I am a 24-year-old student from Adelaide, South Australia. I was one of two siblings. My older brother Ashleigh was severely and multiply disabled from birth, due to his oxygen being restricted when he was born. This caused him to acquire cerebral palsy (brain damage), which had a number of flow-on effects: he couldn’t walk, talk, or eat properly.
When he was still a child he had a gastric tube installed that meant that he could be fed through his stomach rather than his mouth. He would also be seriously ill a lot. He died in 2014, when he was 22 and I was 21.
Having my brother so sick all the time made my life very stressful when I was growing up. My parents were very busy working or looking after my brother, and even though they tried, they usually didn’t have a lot of time to spend with me. This put a lot of pressure on me from a young age to be independent and look after myself, as the last thing I wanted was to add to my parents’ stress.
Often as a child, I thought I got the worst parts of being both an only child and having siblings - all of the isolation of being an only child, with none of the benefits like more attention or having more disposable income in the household (my parents needed to spend a lot of money on medication and equipment).
Aside from the isolation, there were also other sources of stress. There are a number of times I can remember my brother being rushed to hospital in an ambulance in the middle of the night, and he would be hospitalised a number of times each year. I can remember being told on multiple occasions that he was going to die and that I needed to say goodbye to him in case it was the last time, and eventually I became kind of numb to this because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to carry on in my own life.
I was always a good student, and I got a lot of enjoyment from succeeding in school. I definitely felt that even though I couldn’t control how things would turn out at home, I could definitely control how much I tried at school.
However, the pressure I put on myself to succeed combined with my stress at home got to be too much for me. I developed severe depression in my early teens while I was still in primary school, and this continued all the way through high school. I avoided talking about it with my parents though, as I didn’t want to burden them with the way I was feeling. I only really started to improve once I left high school and began getting better psychological treatment.
Despite my success, though, I can’t help but feel somewhat guilty about it. I simply could not have done this as well as I have, if my brother were still alive
When my brother died in 2014, I was halfway through my Law/Arts degree at the University of Adelaide. Almost immediately I found I had so much more time to commit to my studies, because I wasn’t spending time looking after him or visiting him in the hospital. After a while I started studying more diligently, and my grades improved.
I began entering legal competitions, and found I have a talent for them. I've been successful in local, national, and international competitions, despite only having started to compete relatively late into my degree.
Despite my success, though, I can’t help but feel somewhat guilty about it. I simply could not have done this as well as I have if my brother were still alive, and that in a way my success has come at the expense of him dying. I feel guilty because sometimes it feels like by enjoying my success I am glad that he died, even though I know that’s not true.
If you are living with mental health issues and feel you need support services, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, or beyondblue for 24/7 counselling.
Yvonne is a guest on this week's episode of Insight, which looks at what it's like to grow up with a sibling with a disability | Sibling Carers - Catch up online here.
