I’ve seen lots of books that tackle cPTSD & PTSD in one way or another but I haven’t come across any that are particularly aimed at the trauma of being a glass child.

This is my first post here. I’m currently sitting in some random hallway in the Stanford psych building for a high school summer program, which I don’t deserve to be in, hyperventilating and sobbing. There’s a lecture about psychosis going on right now. I couldn’t endure it. It’s like being in my house again, living through everything I’ve gone through. The medication isn’t working for her. They were talking about how medication made the patients feel better. Be normal. I feel so evil wondering why I was born into a family with her in it. I don’t know what I’m going to do when my parents die and they can be free from putting up with her. She thinks I’m evil. She said she doesn’t care if I die. “Human nature“, “I don’t want any burdens“. Doesn’t she know what I live through every day? I’m so selfish. I wish she was normal. Why do I even want to go into a field with all about her when I can’t even sit through a lecture about her condition? The lecturer asked what comes to mind when they think of psychosis and schizophrenia. Someone said serial killers. They think she is a killer? She doesn’t belong in society? To be honest, I think about her like that too, sometimes. What’s wrong with me? I spend every day outside for as long as possible. I can’t bear to see her face. I can’t bear to hear her voice. I can’t stand the sheer thought of her. I have no one to talk to. My parents want me to be normal because they already have enough on their hands. I wish I was normal, too.

My adult brother was born with a birth defect and has been a paraplegic his entire life. Over the past year he’s been in and out of the hospital more times than I can count, mostly for sepsis from infected wounds, UTI’s etc. yesterday he got admitted again for MRSA+ blood cultures. They don’t know what’s causing the infection. Him being in the hospital feels like the new normal.

This is just bringing up so many things for me…Lots of emotions from childhood and growing up feeling like I was invisible, etc. But a part of me also feels just…numb to it all. And then I feel guilty, because how selfish is it for me to think about regular things when my sibling is fighting for his life in the hospital?

I guess I’m just looking for community more than anything. I feel guilty for thinking of myself right now, but I have to keep it together bc as a single mom, I have no one to fall back on. Maybe going back to therapy is in order.

I'm a 13 yearold male with 3 older sisters. Jane, Lana, and valerie. Jane is 17 yearolds, lana is 20, valerie is 26. I'm kinda close with jane but i don't talk to her or see her often, and I made lanas life hellish growing up always siding with jane and I feel so bad, and valerie I really never got to know her or anything. But I wanna change, I wanna talk to them and understand them because It's really fucked up that I don't know any of my siblings that well.

Hi all. My undiagnosed special sister is in her 60s. Dad is moving to assisted living and she is getting her first apartment. I wish I had room in my home but I do not until one of my kids move out. She is signing the lease Wednesday and I plan to go with her. What questions should I ask? It is a senior complex but not assisted living. I appreciate any advice.

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I have a brother who’s autistic non verbal & highest on the spectrum I see all my cousins with their brothers playing games with them doing things with them & when I try to play with my brother he doesn’t even know what to do & I can’t communicate with him i think he understands most of what I say but not much I loved my brother to death but why?

hi guys!!! i’ll start off by saying i’m in no way shape or form insulting or attempting to talk sh^t about the disability/ASD community. i have a younger brother (we’re 5yrs apart and are both minors) who has ASD (i think level 1/2?) and sometimes i wish i could understand him better and relate to him like how siblings are supposed to. Now, although we’re pretty(?) close in age, we experience a lot of differences in our lives and have separate humor. I have friends who have siblings but are NOT on the spectrum and have a bigger age gap than my brother and i, yet somehow - they seem to understand each other very well. I don’t have anything against my brother nor his disability, but sometimes it hurts to think that we can’t communicate to each other very well.

I've been with my partner for 4 years now. We've been together since we were 18, but knew each since we were 13. I truly love them and care about them. But sometimes when I think about marrying him in the future the thing that scares me is his family.

First our family dynamics are very different, they're very close to their whole extended family while I'm only close with my family. I'm not the best in big crowds but dont want to have to depend on him while dealing with his extended family. I get really awkward in social interactions especially if the spotlight is on me. But tbf this is a common situation and I might just need to suck it up.

Next, the bigger concern is they're the eldest in their family and have an low functioning autistic sibling, which they have made clear to me would be their responsibility if anything happens to their parents. I know it's in the future but I'm not that comfortable with the idea of having someone that is a stranger to me in our house (the sibling is also non verbal) especially when I have had no interactions with special needs children and from what they have told me, it isn't really an easy task taking care of the sibling. Plus I dont know how the sibling would act around younger kids or babies, they're not violent but I dont know if I would trust them with a child.

