Session 434: Ask Dr. Joy - The Sibling Sit Down - Therapy for Black Girls

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or

(00:32):
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much

(00:57):
for joining me for session four thirty four of the
Therapy for Black Girls Podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
We'll get run into our conversation after a brief word
from our sponsors. This week, we're kicking off a new
mini series here on the podcast that we're calling the
Siblings sit Down. Over the next couple of weeks, we

(01:22):
will be digging into the bonds that have formed us
and shaped us, the relationships that challenge us, and everything
in between. We have found that the relationship with our
siblings is often very formative. It's some of the most
formative relationships we will have in our lives, but we
don't talk about them that much, and so we're hoping
that with this mini series we can change that narrative

(01:43):
just a little. So in this first episode, it's an
ask Doctor Joy episode where I will be answering questions
that have been submitted by our community members over at
our Patreon channel. And I do ask doctor Joy pretty
frequently over in our Patreon and I thought that I
would bring it over here to the podcast so that
we could kick off this special mini series of all
about siblings. So here's our first question. I had an

(02:05):
older brother who passed away in twenty twenty three. He
was always my protector and we were incredibly close growing up.
Losing him has left a whole I'm still trying to
understand for anyone who's lost a sibling, how do you
navigate grief while honoring the bond you had. So first,
I just want to say that I am incredibly sorry

(02:26):
for your loss. It is never easy to lose somebody
who has been so meaningful to us, and it sounds
like your brother was incredibly meaningful to you, and so
I'm very sorry for your loss. I love to hear
that you are still thinking about how to honor that
relationship because I have often heard greed that is talked
about as it is love that just doesn't have a

(02:48):
place to go anymore. And that is the truth. There
is still love that exists in the relationship between you
and your brother. And so one of the most powerful
analogies that I've seen for as it relates to grief
is to think about grief and yourself as a glass jar.
So you're a glass jar, and then grief is this
marble that in the beginning, like immediately after you've lost someone,

(03:10):
the marble takes up the entire size of the jar,
right like it feels like you cannot breathe, there is
no space for anything besides this grief. And then as
time goes on, you don't change, right, but your capacity
to hold the grief changes. So the marble becomes smaller
and smaller, and the jar just kind of grows around it.

(03:31):
And I think that that's really powerful because the truth
is that you may never not miss your brother. There
will likely always be some sadness, a little twinge of
something because the relationship has been meaningful. And so it
really is not about moving past this laws. It's thinking
more about how does your life continue, how does your

(03:51):
story continue to develop? And this is now a part
of your story. So one of the things that I
think is really really important is making sure that you
are leading on your community to help you to process
the grief. So there is no timeline. Just because it's
been you say that twenty twenty three, so maybe two
years and some change since you lost your brother, that
doesn't mean that you should not still be said that

(04:13):
you should not still want to talk about him again.
Your life will continue, You will continue to miss your brother,
probably for the rest of your life. And so are
there places that you can go where you can still
talk about your brother and people who won't say like, oh,
you know, it's been long enough, like you should have
moved past that. You really want to make sure that
you have people in your life who you can talk to,
who will let you share and do whatever it is

(04:36):
that you need to do. In terms of continuing to
talk about your brother, I also think it could be
important to think about what kinds of rituals do you
want to have as a part of remember and him.
So maybe there are certain things that you want to
do on his birthday as a way of honoring the
relationship that you had with him. Maybe you want to
keep a journal that are like letters that you still

(04:56):
write to your brother, where you are updating him about
things that you wish that you could say to him
if you were still here, like what kinds of rituals
would be important and meaningful to you, so that you
can still continue to nurture that relationship. In addition to
friends and family who may be a helpful part of
your community, there's also a great resource called grief Share.

(05:17):
I believe the website is griefshare dot org, and that
is a great space to find other people who are
also grieving in terms of support groups, So I believe
that there are in person groups as well as online
groups that you may want to participate in, and other
people who are also grieving may have a different way
of relating to you than other people who maybe don't
have the same level of loss in their lives, So

(05:39):
that can be an additional resource for finding some support
if you're still grieving. There's also a great book by
doctor Agena Robinson called The Gift of Grief that would
be probably a great read for you, again as you
are just continuing to figure out how to honor the
relationship with your brother. Doctor Robinson was also on the podcast,
so I will drop a link to her episode in

(06:00):
our show notes. And we've also had several other episodes
about Greeed that could be helpful for you, just to
again get some additional information and to learn some additional
ways to support yourself as you are continuing to greed.
I do hope this has been helpful. Thank you so
much for submitting that question.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
More from our conversation after the break.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
The second question is about blended family dynamics. I grew
up an only child, but now my mom is married
and I have a new sibling in the house. The
youngest is still a kid, and sometimes I notice him
looking to me for comfort or guidance. Being a big
sister in a blended family is teaching me a whole
new kind of love, one that's about patients, understanding, and

(06:47):
connection for anyone adjusting to a blended family, how do
you suggest navigating a new sibling dynamic and building that
bond in a healthy way. So, first, I love the
way that you are describing the love that you are
developing in this relationship with your new siblings. So you
use words like patients, understanding, and connection, and I think

(07:08):
that those all set the foundation for what is sure
to be a beautiful relationship. But I do think it's
important to understand that you are new to this little
person and he is new to you, and so I
think making sure that you're giving yourself time to get
to know him and for him to get to know you,
and also releasing any expectations about what the relationship should be,

