On Siblings: Reflections on Estrangement, Compassion, and the Quiet Work of Protecting Ourselves

In my work as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, I’ve noticed something that rarely gets talked about: how deeply complicated sibling relationships can be.

People often speak about these relationships in fragments—half-formed memories, conflicting feelings, silence where language should have been. The word brother might bring to mind childhood play, fierce loyalty, rivalry, or emotional distance. The word sister might evoke protectiveness, closeness, resentment, or estrangement. For some, siblings are anchors. For others, they’re ghosts—present in memory, but not in life.

These relationships are often loaded with expectation and comparison. We imagine that siblings are supposed to be close, to understand each other intuitively, to remain connected through time. And when that isn’t the case, people can be left feeling grief they don’t always recognize as grief.

The Dialectic of Siblinghood

In myth and story, sibling relationships often involve both connection and rupture. Cain and Abel. Rachel and Leah. Jacob and Esau. Fairy tales and sitcoms alike tell stories of teasing, rivalry, sacrifice, abandonment, and allegiance. The dynamics often reflect broader patterns in families and cultures: gender roles, birth order, unspoken loyalty tests.

Behind the scripts we’re handed—“siblings are forever,” “you’ll need each other one day,” “they’re the only ones who understand your childhood”—are real histories of harm and hope. For some, a sibling was the first person who made them feel safe. For others, the first person who made them feel small.

I’ve worked with patients who describe feeling unseen or silenced in the presence of a sibling who dismissed, mocked, or overshadowed them. Others speak of a quiet heartbreak—the kind that comes from waiting for a connection that never arrives. Over time, many respond not with dramatic rupture but with slow, deliberate retreat.

They say things like:

“I stopped talking. I stopped being myself around them.”“I only show up when it’s for someone else I care about.”“At some point, I stopped listening, stopped caring what they thought.”

What they’re describing isn’t avoidance—it’s protection. It’s the quiet work of survival inside a relationship that no longer feels reciprocal, safe, or respectful.

And yet, when I ask what they’ve lost in the process, they usually pause.

They’ve lost the chance to be known. The possibility—however unlikely—of deeper understanding. Time with shared loved ones, filtered through distance. And sometimes, they say this:

“I lost some of my compassion for them. But I gained compassion for myself.”

That sentence stays with me. It reframes the entire arc of estrangement—not as a failure, but as a boundary. Not as a rejection of love, but as a rebalancing of where that love is directed.

Compassion turned inward isn’t selfish. It’s often the beginning of healing.

Giving Ourselves Time

What we often need in the aftermath of a painful sibling relationship isn’t confrontation—it’s time. Not time to forget or forgive automatically, but time to see more fully. Time to feel what we weren’t allowed to feel. Time to loosen the survival narratives and ask, “What’s true now?”

Sometimes I suggest an exercise to patients navigating sibling estrangement:

“If your sibling were truly listening—not to argue, not to correct, but to understand—what would you say?”

This isn’t about seeking reconciliation. It’s about claiming voice. These imagined dialogues often surface years of unspoken pain:

• Here’s what your actions meant to me.

• Here’s how I made myself smaller to keep things calm.

• Here’s what I’ve carried—alone.

• Here’s the compassion I’ve shown you for years—and the anger I now allow myself to feel.

• Here’s what I’m choosing to let go of, for my own well-being.

The results are not always dramatic. But they’re often clarifying. People begin to trust their own perspective again. They stop contorting themselves to keep the peace. They make different decisions about when and how they show up—and for whom.

What Legacy Will You Carry?

The goal is rarely to “fix” the relationship. More often, it’s to understand it, grieve it, and re-orient to it with integrity. To recognize the losses and the gains. To name the patterns without being defined by them. To decide what kind of legacy you want to carry—and what you’re finally ready to set down.

To wonder, “Oh Brother, where art thou?” isn’t just to question their presence. It’s also to ask:

Where am I, now that I’ve stopped waiting for them to be someone else?

And maybe: Where do I want to go from here?