Customer Reviews
shedding light on a taboo subject 
2006-02-12
I found this book after one of my "difficult / disabled" sibling had died. I wish I had found it earlier. It is like a breath of fresh air, acknowledging that all sibling relationships_ aren't_ like some movies such as "Benny and Joon" portray it. If you think that's the "I learned so much from my disabled sister" viewpoint is the right one, don't bother finishing the review or reading the book.
One thing Dr Safer acknowledges is that _nobody_ gets off easy in this mess. If the "normal" child becomes the preferred one, he / she feels a lot of guilt and anger. If the "difficult" sibling becomes the preferred one, well, the "normal" sib feels guilt and anger. I was surprised to read that many "normal" sibs choose not to have children. I should have realized this by taking a look at my own family, but it never hit me until I read it in the book.
Dr Safer shares her own experience as well as about 60 or so other folks. Some stories seem extreme - such as the woman moving her family out of the country, until you read how the person got to this point. There is very little info on siblings who were brutalized by their disabled sibling, but the fact there was any mention at all was astounding. You never see _any_ articles in any magazine about "My sibling robbed me and beat me" or even worse fates. All it's about is "how to get your family together for the holidays" and it's about how maybe your sister dated one of your boyfriends 20 years ago. It doesn't deal with a sibling who is always drunk / high, can't be counted on to even show up for a family occasion and if she does, there _will_be some ugly moments.
I found this book extremely helpful in identifying the problem and getting some of the emotions out for the world to see. Hopefully Dr Safer (or somebody else) will do a follow up on this subject.
If you read this far, you probably _need_ to read the book. It made me feel so much better to see other people had the same sort of emotions I had regarding my sister. I hope it will for you.
Are you the 'normal' one? Read this book. 2005-12-30
At times, reading this book was so difficult I had to close it for a while. The feelings that it brought up were so intense, raw, and neglected for so long that it was difficult for me to face them. Reading this book has made me realize that in my plight I am not alone, and that there are actionable steps I can take in order to heal myself.
Some key quotations from the text that I, personally, found poignant:
- (Healthy children) "grieve, they feel guilty, and they struggle to compensate by achieving for two."
- "Fixing the unfixable, or saving the irredeemable, is a frequent occurrence in sibling dreams... Dreams in which a sibling no longer has the disability ... gives a brief respite that is both painful and pleasing to recollect."
- (The 'normal' one's) "everyday trials and tribulations pale beside the catastrophe of their sibilings' predicaments, so it seems natural that they should never come first... As a result, many healthy siblings grow up with a hunger for attention that it never satisfied and that seems wrong to feel. Their needs, so consistently ignored, become invisible to themselves."
- "The fallout from being invisible is to become self-effacing; perverse preeminence breeds perfectionism, morbid self-criticism, and fear of failure... Excelling is not an ideal; it is an emotional life preserver."
- "... a nameless anxiety haunts them and makes everything they have seems (sic) tenuous or undeserved... compulsive self-sacfrifice driven by the belief that you do not deserve your advantages... At significant moments... it is excruciating to know how much better off you are and always will be."
As difficult as it was to read this book and grapple with all that I had so conveniently ignored for so long, recognizing the common traits of 'normal' siblings is key to becoming whole. Safer outlines those traits to be:
- Premature maturity ("... expected to shoulder ... responsibility ... w/o complaint."
- Survivor guilt ("Every achievement is tainted...")
- Compulsion to achieve ("... must succeed for two...")
- Fear of contagion ("... secret conviction that normality is tenuous or a sham.")
If you are a 'normal' one and are ready to face the issues that come with that head on, check out this book, grab a box of Kleenex, and find a quiet place to hunker down. As Safer writes, "It is no crime for your own life to come first." There is no time like the present to start living it.
Helpful for understanding 
2005-12-13
Collecting signs and symptoms together and calling them a syndrome is helpful but why do Freudians name them after mythical/fictional characters? (Dr. Safer's name for the collection of symptoms exhibited by normal siblings growing up with a damaged or difficult sibling is the dramatic Caliban Syndrome.)
Dr. Safer seems right-on in delineating the personality traits characteristic of "intact" or higher functioning siblings: prematurely mature; driven to succeed; feeling guilty for their good fortune; fear of contagion. Dr. Safer doesn't provide any practical advice, though I would guess that her advice, as an analyst, would be to get started on analysis, asap.