(07:29):
because you have a fresh start, a great opportunity to
make this relationship whatever it is that you want it
to be and whatever he wants it to be. So
it feels like it is a great opportunity for you
to figure out what kinds of things interest him, what
kinds of things maybe do you all have in common,
what kinds of new things could you do together? But
it already sounds like there's a great opportunity. It sounds

(07:49):
like he is looking up to you and you said
for guidance, and so that already shows that there is
some interest there, there is a desire for connection, and
I think that all of those are great things to
build upon. Guess is that there is a significant age
difference here, and so one thing that I would caution
you about is to make sure that it is a
brother sister relationship as opposed to a mother's son kind

(08:12):
of relationship, because I think sometimes with an age difference,
it can be easy to fall into that pattern of
feeling like you are parenting this person. But it sounds
like he already has parents in his life, and so
you really do get to come in and be the
fun mixed sister right now. That doesn't mean that there
won't be opportunities for you to challenge and kind of

(08:32):
guide him in the right direction, but you really don't
have to step into that parenting role. So make sure
that you're not coming in that role and allowing his
parents to actually parent, and you come in and be
the fun, big sister or whatever the adjective is that
you want to describe it as. I hope this has
been helpful. Thank you so much for sharing this question.

(08:53):
And our third question is about volatile sibling relationships. My
sister and I have always had a contentious relationship. Recently,
am a mom's sixtyeth birthday party, we got into a
physical fight. She swung first, but I ended up being
blotched by her afterward. I genuinely want to mend our relationship,
but I also don't want to keep getting hurt emotionally.

(09:15):
How do you navigate a relationship with a sibling who
can be volatile or hurtful? And is there a way
to repair it without compromising your own wellbeing? So thank
you so much, first of all for sharing this question.
It sounds like this relationship, as you put it, has
been contentious for quite some time. I'm not sure if
it's been the entirety of the relationship, but it definitely
sounds like for quite some time there has been a

(09:37):
lot of tension, and I wonder if there has ever
been any conversation about where this tension comes from. So
is it related to some childhood dynamics? Did something happened
later in life that has caused a riff between you all?
Have you never been close? I'm not quite sure, but
it sounds like there needs to be some kind of
conversation about how did we get here in the relationshiphip,

(10:00):
and it sounds like we want things to be different now.
The caveat with that is though, in relationships, it cannot
be only one person who wants the relationship to be different.
And so as much as you would like to mend
this relationship. My question to you is also is your
sister interested in mending this relationship because it sounds like
she threw the f first punch, right, is that what

(10:22):
she said? We got into a physical fight. She swung first, right,
So you know, it sounds like maybe some things were
boiling over that then led to this physical altercation. And
so is she actually interested in mending the relationship or
actually resuming a relationship with you, because if not, then
all of the desires and longing you have will be
for naught because she's not actually interested. And so even

(10:45):
if she is interested, though, I do want to make
sure that you are taking care of yourself because you
don't want to be in a position where you want
the relationship with your siblings so badly that you are
allowing yourself to be abused or mistreated just in the
name of having a relationship with your sister. Now, of
course that would be ideal, you know, ideally we would

(11:06):
love to have strong relationships with our siblings, but it
has to be healthy. There have to be boundaries present,
it has to be mutual respect, there have to be
guidelines around keeping our hands for ourselves. Like, all of
those things still need to be in place even with
your siblings. Now you may, you know, be a little
bit more gracious with your sibling because it is your sibling,

(11:27):
but the basic foundations of respects still need to be there.
And so even if your sister is interested in mending
the relationship or resuming the relationship or you know, kind
of starting over so to speak, you do want to
make sure that foundationally there is you know, respect at
the core. And unfortunately, if that is not the case,
so she cannot commit to that, then there may have

(11:49):
to be love from a distance. Right again, because this,
you know, ideally we would love to have great relationships
with our siblings, but unfortunately that cannot always be the case,
and I would hate to have happened is for you
to try to resume our bundness relationship with her when
she is not interested or is not actually committed to

(12:10):
doing the work to have a healthy relationship with you,
because you don't want to just have any relationship. You
actually want to have a healthy relationship with your sister.
So again, thank you so much for sharing this question,
and I do hope that this has been helpful to you.
So again, we do ask doctor Joy questions pretty frequently.
Over in our Patreon community. If you're interested in submitting

(12:30):
questions or being an additional part of that community, you
would love to have you there. You can join us
at community dot Therapy for Black Girls dot com. I
do hope that you will continue to tune in to
our miniseries called The Siblings Sit Down as we continue
to dissect sibling relationships and talk to a therapist about
sibling dynamics as well as talk to some pair of

(12:51):
siblings about their experiences. For more information about the podcast,
you can visit the show notes at Therapy for Blackgirls
dot com Session four thirty four. If you're looking for
a therapist in your area, make sure to visit our
therapist directory at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com SACE directory,
and do make sure it's a textas episode to two
of your girls right now so that they can also

(13:13):
check out the episode. This episode was produced by Elise Ellis,
Indytubu and Tyree Rush and editing was done by Dennis
and Bradford. I hope that you all have enjoyed tuning
into this session. Please leave a comment, let us know
more things that you'd like to hear us talk about,
and be sure to tune in for our next episodes.
In the Siblings sit Down until next time, Take good care,

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Session 434: Ask Dr. Joy - The Sibling Sit Down

Episode Transcript

Host

Dr. Joy Harden Bradford

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Session 434: Ask Dr. Joy - The Sibling Sit Down