Medium: The Invisible Brothers

Being born the oldest, the youngest or the middle one, does not have to determine the personality traits of children. However, in families in which their dynamics are not healthy, the position of birth can influence the development of their character.

This is the case of middle siblings caught between the oldest, who everyone admires for being the first, and the youngest, who everyone pampers.

In families where roles are highly determined by birth position, no one notices that middle brother. He is there, as in no man’s land, and it has to be him, without any help or support, who claims his role in the family. This search for their own identity is usually done through nonconformity and claim.

Middle sibling emotional profile

These children, often in certain families, need to attract attention to be listened to and valued. If no one notices their existence, if they are not cared for like the other children in the family, they feel alone, lost and frustrated. Nobody values ​​its existence. They feel invisible. It could be said that, in some way and rightly so, they get angry with life and with their parents.

Many middle siblings from families with very marked roles (it tends to happen a lot in traditional families) end up being branded as “the rebels”, “the black sheep”. In reality, this nonconformity stems from the development of a strong personality. Without some adults to make them visible, these children have to make a living for themselves.

They can become people of strong character, with great determination.

However, the lack of attention from their elders also makes them vulnerable and very sensitive to signs of affection or lack of it.

Being the one in the middle can cause anxiety

When Juan came to my office, I found myself in front of a very anxious and stressed person. From what he told me, he could n’t find a way to calm down or feel good.

He was always alert, distrustful of others and did not know how to stop feeling so much anguish. He told me that he was a musician and that he had always managed to control his anxiety through his art, but that in recent months, not even his music could help him.

When we started his therapy he told me that he was the middle of three children. The oldest was four years older than him and the youngest was born just ten months after him.

As he told me, his mother always said that she had become pregnant in her forties. He also told her that he had been a very troublesome baby who would not stop crying and having colic.

Juan always had to share his parents’ attention.

He could not recall a single minute of his childhood in which he had been given any attention by himself. They only paid attention to him when he got angry and yelled. So, since he was very little, he remembered being angry with everyone. In his family they nicknamed him and made fun of him for this reason. They called him “Juan pissed off” or “Juan second, the angry one.”

In one of his sessions, Juan remembered himself only crying in the garden of his house. He was about five or six years old, had fallen from one of their fig trees and broken his leg. It hurt so much that he could not walk, so, as much as he screamed and cried, it took several hours until they realized his absence and came to attend to him.

How to get rid of that shell

Juan remembered the helplessness he felt at that time. He thought that no one loved him and that he was going to die there alone, without anyone’s help. From that episode he became suspicious and it was very difficult for him to believe in his family or anyone else.

In fact , he never really became intimate with any of his friends, he kept them at a prudent “emotional distance” as he told me. He did not want to open up to anyone, or have a partner, he did not trust that they would abandon him and leave him alone.

Little by little, Juan was working to rebuild his self-esteem and self-confidence. He understood that as a child he had suffered from true emotional neglect from his parents, but now, as an adult, he could take care of himself. At last he could see himself as he really was, a person of great worth, talent and strength.

Juan was able to free himself from the armor that he had had to create to survive in the world of lovelessness of his childhood. She began to open up to people, to trust some real friends, and she even launched into serious dating with a guy, a singer she had known since her early days in music, who had always been there by her side when she needed help.