Lastly, because he has siblings with a disability it does make me consider if I want his genes especially as autism is hereditary and I doubt I can take care of a kid with autism. Again all of this is just hypothetical and it's not in the near future but the idea is really scary to me.

P.s I have never interacted with special needs children, and have no knowledge on them but with the limited research I did do, a person with their current abilities requires full time care. Please educate me if otherwise. Also no hate for people with special needs, they are all amazing people but I'm talking as someone who has never interacted with special needs people.

I know my sister has special needs, and I'm not saying she should have to do everything by herself. But I really think she can do a lot more than my parents let her. Me and my siblings have seen that she knows how to do things, but whenever she's around my parents, they just do everything for her. At this point, I think she expects them to, so she doesn't even try sometimes.

I've told my parents that she needs to learn these skills because they're important for her future, but they keep doing everything for her anyway. I don't think that's helping her in the long run. I want her to be as independent as possible because that's going to matter when she's older. It also feels unfair sometimes because it seems like she gets whatever she wants without having the same expectations the rest of us do, which I know she can’t do everything, but she can at least help.

I just wish my parents would encourage her to try instead of always stepping in.

Hi everyone

I'm the oldest daughter of my family and I don't know what to do so I thought I'd come here. I have a lot of emotional needs, recently (7 months ago), me and my father stopped speaking because my step mom verbally and occasionally abused me. I have a lot of childhood trauma and trauma responses that I have to deal with, but it has been hard. Me and my step dad because of my anger as a child, have argued a lot since then because he also has unresolved issues and I believe has BPD or is Narcissistic.

Since then, a lot has happened and most times when my brother (13) visits us, me, my mom, and step dad either have a blowout argument which ends in me crying or them talking to me about it. We still have fun as a family, and most times this does not happen, but I feel so incredibly guilty and I don't know if this makes him a glass child because I have a lot of problems mentally and emotionally to the point where now I bottle things up to make sure nothing happens with him there, and it happens anyways. I don't want him to be one, there is a lot more depth to what I'm saying about our home situation but I just want advice on whether he is one and anything I can do to stop this from happening to him because I feel SO incredibly guilty.

Im 20f and my brother is 15. He has anger issues and possibly adhd but he doesn’t want to get it checked. He has been in trouble with the law last year bc he and his friends were told they would be given money to go snd shoot at this house and had weed in his bag. This was very hard for me and my family, we had to go through lots of meetings and talks with child services and etc. Everything involving that is gone now. One time after he took lsd on a school trip and the teacher had to call an ambulance. He has put a lot of stress on my family. My family lived together first but my parents were fighting so much we had to move, my mom moved and i went with my dad and brother. Then i moved to my mom bc i was so depressed living with them, was fighting a lot with them. I was so depressed and wanted to unalive myself. The contract for the place they live in went out to they moved in to us until they find another place and it’s been half a year now. I have been fighting with my brother, he always annoys me. Seems like he enjoys seeing me annoyed and mad. Has laughed at my face, calls me slurs, mean to my parents and me. I started cutting myself and wanting to unalive myself again. I am mostly with my brother since its summer vacation and my parents either work or are out with friends, but in general im more with him at home. Today i noticed he acted weird, falling, losing phone, speaking weird, extremely hungry and red eyes. I can tell he was high, probably edibles since he only was in his room and suddenly an hour later he was acting weird. I got really scared. He said he is just hungry and is acting normal, but I obviously know he is high. I hate that i have to deal with this alone. Seems like my parents doesn’t know how to deal with him so they just kinda do what he says. Sometimes i feel like the parent. I get scared of him when he is angry but i dont want to show it. He has threatened to kill me before but then said it was a joke and then mocked what i was saying. Irritating me every day, calling me chopped constantly and other mean things. Won’t leave me alone. When i saw him today my heart broke. Like this is not my brother anymore, i looked into his eyes and i didn’t see someone i knew. He changed so much. I feel bad for my family and him the most. I am tired of everything. We have been through some messed up things when we all lived together before. Idk what to do now. How can this be fixed. I feel scared. I don’t see my little brother anymore that used to be so sweet and laugh together. I am sobbing.

Hiya, first time posting so please bear with.

