. And so siblings often feel like the forgotten family members. Everyone else’s problems are more important than theirs.”
Marsh conducted one of the first studies of well siblings of the mentally ill and wrote about it in her book, Troubled Journey. Her co-author, Rex Dickens, himself the brother of three mentally ill siblings, says that over time, sisters and brothers of the mentally ill become frozen souls.
“You sort of shut down, emotionally, in part of your life,” says Dickens, “and that carries over to other areas. You can’t trust, you can’t feel, you can’t talk. There’s a core that gets frozen in time, maybe to be dealt with later, but it never does get dealt with.”
Marsh and Dickens found that well siblings have higher rates of depression than the general public.
Other siblings worry they might “catch” what their brother or sister has. Clea Simon is a Boston journalist who wrote the memoir, Madhouse: Growing up the Shadow of Mentally Ill Siblings. Both of her older siblings were struck with schizophrenia when she was only 6.
“When you see your brother or sister grow up and change from your brother and sister to something scary and weird and alien,” says Simon, “you just think that’s what happens. You think that when you hit 16, you’re allowed to date, and drive, and then you’re hospitalized.”
Simon often witnessed, or became the target of, her siblings’ violent outbursts, which is why she, and many other well siblings, believe they may now suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder – a collection of debilitating symptoms from flashbacks to nightmares.
And while all families are different, most siblings seem to be affected at least by survivor’s guilt Why was my sister or brother afflicted? Why not me?
“And as they mature and they go on to careers and relationships and families,” says Marsh, “over and over again we heard that it is with a sense of loss for their sibling who may not be able to move on.”
As siblings age, there are practical concerns beyond the existential ones. In one clinical survey, 94 percent of well siblings reported a pervasive worry that they will have to care for a mentally ill brother or sister when their parents no longer can. And that worry is not an idle one.
Read about the lives of Olivia Stanas who has bipolar disorder and her siblings Rose & Audrey and the affect the illness has on Rose, Audrey and her family or the lives of Pamela Spiro Wagner and Carolyn Spiro where Pam has Schizophrenia and is looked after by Carolyn by clicking HERE.