The book is generally well written, though I did get bogged down in sections that were devoted to explaining the syndrome; why it was named Caliban, who Caliban was, and where it fits in modern Freudian theory. I also can't appreciate a discussion of dream analysis, but there's not a lot of that. As a previous reviewer said, there was a bit of repetition. On the other hand, it is reassuring to know that others share similar problems and have similar reactions and feelings, and it probably doesn't hurt to hear that more than once. So, my opinion is that it is a generally helpful book in providing a basis for understanding what happens to normal family members, especially siblings, when one or more members are damaged or difficult.
A great help to me just about every day 2005-05-10
I'm 33 and my autistic, schizophrenic, homosexual, obese, gender-confused, obsessive-compulsive brother is 35.
I bought this book about a year ago and have kept it on my bedside table ever since. When I have problems coping with my brother and the effect he continues to have on my family, I pick it up and reassure myself that other people have shared these feelings.
I wish I belonged to the happy families who write reviews about benign their disabled sibling's effect on their life is.
In my family, my brother's condition has caused continuous state of emergency and crisis for the last 30 years... first, the quest for a diagnosis, then the shuttling from treatment to treatment, the fight to mainstream him in school, dealing with his behavior, finding a place he could be placed afterwards, and now the question of what will happen to him as my parents age.
Yeah, I got shortchanged in the process. Still do, actually. And I did all the things that Safer talks about, from being super achieving to compensate all the way to self-destructing out of survivor guilt.
I haven't reached a point of acceptance and love like Tom Cruise in Rain Man yet. I try to do the right thing, but I hate and resent my brother just as much as I pity him.
Until this book, I'd only been exposed to the "this experience will make you a more compassionate person" school of thought and believed that my more negative feelings were merely selfish and evil.
It's been intensely therapeutic for me to know that these feelings are normal and that I can someday develop a comfortable modus vivendi with my brother and family on my own terms.
An important introductory read for so-called Normal Ones 2004-07-28
I was weak with relief when I read Safer's book; finally someone put into words what I've been feeling all my life. I have two older brothers, one borderline and drug-addicted, the other severely emotionally damaged and physically violent from early childhood. I remember envisioning myself at the age of 10 as walking behind my family with a broom to sweep up all the dirt left behind by my brothers' actions. The pressure to be perfect to offset their flaws was incredible. As the only girl I'd always had more expected of me and thought that it was due to generational sexism on the part of my parents; Safer led me to consider the possibility that it was partly because I was my parents' last hope.
What I wish Safer had included more of was a discussion of the rage that abused normals feel. My violent brother terrorized and brutalized me; many years later, I still feel a great deal of hatred toward him. Yet Safer's focus on guilt (her own brother never hurt her, so she doesn't feel residual rage toward him) made me feel somehow dirty that my guilt is matched by equal -- no, MORE powerful -- feelings of rage. I wish too that Safer had acknowledged that sometimes parents, in an effort to blame their damaged child(ren)'s defects on something, anything, will overtly blame the good child for somehow robbing their damaged sibling(s) of health and wellbeing. This happened to me; thus I grew up knowing that I had to succeed to save the family name (a phrase my mother tossed around liberally), yet at the same time every success was held against me as an act of thievery against my brothers.
I agree with the other reviewer who said the book is a good start, but not enough. It could have been twice as long, with much more detail paid to the different varieties of the Caliban Syndrome. Surely the syndrome must vary, as the disabilities of the damaged sibling(s) vary. For instance, emotional disabilities often render children difficult to be around. Contrast this with a sweet, benign child confined to a wheelchair. The latter might be deemed a hero; the former usually aren't. No one mistook my siblings for heroes, so I've never experienced the particular frustration of resenting a sibling everyone else thinks is an angel incarnate. On the other hand, I dealt with violent abuse. My point is that Safer has introduced a concept (the Caliban Syndrome) that, in its attempt to be all-inclusive, glosses over important differences in normal children's experiences that result from differences in the nature of their sibling's damage. At the end of the day, though, it's clear that I'm praising Safer with faint damnation. She had something important to say, something that resonated bigtime with me and others, and now I (we) want more. That should be good news for any author.
Not impressed 
2008-07-24
As the "normal" child in my family, I thought I'd give this book a shot.
I was a bit turned-off from the start by the title..."damaged"?? Excuse me? I guess I should have known from there that this wasn't the book for me. To be completely honest, I never finished this pathetic book. I read a good bit of it and after being offended over and over, I decided to just give up on the stupid thing.
Perhaps I'm a minority in that I actually enjoyed and appreciated my sister. Sure, it wasn't always easy, but what relationship really is? I have a hard time believing that the people who relate to this book don't actually have much deeper issues themselves that have little to do with a "difficult" sibling.
