Does anyone think they suffer from this? I am a middle child. I've always thought that I'm the most sane and easy-to-get-on-with sibling. I have good manners, I'm caring, I'm often a middleman, an organiser, I'm not an over achiever but I do ok. This is what I think of myself. However, whenever I'm at home during the uni holidays, even though my elder brother doesn't live at home anymore, I feel that I suffer from MCS. I've never really been that open with my feelings with my parents, and I now find it difficult to open up completely to my boyfriend. I think this might be due to being a middle child also.
I'm not trying to blame all my 'unhappiness' on being a middle child, I'm just sort of trying to assess my situation.
Anyway. The not being able to say everything on my mind: I think because ever since I was little, I've learned to cope on my own, to fix my own problems without anyone else's help. Or I was too busy worrying about my friends to worry about myself. For example I was always looking after people at kindergarten because I was completely happy to leave my mother at home, but others seemed very attached to theirs. Also, I guess my parents were focusing on my brother since he was a first child and they wanted to do things right, and obviously he would be doing pretty much everything first. My sister came along when I was 7 and I guess I feel like I didn't get much attention.
This evening, my mother has had 'a talk' with me, which basically consisted of tellilng me (in a round about bull**** 'i'm going to tell you a story/I like such and such a person way) that I only ever think of myself and that my brother is too nice to me and that she doesn't think I would be nice to my younger sister like my brother is to me. My brother has a "good job and is really nice to my granparents" (more so than me, my sister or my cousins), my sister is "open and enjoys doing things for other people - she's a giver". She didn't say one nice thing about me. I think this is how I've felt about my mother since I was quite young - That she doesn't really think as much of me as she does for my siblings. Lately, I've started to think that perhaps I just don't really LIKE my mother as a person. And that's kind of scary. I've just been noticing more and more things about her and feel she can be very fake and..well I really do feel like I just don't like her sometimes.
Now I'm not really used to being at home anymore because I've been at uni for 2 years and I LOVE living on my own/with friends. Well, basically WITHOUT family. My family have always been a 'let us know where you are at all times' kind and we have to ask permission, i feel, for more stuff than other people I know. (For example going out - basically we have to make sure we let everyone know about each others plans even if it doesn't make a slightest bit of difference to the rest of the family). So basically, I'm used to doing things how I like and when I want to since I don't have to ask anyone's permission for anything when I'm at uni. Perhaps this HAS made me slightly selfish in things like I don't understand why the hoovering has to be done NOW when I can do it after I've finished whatever it is I'm doing.
Argh I don't really know where this is going. I apologise for my ramblings.
I guess the question is: Do you think this stuff relates to the fact that I am a middle child? Or do you think I have 'issues'?
Thanks for reading if you got through all that!