In a former job, where I used to work as a substance abuse counselor, there would be a concept that I would bring up with regard to certain behaviors that would be predictive with some clients. It had to do with the idea that if an initial problem was not taken care of and kept in check, a compensating behavior would be likely to repeat itself over and over again until that said problem was corrected. Taking this idea, what if this process happened with those of us experiencing self-esteem issues following our sibling estrangement if left unchecked?
As a therapist, if you sit long enough with someone, you can see the issue that emerges and that, at times, remains unchallenged by some clients, whether directly verbalized or not. Some of these can be the lack of emotional affection and acceptance in one’s family of origin or the idea that you had to work extra hard at gaining approval and affection from a parent or family member. If you’ve internalized that you had to work at gaining acceptance, then you will invariably keep on putting pressure on yourself when things don’t work out in a sibling relationship. The risk is in falling into personalization which can foster rumination.
What’s more, throw narcissism into the mix, and you can have a sense of walking on eggshells for a large part of your life, by trying to cater to someone who constantly changes the rules, which can leave us feeling disoriented, disheartened, and disillusioned. When we’re young, we’re like blank pages. We don’t know about narcissism, and all we want is to please our parents or close ones. If we have an agreeable personality, this can also cause us to want to especially please other people even more, because it makes us feel good.
Transferred into adult life, this type of scenario can predictively cause us to make other people’s feelings more important than ours. In fact, we can be dismissive of our feelings in favor of approval from another person, whether real or perceived. When this happens, we can start to make choices that are based on lowered self-esteem. This can stunt our growth, causing us to doubt ourselves, and, in a way, censor ourselves out of fear or uncertainty. Therefore, predictably, a lowered self-esteem will cause us to experience less thriving and flourishing in life.
So how can we increase our self-esteem, and break free of negative self-defeating patterns? First, by being able to attribute more importance to your feelings and well-being. You’re not going to become egotistical for doing so. You just won’t forget about yourself, rather than expecting others to take care of you.
Patterns imply a certain static behavior that gets repeated over and over again. Starting to ask the magical question of what we can do differently can be a further step in breaking free of predictable behavior. Talking with a therapist who understands sibling estrangement is a way to step out of our fixed behaviors and learn more objectively how we think and respond in various situations. In turn, we can choose to create other responses that come from a position of higher self-esteem, that will keep our needs in mind, and in turn, foster a healthy expression of ourselves.
If this speaks to you, and you would like to go further, consider joining my intensive workshop on “Improving Self-Esteem following Sibling Estrangement (Start date is September 13th 2023). For more info, please click https://siblingestrangement.com/groups/
Take care, and remember, you are not alone.
Ali-John Chaudhary is a Registered Psychotherapist with offices in Ontario and Quebec. He helps clients from different parts of the world going through sibling estrangement issues, and produces YouTube videos on the same subject, with Author Fern Schumer Chapman. He also hosts a twice-monthly online support group and an intensive workshop both on zoom (see groups) for those looking to empower themselves with this rarely discussed subject.
Sibling Estrangement 