When Siblings Become the Wound: Learning Self-Love Through Catch and Release

By Johanna Sparrow

This reflection is part of Johanna Sparrow’s Attachment Drama Healing Series™.

There is a particular kind of heartbreak that comes from realizing the people who know you longest do not always know you best.

Sibling relationships are often romanticized as lifelong bonds of loyalty and protection. We are taught that blood creates safety, that shared history equals shared love. But for many, the truth is more complicated—and far more painful.

Some siblings remain in your life not to nurture connection, but to extract from it.

They show up wearing familiarity, while quietly harboring envy. They call it concern, but it sounds like criticism. They claim closeness, yet move behind your back, reshaping your story through whispers and slander.

And because they are family, their behavior is often minimized, excused, or ignored—by others and sometimes by ourselves.

False Love Wears a Familiar Face

False love does not always look cruel at first. It often looks like obligation. Like guilt. Like loyalty that only moves in one direction.

These siblings stay close enough to benefit from your empathy, your resources, your emotional labor—but never close enough to celebrate your growth. Your healing threatens them. Your boundaries confuse them. Your self-respect feels like abandonment to those who relied on your self-sacrifice.

When you begin to stand in your truth, they do not lean in—they push back.

And when challenged, they justify their behavior by rewriting the narrative:

• You’ve changed.

• You think you’re better than us.

• You’re selfish now.

What they often mean is: You are no longer available to be used.

When Hurt Is Passed Down Quietly

One of the most painful realizations comes when you see this dynamic ripple outward.

Jealousy and resentment do not always stay contained within one relationship. They can be passed down unconsciously—modeled, normalized, absorbed. Children learn what they see. They inherit not only stories, but emotional postures: suspicion, rivalry, contempt disguised as humor.

This does not make them villains. It makes the pattern visible.

And visibility is where healing begins.

Loving Family Can Still Teach You the Hardest Lessons

It is especially devastating when you are someone who values family deeply.

You showed up. You helped. You defended. You stayed longer than you should have because you believed love meant endurance.

But there comes a moment—quiet, undeniable—when you realize that continued access to you comes at the cost of your peace.

That is not love. That is erosion.

Narcissistic sibling dynamics often rely on comparison, competition, and control. Your empathy becomes a resource. Your silence becomes permission. And no amount of loyalty will ever be enough to transform someone who benefits from your self-doubt.

Catch and Release: A Different Kind of Love

Self-love does not always look like confrontation.

Sometimes, it looks like release.

Catch and release is not cruelty—it is clarity. It is the understanding that you can love someone without continuing to bleed for them. That you can honor the bond without sacrificing your well-being. That distance can be an act of compassion—for yourself and for them.

You do not owe access to those who harm you simply because they share your last name.

The greatest lesson these relationships can teach is this: You are allowed to choose yourself—even when it breaks a family pattern.

And in choosing yourself, you break something far more powerful than silence.

You break the cycle.