So yeah...thanks to them for not even giving me the chance to feel like I could really fit in & gain approval from other people. I'm a free woman now.

I don't think suffering social disapproval automatically makes you a good person. Far from it! I don't think experiencing social approval makes you a bad person.

But I think (perhaps obviously...) people who successfully conform to social systems struggle significantly more with breaking out of them than those who don't or were never granted that opportunity.

My older siblings made sure us younger kids KNEW we were doing things "wrong", & in the long run that sort of helped us get free.

If you mainly taste the punishment without the rewards, you're going to resent that system & not want to participate.

If you do manage to perform your social role "correctly", however, then you're hooked. That's the bait AND the cage.

Nice for them that they didn't live under the same constant disapproval we did, but it means they tasted a lot more of the "rewards" of conformity & participating "correctly" in certain social systems.

Except that the rewards are part of the trap. If you are used to the rewards, it's hard to imagine giving them up, I think. It's hard to believe there is life on the other side of that.

Bro2 is actually seeking some healing & a different way of living, but it took his whole life falling apart around him to get there. Bro1 & Big Sis haven't had their lives fall apart, & I don't think they can even imagine blowing them up to get free of constraints that are hurting them.

They got more social approval than we young ones did as kids, & I think that makes it significantly harder to say "fuck social approval. I'm living my life my way."

But then again, I started to follow the script & fought my way out of that role, so it's not like it *can't* be done, but again...the advantage of feeling unable to ever catch a break as a kid is that it gives you a higher tolerance for social judgment & consequences.

Being in a strict religious community did not help my older siblings. There was a script that they all attempted to follow with varying degrees of success.

And then a catalyst for major change for us was the catastrophe that was Bro2's wedding & the fall-out from that. THAT was definitely an unfair advantage we had over Bro1 & Bro2. We were at the cusp of adulthood going "I want to avoid that at all costs."

Likewise, Apollo looked at our 2 older brothers & the lives they chose & went "Nope. Not what I want" & consciously lived his life to avoid being in the situations they were in.

Lil Sis (9 years younger than Apollo) has the benefit of looking at all of us—which must be pretty intense, but seems to have given her a lot of perspective & the ability to make choices with awareness at a level I don't think I am at. I sometimes worry it's a little *too* much for her, but... that's her path.

It really did kind of hurt my heart watching my older sister go through first believing that getting married would make her happy, & then thinking it would be when she had a kid, & then thinking it would be when she had several kids.

*I* knew that's not how happiness worked. I'd seen enough of other people's lives by then to know that pinning your hopes on things like that leads to a cycle of disappointment, but she was just out there, blazing her own path, not realizing where she was headed.

Like, legit, I resented them so much as a kid & young adult, but as I've gotten to my mid-30s, I've found that they never really gave that much attention to the choices they made in life. They often didn't even seem aware of the choices they made.

Us younger ones got to watch them follow the script that had been handed out to all of us & think "fuck no! I don't want that."

If I compare ourselves as adults, it becomes pretty clear that myself, Apollo, & Lil Sis have all made much more conscious choices across many areas of our lives.

There is an advantage—almost an unfair one it seems—in watching other people grow up first.

Some older children still pay attention to & study what happens with other people (obviously. It's a thing a lot of people do), but they are somewhat less likely to be in a situation that strongly incentivizes them to do that.

My path is obviously not the only path to that (please don't think I'm saying "all older siblings are bad people" or something like that! That'd be an awful thing to imply), but it was one path to get there.

Aside from bullying, being a younger sibling in a big fam can give you an opportunity to develop more perspective on the concept of "other people", I think. From birth, you're thrown into a complex world where everyone else has a headstart. You have to be a student of people to survive.