I was certainly in my sister's shadow, but not in the same way as you talk about. She was the text book golden child - daddy's girl. And I was - well - I was me, lol. It never actually bothered me though. I never felt in competition with her, but probably because I was very happy just being who I was. Also because the favouritism was simply because our personalities were so different. I actually excelled at everything and my dad was happy about that; I just didn't care to please him the same way/seek approval from him.

I looked up to my sister when I was a kid, but our parents didn't really facilitate us having a tight siblingship. I would have loved for her to take me under her wing more and be the person I could turn to first for stuff, but she was pretty mean and emotionally unavailable to me most of the time (I was mean to her too). We fought constantly.

I definitely did not like the expectation that I SHOULD be like her though. I probably would not have gotten into so much shit all the time if my dad and most teachers had been able to work with my unique personality. Lulz.

We get along great now that we're adults, and especially now that we both have families of our own. Grateful for maturity. Gosh, my feelings about family have changed so much in the past couple years.

Last edited by Silky Johnson on Sep-26-2017 at 16:59

It all depends on your relationship with him. If you guys are tight, you are a team. I dont think people should measure themselves up as lessers to successful siblings barring if one of the siblings is a complete fuck up. If not, there are different kinds of achievements.

Wifey hit it on the head.

As faggy as this sounds, if you want to feel a sense of achievement, help him as best you can through the rough shit he is going through.

From what i can acertain from you, you are doing alright.



If you dont like him. Plant a gun and some meth in his car and petition that any wins in his athletic carrer are voided.

Profit.

___________________
Freak Out Tóng Zhì

quote:

Originally posted by Dykes_on_Jay It all depends on your relationship with him. If you guys are tight, you are a team.

We were best friends. But his issues drove us further apart because he needed space. Like, lots of space. Really closed himself off to not just me, but the world. I wanted him to reach out to me and tell me some of the things he was going through and I got angry with him, we fought and didn't speak for 6 months. We made up, but it happened again recently, we argued over something stupid and stopped talking. He can be very hard-headed and difficult to deal with, but I know a lot of that came from the bizarre relationship he had with his ex-wife. Slowly making our way back together but we aren't the same friends we used to be.

quote:

I dont think people should measure themselves up as lessers to successful siblings barring if one of the siblings is a complete fuck up. If not, there are different kinds of achievements. Wifey hit it on the head.

I have been trying to migrate to this mindset, where our paths in life are different and I don't need to be just as good as him, or try to compete to where I am better than him. I can only do what I can do, as long as I do my best. It has taken me some 30 years to figure that out, but I'm coming around, slowly but surely.

quote:

As faggy as this sounds, if you want to feel a sense of achievement, help him as best you can through the rough shit he is going through. From what i can acertain from you, you are doing alright.

Yeah, I will definitely try. Maybe next year I'll be at the point where I'm making team shirts for our family as we follow him around the race course cheering him on.

I guess it has been hard for me to arrive at that mindset of being a separate entity from him because I have lived almost my entire life thinking that if I'm not as good as he is, then I have failed. In reality, I'm doing just fine on my own and maybe I can't run or bike or swim as fast, nor do I have as nuanced of a knowledge base on history (he reads voraciously), but I am my own person with my own set of things I'm good at and shouldn't try to be him. I should try to be me.

___________________

Set Archive | TA DJ Challenge

quote:

Originally posted by Dykes_on_Jay If you dont like him. Plant a gun and some meth in his car

I'm the older brother, and always felt more pressure to achieve. I was the academically gifted one and my brother was better at sports. It balanced out, because we were good at such different things there wasn't much sibling rivalry.

Funny you should talk about running, though. I've always been a useless sportsman but I'm a much better runner than him. He's a pretty stocky guy these days - he weighs about 30 kilos more than me. I'm built to run, no question. But then, I have a friend who never ran at all, but we dashed for a train once and I could tell immediately he was a natural runner. I suggested he take it up, and now he's smashing all the times I ever achieved. So much of physical achievement is down to genetics. When you run, you can only improve your baseline abilities by so much. It's a silly subject to be competitive about, because it will never be a level playing field.

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

I can relate to that... From the other end. My siblings and I are almost the same age, and I'm the first-born (I'm 18 months older than my sister and 3 years older than my brother). I wouldn't say your experience was much different from theirs... And all I can say is I feel terrible for the effects of the shadow I seem to have cast.

I'm aware I had a great head-start in life. I learned to speak in San Antonio, Texas, and just as I started "remembering" things, I was in Turin, Italy, right next to the French border... So I hit that sweet spot when I was the right age to benefit from these linguistic experiences. My siblings, not so much. I also hogged a few resources, so I quickly became the one who learned how to play the piano... And went on to give concerts at school. The one who, aged 10, decided to cram like there's no tomorrow so I could get into an elite middle school (my brother pulled it off 3 years later as well). And, two decades later, I'm the one who landed a job at a prestigious university, and who's married.

This doesn't seem to have had a positive effect on my siblings' self-esteem. At all. As a result, they've both set unrealistically high standards for themselves, apparently, and become increasingly frustrated when they don't make it. And it's weird, because my sister passed the bar examination thingy, so she could be a successful lawyer, and my brother has a good job in his field... but they won't settle for anything less than working for Google or teaching Law in Harvard.

So yeah, nothing good seems to have come out of this "sibling rivalry"... and I only noticed it a couple of years ago. Needless to say, it makes me feel horrible

___________________
Indiana Clones Upcoming Sets
[ I May Upload Something Someday ]

Pfft, one more reason to HATE LIRA.

Joke is on y'all, if you put meth in my car, I'll be so clueless I might as well mistake it for ice put it in the wrong kind of coke

...

Edit: According to Google, meth does dissolve in soda! Oh, my dentist's gonna love this

___________________
Indiana Clones Upcoming Sets
[ I May Upload Something Someday ]

quote:

Originally posted by Lira backdoor brag yo!

Bro talk about full of yourself

quote:

Originally posted by Jon_Snow I'm not even yo bro I'm hating

Yeah, I was afraid it could come across as humblebragging

The sole reason I'm saying this stuff is because, just like Zip said it took his wife to tell him he shouldn't measure up to his brother, it also took mine to explain that's exactly what was going on at home... So, maybe, Zip's brother feels it too, and it could be bothering him just as much.

I try to make my siblings feel special for who they are, and raise their spirits, and slowly but surely, they're looking for their paths in life. The thing is, I feel there's this competition regarding "who made it", and I most definitely don't think this should be going on.

Edit: I see why this may sound like I'm being full of myself. But, let me tell you something - I'm well aware I'm still a mediocre researcher working in the fringes of my field, who's never left his alma mater, and has a lot of room for improvement. However, I also realise how lucky I am to have got the little things I have. And, I didn't want to believe this was a problem, in spite of what countless people told me. When I ran out of explanations, I just took these people on their word.

___________________
Indiana Clones Upcoming Sets
[ I May Upload Something Someday ]

Last edited by Lira on Sep-26-2017 at 23:26

I could imagine you comforting your siblings. Trying to explain to them they shouldn't feel bad for not measuring up to you.