The Normal One: Life with a Difficult or Damaged Sibling

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.

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.

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.

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!

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