Customer Reviews

The Normal One: Life with a Difficult or Damaged Sibling

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

At times, reading this book was so difficult I had to close it for a while. The feelings that it brought up were so intense, raw, and neglected for so long that it was difficult for me to face them. Reading this book has made me realize that in my plight I am not alone, and that there are actionable steps I can take in order to heal myself.

Some key quotations from the text that I, personally, found poignant:

- (Healthy children) "grieve, they feel guilty, and they struggle to compensate by achieving for two."

- "Fixing the unfixable, or saving the irredeemable, is a frequent occurrence in sibling dreams... Dreams in which a sibling no longer has the disability ... gives a brief respite that is both painful and pleasing to recollect."

- (The 'normal' one's) "everyday trials and tribulations pale beside the catastrophe of their sibilings' predicaments, so it seems natural that they should never come first... As a result, many healthy siblings grow up with a hunger for attention that it never satisfied and that seems wrong to feel. Their needs, so consistently ignored, become invisible to themselves."

- "The fallout from being invisible is to become self-effacing; perverse preeminence breeds perfectionism, morbid self-criticism, and fear of failure... Excelling is not an ideal; it is an emotional life preserver."

- "... a nameless anxiety haunts them and makes everything they have seems (sic) tenuous or undeserved... compulsive self-sacfrifice driven by the belief that you do not deserve your advantages... At significant moments... it is excruciating to know how much better off you are and always will be."

As difficult as it was to read this book and grapple with all that I had so conveniently ignored for so long, recognizing the common traits of 'normal' siblings is key to becoming whole. Safer outlines those traits to be:

- Premature maturity ("... expected to shoulder ... responsibility ... w/o complaint."
- Survivor guilt ("Every achievement is tainted...")
- Compulsion to achieve ("... must succeed for two...")
- Fear of contagion ("... secret conviction that normality is tenuous or a sham.")

If you are a 'normal' one and are ready to face the issues that come with that head on, check out this book, grab a box of Kleenex, and find a quiet place to hunker down. As Safer writes, "It is no crime for your own life to come first." There is no time like the present to start living it.

This was a fascinating book. It sheds light on a family situation far too often ignored--the needs of the healthy sibling submerged in the all-engrossing task of taking care of a mentally ill or emotionally disordered sibling. It is true that a child who grows up in a such a family, whose needs and hopes and successes are never quite as important to his or her parents as the needs and small successes of the damaged child will feel the repercussions for the rest of his or her life.

I had only two problems with this book. First, it's not always like that. It would have been nice to have some functional family portraits, so that parents with both normal and disabled children can learn what works as well as what doesn't. In my own family, I have two normal brothers and a normal sister, all highly intelligent and successful. I am normal and in college. My other brother is emotionally disturbed and struggles both in school and in personal relationships. For a long time, my other siblings and I resented "what he had done to the family" but the fact is, he can't help it. And we have come to terms with his disorder, and even found him to be enjoyable if you are patient enough to sift through the layers of fear and anger. Frankly we have banded together as siblings over his illness, but it took time, and most of it was due to our parents, who balanced his needs against our perfectly understandable resentment, anger, and misunderstanding. They never rebuked us for how we felt, only explained to us the truth of my brother's problems, and were always available to talk to us when we needed to vent. My brother HAS a problem, he's not a problem. So I think if families were aware of what the normal one was thinking, they could help their normal children more, and help them to work through their resentment and guilt.

Second, I think the author should have finished her dealing with her own childhood to a degree before undertaking to write this book. I don't know whether she meant it to be objective, but it really wasn't. It read more like a catharsis than a study.

Overall, though, a long-overdue acknowledgement of the mental anguish of those whose siblings are damaged, disordered, or ill.
To all who still feel resentment toward their troubled siblings, please seek help. I hope you find a therapist who will listen to you. I'm not saying that to be mean or rude, I'm saying it because I see a lot of it in the reviews, and to resent someone only allows them to control you and prevents you from living your life fully. Good luck and God Bless!

I am not a 'self help' healer - but needed to understand the role my sibling's illness plays in my family and in my life. Though we are both adults, it has taken a toll on my parents and on me personally. It became especially difficult when my sibling started to require 24 hr care. I am the relief care when my parents need a break. This book gave me insight that I needed to help me reduce the frustration I felt in dealing with the circumstances at hand, and helped me acknowledge the resentment and irritation I was experiencing. It also helped me understand that I have a choice to make regarding my involvement. I appreciated that "The Normal One" didn't try to fix anything - but felt more like it provided information to help me make better choices when dealing with my family.

I was weak with relief when I read Safer's book; finally someone put into words what I've been feeling all my life. I have two older brothers, one borderline and drug-addicted, the other severely emotionally damaged and physically violent from early childhood. I remember envisioning myself at the age of 10 as walking behind my family with a broom to sweep up all the dirt left behind by my brothers' actions. The pressure to be perfect to offset their flaws was incredible. As the only girl I'd always had more expected of me and thought that it was due to generational sexism on the part of my parents; Safer led me to consider the possibility that it was partly because I was my parents' last hope.

