Sibling Guilt? Need feedback.

jmorrison0722 wrote:What can I do about it now to find some peace and happiness?

What you can do is focus on the future, not the past.

For instance, if you decide to respond to my advice, what aspect of your past forces you to respond? Hopefully the answer is nothing. You choose to respond or not based on the future, not your past. Whatever your parents, sister, or life circumstances of the past, they do not dictate or force your future choices. At this moment in time, as you read this message, you have 100% control over whether you respond or not and how you respond. This choice you face has to do with now, today...not your past.

Aspiring for perfection is a surefire way to not be happy with yourself. Look, you're afraid of sounding shallow and dumb sometimes. Let me put your mind at ease - You will. Everyone sounds shallow and dumb sometimes. But there are two important things to remember about that:
1. The problem starts when you can't accept that. You seem to be deathly scared of being your brother, whether for your parents or yourself. Your brother had his own issues, but we all do and are all a product of some of what we experienced growing up. You will make mistakes, you will have regrets. The secret is not to beat yourself up about them. You're human and humans make mistakes and there's no avoiding that. For that matter, not going out in fear of making mistakes is in itself a mistake. The solution is basically to go out there, make a few mistakes, seem dumb or shallow or whatever negative adjective you're afraid of seeming, and then notice that it doesn't matter unless you decide it matters, which you shouldn't. Which leads me to:
2. Let's have a little thought experiment. Let's say I'm at a party and I'm in a conversation with a bunch of people, and I say "Barack Obama was a great president", what would happen? How would the people around me respond? The answer, of course, is that it depends. Some people would think I'm smart, some would think I'm stupid. This is an obvious example, but it's true for everything you say. When you're talking to people, you can't say things which are inherently bad or dumb or shallow or whatever you are scared of it being. You say stuff, and some people will agree and some won't. That is true no matter what you say, and you usually won't even know what they are thinking about what you said. I said that you definitely will sound shallow and dumb sometimes, and that's because everyone has different opinions so someone will definitely think that at some point. There's just no avoiding it, but it simply does not matter.
Also bear in mind that what you think others think of you, unless they say it outright, stems from your own feelings and self esteem. What you think others think of you is usually a reflection of what you think of yourself. When I'm down on myself I'm sure everyone hates me, when I feel great my guesses as to what people are thinking are always that I'm awesome. From that we can learn two things: The first, what you need to work on is you to get more self esteem, so you don't automatically assume what comes out of your mouth will be considered dumb and shallow. The second, you have no way of guessing what others are thinking, as what you think they think is always going to be a product of your own thoughts. The same thing happens with what people tell you, not just what they think. I completely disregard compliments I receive when I'm feeling bad as "politeness" or "just being nice", whereas people telling me bad things is "how everyone actually feels about me". When I'm feeling good, the compliments sink in a lot better, whereas people telling me bad things are "bitter, having a bad day, etc." Now what that means is - there is no point in trying. Once you get the habit of regarding your own thoughts of what others think of you as false, which they really are, it will get easier to disregard them and not act according to them.

Another thing - you asked if this is what happens to "children in your situation". There are no set answers and no one was in your exact situation, because your situation and feelings stem from a lot of things. Be careful not to put yourself in a box as a "case", because that has the chance of making you feeling you don't have a say in the matter and to give up.

Hope this helped, I would love to get some feedback so I can better help you.