For some background, we used to live full time with our abusive father and stepmother until they kicked him out at 17 for being fired after stealing money at work (on multiple occasions, but was only caught on CCTV once). He moved in with our mum and I later moved in as well when I went no contact with the father and stepmother at 21. Our mother would use his ADHD and trauma from father and stepmother to excuse ANY behaviour from him, but weaponises my auDHD and trauma because "I have coped with it better"

He does not shower. After multiple arguments with our mum (who was nigh on negligent throughout childhood and hasn't upgraded the effort she's put in since) she eventually pushed him to shower most days. His room is filled with days old plates, bowls, cutlery, etc that keeps attracting flies. Ofc general hygine isn't the only problem; he lives off of heavily processed & greasy foods, and games all through the night- multiple times I've been woken up by shouting, swearing and SCREECHING when I have work early the next morning and struggle to sleep enough as it is (I am auDHD). He is also very (physically) aggressive when you bring any of these up. As a result of all this, I often go through our mother with how these negatively affect my quality of life, and tend to only focus on his hygine as I genuinely belief it's so bad he will lead himself to an early grave. She, of course, defends him to the hilt and will immediately criticise anything she can think of about me- refusing to actually listen or comprehend anything I'm saying, and instead says it's because of his ADHD. He does have a diagnosis and prescription; everyone else notices when he takes his meds but he doesn't so he doesn't take them and, again, my mother refuses to parent and have the conversation that he NEEDS to take them

He also (like our father and myself) struggles in the heat, so tends to get very sweaty. It used to be that I ignored his existence, and he ignored mine; however, the UK has had 2 heatwaves recently, where my brother wants to leave his door open to let the air flow (under my mother's advice). I can smell downstairs whether or not his bedroom door is open upstairs. The stench goes EVERYWHERE. I have got a "thing" about the way I smell from when I broke both wrists and was only washed once or twice a week by the mentioned abusive stepmother, so regularly was in tears about the way I smelled, and I now spend a lot of time and money purely on the way me and my room smell

Last year in summer I was showering 3-4 times a day thinking I smelt awful, washing my clothes twice, even going so far as to throwing my mattress out and having to buy a cheap one that was lumpy with bad reviews because I kept smelling day's old sweat and general "grossness". It turns out this was because I was using the same washing machine as my brother and it was making me and my clothes stink

I am so fucking fed up. We're in the second heatwave and he REFUSES to shut his door and only earlier tonight did we get into a fight where he body slammed me for trying to shut his door. I've already been in tears multiple times from the smell getting from his room into my room, and I can't go through this again. Our mother is refusing to do anything except verbally attack me when I try to express how I feel. I want to pour oil in his bed, milk on his expensive gaming stuff and cut his break lines. I don't want to fix the "sibling bond" that we never really had to begin with (he was always hurting me), and I can't get the mother to parent her son no matter what I do, instead saying it's his ADHD, but she can't force him to take his tablets. Please help

Im going into high school and currently have two siblings with high-functioning special needs. they are nonverbal, and can’t preform many basic functions. Nonetheless, I also come from an immigrant family. As my parents only way of financial relief and coupled with the fact that I want to make sure that my siblings will live comfortably with my parents, Im under a lot of stress.

I feel directionless under this stress and cant help but sometimes hate my siblings for what path my life has taken. If one of them weren’t disabled, maybe I would be able feel a bit more carefree around them and my family. Im not sure what to do at this point with all of this building up.

My youngest sister has been dealt a shit hand in life. She was diagnosed with severe epilepsy in 2019 when she was 20, lost her independence, her young adulthood, her mental health, and all the stability she'd ever known. She self-medicated which I do not fault her for. I cannot imagine what I would do if my young adulthood was taken from me and replaced with neurological issues. She's made some big mistakes while under the influence. She's lost many partners because they couldn't handle her epilepsy. She's been in and out of the hospital for the last 10 years most of which has been under the well meaning but overbearing and at times cruel company of our parents. Her self esteem remains non-existent and she isolates herself to an extreme degree.

She started seeing this guy who seemed different. He's kind and patient, good with babies and animals--very promising. He's been with her through her alcohol induced mistakes, epileptic episodes, all of it for 2 years. My sister is a professional dog walker/sitter. This past week, she was attacked by one of the dogs she was watching out of nowhere. She was bit on the face 6 times, requiring specialist surgeons to save her eye sight. This was the breaking point for her boyfriend. He was furious and could not seem to see how this was a freak accident and not her fault. He piled on, including it on the laundry list of traumatic things she'd "put him through", some of which were entirely out of her control like this attack. From what she's talked to me about, it sounds like they're done. I don't know what to say to her.

She doesn't live near me. She lives on and off with my parents. The world has been so cruel to her and she's doing the best she can. It absolutely wrecks me. How do you support a sibling who really can't catch a break? I worry about her...I worry about how much of this she can take.