What I wish Safer had included more of was a discussion of the rage that abused normals feel. My violent brother terrorized and brutalized me; many years later, I still feel a great deal of hatred toward him. Yet Safer's focus on guilt (her own brother never hurt her, so she doesn't feel residual rage toward him) made me feel somehow dirty that my guilt is matched by equal -- no, MORE powerful -- feelings of rage. I wish too that Safer had acknowledged that sometimes parents, in an effort to blame their damaged child(ren)'s defects on something, anything, will overtly blame the good child for somehow robbing their damaged sibling(s) of health and wellbeing. This happened to me; thus I grew up knowing that I had to succeed to save the family name (a phrase my mother tossed around liberally), yet at the same time every success was held against me as an act of thievery against my brothers.

I agree with the other reviewer who said the book is a good start, but not enough. It could have been twice as long, with much more detail paid to the different varieties of the Caliban Syndrome. Surely the syndrome must vary, as the disabilities of the damaged sibling(s) vary. For instance, emotional disabilities often render children difficult to be around. Contrast this with a sweet, benign child confined to a wheelchair. The latter might be deemed a hero; the former usually aren't. No one mistook my siblings for heroes, so I've never experienced the particular frustration of resenting a sibling everyone else thinks is an angel incarnate. On the other hand, I dealt with violent abuse. My point is that Safer has introduced a concept (the Caliban Syndrome) that, in its attempt to be all-inclusive, glosses over important differences in normal children's experiences that result from differences in the nature of their sibling's damage. At the end of the day, though, it's clear that I'm praising Safer with faint damnation. She had something important to say, something that resonated bigtime with me and others, and now I (we) want more. That should be good news for any author.

I agree with the author, on the basis of my own experience, that the normal sibling must have ingrained resistance to the idea that he or she could have suffered deeply or even at all, because I imagine that suffering is to any normal sibling a judgment we no longer have the capacity to make without comparison to the other -- because suffering, for us, conjures the experience not of self but of the retarded, sick, or otherwise incapacitated sibling. This problem may be inescapable, and although this is maybe presumptuous, I do believe this might account for some of the negative reviews here. The point of the book is not to say whose experience was "worse." It is to describe an experience that is little acknowledged and generally unwanted. The impulse these readers had to pick up this book is not consistent with their statements that they didn't really get hurt. Why are they reading this self-help book at all? A few of these reviews smack of an all-too-familiar sanctimoniousness, a defensiveness of the experience of the abnormal sibling against the author and the world in general. (One reader refers to Safer's "bourgeoise Jewish" childhood and talks of herself as a "Christian" with "Christian values" -- yikes!). When I first started reading this book, I was shocked that the author could talk about her brother in such bald, bold terms. But as I read further, I felt relieved that she did and realized that I needed to do so to heal. She is also full of tremendous compassion for the brother and all the other abnormal siblings, but as she says, they have their advocates. Safer tells what it's like to be in the "normal" position, with all the slings and arrows of daily life (and I mean all arrows, not just those that come from living with the abnormal sibling) and the pain they inflict constantly deflected because, after all, they could not possibly be as bad as anything suffered by the problem sibling. As a writer, I once wrote a short story based on my own experience and told it from the viewpoint of the normal one, a girl who struggled between wanting her own life and not wanting to abandon her retarded sister. A friend and colleague disliked the story, saying it wasn't an interesting viewpoint -- I should have told the story "from the viewpoint of the one who REALLY suffered." I thank Ms. Safer for unearthing a little-heard, little-valued, little-loved, and little-understood voice that I have been told to quiet for a lifetime. Her book has freed much of the suppressed reality of my own experience -- while showing me that this reality can coexist with the very real suffering my own sister no doubt experienced as well.

At last, a mental health professional finally acknowledges the siblings of the "special" one. Not only does she cut through the Hallmark card version of life with a disabled sibling, but since this book is brief, it leaves the door open for other therapists to discuss other aspects of this experience. Prior to this book, the healthcare community has been complicit in encouraging parents to put the needs of the "special" one above everyone else in the family - regardless of the mental, social and finacial devastation that this can cause. As for lumping the difficult with the truly ill, her point is that it is the parents who determine the family dynamics, and the same pathology can occur in families who simply have a difficult child, if the parents allow this child's needs to dominate family life. (I have seen this very thing in a friend's life.) I would prefer the chapter on THE TEMPEST be shorter and a more legally accurate use of the term "guardianship" and a mention of the value of a visit to an attorney who specializes in disability (and ofter elder) law - but that is a topic for another book! This has been a taboo subject for the last 30 years and any family member who didn't view life with a disabled sibling as an uplifting and edifying experience was castigated. Thank you for bringing the rest of the family out in the open

I'm 33 and my autistic, schizophrenic, homosexual, obese, gender-confused, obsessive-compulsive brother is 35.

