Feeling inferior to my brother

[Ken]

my brother used to be a member of Wrongplanet, the same wrongplanet that I was kicked off of. My brother, despite his brashness, fiery temper, aggressive personality, etc. still was loved on wrongplanet and when he made a thread talking about being married everyone was cheering for him and showed him tons of love and congratulations. he eventually left wrongplanet to focus on his education and right now he's doing much better in life despite everything he's been through.

I'm the total opposite of my brother. when I made an account on Wrongplanet the same people who loved my brother hated and despised me, fought with me and didn't care about me when I was permanently banned. Unlike my brother who's strong willed and tough as nails im weak, soft and a coward. Unlike my brother who people like no one likes me. And unlike my brother who was successful enough to find a fiance that only ended up in divorce because of his health deteriorating, someone like me is too ugly and unloveable for anyone to love me.

I dont hate my brother, I know he has a hard life and his own challenges that I cant ever understand. he lost his best friend to suicide, had an abusive biological father (we're step brothers), has taken more punches to the face than Muhammad Ali, suffered a terrible life altering injury in 2017, lost his mom in 2020, and has been through terrible "stuff" I could never understand. yet despite that all I sometimes wish I was as tough, resilient and accomplished as my brother. I wish I could be someone that isn't a loser like the one I am.

It took me 67 years to finally figure this out, but now I realize it is an absolute. You are you and your brother is himself. You are different from each other. Your brother is unique. No one is like him. You are unique. No one is like you. That is true for every person on this planet. It is not a competition. Trying to compete is a net negative and a distraction - a dilution - of who you are. You are a good person. The measure is not by your brother or any other person on this planet. The measure is you. Do you suspect your brother knows you are envious? Do you suppose your brother may be envious of you?

These questions often seem to be obvious, but they are not. When I retired from my last job, I felt that I was mostly a failure. I felt I could never measure up and that I was always on the edge of being fired. On my last day, my boss told me that he really hated to see me go, because he said I was his best ever employee. I guess the shock of hearing that was apparent, so be began to list my accomplishments. None of those accomplishments in his list did I feel were accomplishments. I thought they were all subpar. He said I was a major force in the success of the business. What he said to me in that moment left me "shell shocked" in disbelief.

The point is that you never know. In the thick of life, nothing ever seems good enough. But, the reality, that is invisible to you, is that you are far more successful than you think. Just remember, you are supposed to be you. You are not supposed to be anyone else or be like anyone else. You are a very successful you. And that is far more important than you think.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I know that I am successful because my dad has told me he was proud of me and how far I’ve come which is something I never thought that I’d hear because I thought I was just a big disappointment because I was nothing like my sister and she had more for him to be proud of than I did. Taking martial arts classes was really the first time I ever felt like I was good at something and had no one to secretly compare me to my sister. It was the very first thing that I had ever done that I could call my own.

Growing up with an older sibling that is extremely smart is rather difficult especially if you are undiagnosed with Asperger’s and everyone thinks you are “lazy” because you can’t learn new math skills easily and just give up when you get frustrated because your brain starts to shut down but you are trying to keep it running because everyone else expects you to finish the math problem. My sister pretty much was the only one to never hold my difficulty to learn some stuff against me but she really didn’t know what was wrong with me as everyone else assumed that I was doing this on purpose just to get attention. It was hard hearing people tell me how smart my sister was and that she was so good at playing the piano.

When I started to take martial arts classes, the pressure I constantly felt to try to be just as good as my sister disappeared. I could actually learn at my own pace without feeling judged and compared to her.