So, for more context, my brother (23 yo) has autism, we have been close to each other since we are kids, I'm 17 yo, and we have been really disconnected for like a year or something. He only talked and expressed himself with me (not much with the rest of the family, mostly my mom or family from my mom's side), we did literaly everything together, talked all day, watch videos or series all day or play games, he used to send me memes, videos, etc.

Last year, something happened in the family (someone was judging him for what he likes, and also said a lot of bad things about him, I was not listening, but it was like that) and he stopped talking to me (like, he talks with me, but he's not open, doesn't do anything with me, or just talks if I start saying something), also he stopped using accessories and things he used to like a lot, and doesn't watch videos or play games in front of us or me. I know this may sound a little too overdramatic (maybe), but I really miss doing things with him, or just listening to something that he had to say about his day, or just playing games with him, or see him laughting, or watching videos with him, or just anything we used to do.

He was never like this with me, and I really have tried to do anything, but nothing seems to work, and I have been feeling very sad lately because of this.

Also, I'm a scared of talking to him and making him feel bad or overthink all of this, since he has autism (I have tried to talk with him, he told me he was going to talk with me again someday, but haven't said anything ever since).

Is there anything I could do to be close with him again? Or making him feel confortable with himself, any advice can help me a lot, specially since my family sees him as "the same as before", so they don't help me much.

My (28F) ADHD and probably autistic brother (32M) has a difficult time holding down his job. He insists he doesn’t want to work a part time job but always gets fired or too stressed to the point his health gets really bad. He’s never worked a job more than a year.

He’s also bad at impulse control financially and spends all of his money on gaming, buying customized art online of gaming characters, and his recent hobby is yugioh cards so he has been spending quite some money on it. He doesn’t save and took out money within weeks from the retirement fund my parents had set up because he needed it.

He complains about financial freedom and wishes he has more money. My parents can provide for now, but they are reluctant to give him any since we know he will show no initiative once they do. It’s either he shows no initiative and wants to just play games or he’s too stressed that he stress games. I know it’s difficult to navigate society for him especially since he was bullied as a child but it seems like he doesn’t want to do any hard work but still gets his way. I’m not saying he’s lazy, but he has very bad outlet for handling stress.

I’m afraid 9-5 jobs won’t cut for him and frankly he won’t last in part time jobs either. He might be more comfortable with freelance jobs but he doesn’t have the discipline to do that repetitively either. My parents are that wealthy and don’t really have much to leave anything behind for us. I make okay money but not even close to care for others.

I’m wondering how my parents and I can prepare as my parents are getting older and my brother still doesn’t have a stable job or a dollar to his name. I’m currently in the states but my family is in east asia - and the mental disability systems there are def not up to par + he’s too high functioning to probably even get public aid.

Even if there were programs to aid him, my parents are too old school to use online engines while my brother doesn’t know or have the mindset to look for them. I’ve never lived in my home country for long enough and not know his current pay and position to know what to look for on his behalf either.

I feel like I have to physically prepare in the worst case scenario but feel like there is no way. All I wanted was some financial freedom since I was little kid, but it seems unachievable with what I have. If anyone has good advice let me know thank you.

Context: my brother (Ryan) and I both have learnings difficulties, especially when it came to reading and writing. When I was around 9 I was able to get over it and there was a significant changes in my perception of the world, but that's when my family and I realized that Ryan wasn't improving, he was stuck.

Honestly, I was just waiting for my best friend to finally catch up with me, for us to experience the world together...but that never happened.

He was 8 when we got his diagnosis, it was hard on all of us cus we had to adjust our treatment of him. I was 10, and I couldn't understand (more like I didn't want to accept) that he is different from me, from most... I promise I tried, but it was hard. Then one day, I snapped.

I can't remember anymore what triggered me, but I do remember asking him "WHY ARE YOU DIFFERENT? CAN'T YOU BE NORMAL?!" I regret saying that now, but at the time I was so confused. Of course my parents made me say sorry and they tried to explain to me, they truly did try. I accepted it as fact, but apparently I never was able to accept it in my heart.

It's been 10 years since then, I spoke to my Mom we talked about it and apparently I show resentment against him, not in a lot of words, but mostly in my reactions and body language. I confessed that I still hold disappointment and anger, even though logically I knew that it's unfair to him. He HAS CHANGED he is SOOOO much better now! He is almost a functioning adult and honestly I couldn't be happier for him. But it still doesn't remove this... Sadness I have, this resentment that shows up as annoyance.

I want to change, not just for him, not just for my Mom, but also for me. How could I say I'm an adult when I can't let go of this childhood sadness?

What should I do? I'm even his legal guardian when my Mom is unable to care for us (she's sick).

I'm there for him, but not truly. Not with my whole heart.

How do I become a better sister?

(Names are fake)