Presents worst-case only - unbalanced and self-serving 2008-04-09
I read this book to gain insight as I have a disabled child and several other children. The author of this book has a very skewed version of reality. Even her own culture promotes the kind treatment of the disabled and mentally ill, yet she feels "Normal" siblings would benefit from having the other child institutionalized. The scenes described int his book do not occur in our home as we are active and involved parents, not misguided and overly indulgent while ignoring the "normal child" which is the only description of parents afforded in this book.
Far From Safe 2007-12-08
Dr. Safer, the ironically named author describes her life with her parents and brother and the fraternal relationship portrayed herein sounds anything but safe or loving.
Her older brother Stephen is treated like a pariah in the family. He is moved into separate quarters within the house and is relegated to skeleton in the closet status. Despite his academic and musical successes, he is not even fully recognized or acknowledged by his own family.
It sounds as if the family was conditioned to react negatively to Stephen regardless of what he said or did. Even his musical prowess went largely unappreciated by them.
Dr. Safer on the other hand is indulged to the point of excess. It is only in later years, long after she has established her career that she even admits she has a brother named Stephen. It is good that a chapter was devoted to Stephen; it was long past time he was given his turn at bat.
The way Stephen was treated and the way Dr. Safer was favored turned my stomach. This book is an eye opener in how not to treat others.
Important but Imbalanced 
2006-12-14
I opened this book with interest on many levels. To start with, I'm a social worker and looked forward to reading a book that deals with a subject few authors have looked at--the emotional toll of a special needs sibling on the healthy sibling. As a parent, I had particular interest. Of my four children, three had special needs and my youngest child was the "normal one." While she was growing up, I was acutely aware of the scars this might leave and hoped that this book could provide pointers about what I could do as a parent to ameliorate that effect.
The book is a contribution because it provides validation to so many people (some of whom have expressed themselves quite eloquently in other reviews on this site) who have suffered as a result of being the "normal" sibling. But the book offered almost no redeeming messages, especially for parents. There was some material on how "normal" sibs can heal themselves as adults but otherwise, the book was an unmitigately grim catalogue of one after another depressing story of being emotionally damaged, neglected and hurt by being the "normal" one. There were few if any redemptive messages and, worse, no guidance for parents of special needs children how to minimize the damage to their healthy children.
Perhaps because of my social work training, I worked very hard to make sure my youngest daughter got as much focus and attention as was feasible. When she was growing up, I felt it was essential as my healthy child's emotional needs--as much as time allowed--by taking her out to movies and ice cream, making sure I listened to her concerns, cuddling her and talking honestly to her about my own predicament of trying to be there for her AND her high-maintenance, intermittently very disturbed older siblings, and inviting her to speak openly to me about her resentments. I spoke to her teachers and school administration so they were aware of the home circumstances in which she was living and the impact that might have on her academics, homework, socialization, and in-school behavior. I arranged for her to see a therapist. For a while she found it helpful, then she stopped going and recently, she started again with a new therapist whom she seems to like.
But I know that these measures can't make up for the large chunks of time I haven't been able to devote to her, for the chaos that often characterized the household, and the trauma of being exposed to some of the scenes she unfortunately witnessed.
So I would have liked some guidance (I still would), not merely validation, commiseration and bemoaning, from the author of this book. The book was a good idea but essentially, it ended where the real work should have begun--in offering far more guidance and hope to the "normal sibling" reader and to parents as well.
Strong emotions 2006-06-23
I think the subject of a sibling that is different is a very touchey feely one. However, I think peoples defense of people with disabilities and their own exclamations that this does not happen in their family does not belittle the fact that the caliban syndrome does exist. I believe in small families the syndrome is more pronounced and that in larger families with greater sibling support the affects of estrangement that is brought on by the different child can be countered by an understanding that responsiblity will not fall on one or two siblings alone.
I have a brother with autism who is two years older than me. Despite that fact of the variance her brother and mine, I found that indeed the symptoms she described were not mine alone. I have been going through therapy for the past year and not until this have I realized the profound emotions I have toward him. Despite the fact that he is only two years older I felt that he had been a stranger to me my whole life. He had from childhood been self-abvusive and physical lashed out at my younger mentally retarded brother. At age 11 he was sent to a live in school. Around this time I developed an acute abandonment anxiety. Strange as it was it wasn't until this year that I had tied the two pieces together.
If you're the sibling of a difficult brother or sister and feel overwhelmed this book will help you learn that you are not alone.
Again the symptoms described in this book are often brought about by extreme circumstances and may not accurately reflect everyones difficulty with a sibling who is just plain difficult. Still for someone with conflicting feelings to their siblings this book will raise the wordsb they dared not speak before.
