In the psychotherapeutic world, sibling relationships generally aren’t examined and wrung for meaning with the same fervor as romantic ones or–goodness knows–parent-child ones. And that’s a mistake, given how defining they are, says Jeanne Safer in “The Normal One” (Delta, $12.95). A psychotherapist herself, she is especially interested in situations where one sibling is considered difficult or damaged and the other “normal”; her attention here is on the supposedly undamaged one.
She writes from experience, as the younger sister of a brother who was treated by their parents–and, she admits, by her–as an embarrassing failure, excluded from the cozy family circle of love and approval. Among the burdens she, “the normal one,” has borne are “premature maturity,” a compulsion to achieve and a fear that her brother’s problems might contaminate her.
Not that she declares herself the greater victim. She merely urges that more attention be paid to how the dynamic of normal/abnormal plays out for all members of a family.
On guilt: “Guilt is rarely absent from the thoughts of healthy adults about their damaged siblings because no amount of devotion or care can . . . blot out the dark victory of their own normality.”