I bought this book about a year ago and have kept it on my bedside table ever since. When I have problems coping with my brother and the effect he continues to have on my family, I pick it up and reassure myself that other people have shared these feelings.

I wish I belonged to the happy families who write reviews about benign their disabled sibling's effect on their life is.

In my family, my brother's condition has caused continuous state of emergency and crisis for the last 30 years... first, the quest for a diagnosis, then the shuttling from treatment to treatment, the fight to mainstream him in school, dealing with his behavior, finding a place he could be placed afterwards, and now the question of what will happen to him as my parents age.

Yeah, I got shortchanged in the process. Still do, actually. And I did all the things that Safer talks about, from being super achieving to compensate all the way to self-destructing out of survivor guilt.

I haven't reached a point of acceptance and love like Tom Cruise in Rain Man yet. I try to do the right thing, but I hate and resent my brother just as much as I pity him.

Until this book, I'd only been exposed to the "this experience will make you a more compassionate person" school of thought and believed that my more negative feelings were merely selfish and evil.

It's been intensely therapeutic for me to know that these feelings are normal and that I can someday develop a comfortable modus vivendi with my brother and family on my own terms.

I've met lots of people who felt detached from their siblings. One Army captain, assigned to the Military Police, told me he never sees his brothers because they're in jail or on welfare. A quiet librarian can't relate to his brother, an outgoing car salesman.

But this book is not about dealing with the merely dysfunctional sibling -- the sister who ran off and got pregnant and hits you up for money or the brother who disapproves of your lifestyle. This book deals with really serious mental illness in families. As the author claims, often family live centers on the damaged child, while the "normal" sibling gets ignored.

Safer's major contribution is to show the way sibling relationships pervade our lives, even unconsciously. A woman feels guilty when she experiences success, while her sibling begs in front of the church they used to attend as children. The siblings always exist in shadows. And Safer also tells us how little research has been conducted on sibling relationships. Even as a therapist, she had to carve her own path with few guidelines.

While I usually enjoy books with many narrative tales, I began to get a sense of repetition as I read this one. People felt guilty. They wondered how much they had to give. Often they felt relief when they gave up.

As other reviewers pointed out, Safer offers few stories of successful sibling relationships. Mothers write proudly of their experiences with disabled children. Read, for instance, Martha Beck's book, Expecting Adam. Perhaps some children look back with gratitude on their experiences of growing up with a disabled sibling. In the movie, There's Something About Mary, the heroine visits her disabled brother on a regular basis. Is that realistic?

Then again, a parent chooses to have a child, and parents have the maturity and experience to gain perspective.

A good book, which raises our awareness of a common concern that's poorly understood.

I am so impressed with Jeanne Safer's analysis of "the normal one" in a family where one child is disabled or damaged. Everything she says rings true in so many ways, I was amazed that she has been able to gain the insightful wisdom that she has in her own life and am grateful that she chose to share that with others to help make their lives better. I would recommend this book without reservation to those who have difficult siblings and those who don't as it gives a great deal of insight into the sibling relationship in general, which as she herself points out, has too long been untold. I think the most important thing is that she did not sentimentalize these issues and it's my opinion that the negative reviews of this book are from people who are indeed sentimentalizing the issues, exactly why the book was written. Unfortunately, for some people this book brings so much to light that they would not like to admit or deal with, that they have to deny what she's saying, as it might very well apply to them. If you want a book that will change your life if you're a "normal one" or not, buy this one!

I found this book after one of my "difficult / disabled" sibling had died. I wish I had found it earlier. It is like a breath of fresh air, acknowledging that all sibling relationships_ aren't_ like some movies such as "Benny and Joon" portray it. If you think that's the "I learned so much from my disabled sister" viewpoint is the right one, don't bother finishing the review or reading the book.

One thing Dr Safer acknowledges is that _nobody_ gets off easy in this mess. If the "normal" child becomes the preferred one, he / she feels a lot of guilt and anger. If the "difficult" sibling becomes the preferred one, well, the "normal" sib feels guilt and anger. I was surprised to read that many "normal" sibs choose not to have children. I should have realized this by taking a look at my own family, but it never hit me until I read it in the book.

Dr Safer shares her own experience as well as about 60 or so other folks. Some stories seem extreme - such as the woman moving her family out of the country, until you read how the person got to this point. There is very little info on siblings who were brutalized by their disabled sibling, but the fact there was any mention at all was astounding. You never see _any_ articles in any magazine about "My sibling robbed me and beat me" or even worse fates. All it's about is "how to get your family together for the holidays" and it's about how maybe your sister dated one of your boyfriends 20 years ago. It doesn't deal with a sibling who is always drunk / high, can't be counted on to even show up for a family occasion and if she does, there _will_be some ugly moments.

I found this book extremely helpful in identifying the problem and getting some of the emotions out for the world to see. Hopefully Dr Safer (or somebody else) will do a follow up on this subject.

If you read this far, you probably _need_ to read the book. It made me feel so much better to see other people had the same sort of emotions I had regarding my sister. I hope it will for you.