Disenfranchised Grief Following the Loss of a Sibling

Any bereavement comes with complicated emotions. It’s normal to feel anger, denial, sadness, distress, hopelessness, and even relief. Losing a sibling is deeply significant and many people feel devastated at the loss of someone they’ve known their whole life and shared a unique, lifelong connection with.

Yet siblings are often overlooked in grief. The focus may fall on parents, partners, or children, leaving the sibling’s pain unseen when they’re deeply hurting. Losing a sibling can feel like disenfranchised grief: a grief that is real and heavy but not always recognised by those around you. Your loss may be minimised, the importance of your relationship misunderstood, or the circumstances of the death may feel socially uncomfortable.

The Unique Bond Between Siblings

The bond between siblings is unique. They are the people we grow up alongside and with whom we learn to play, to share, and to negotiate life with. We may feel love, rivalry, frustration and closeness, and siblings often form one of the most important and enduring relationships of our lives.

When a sibling dies, the grief can last a lifetime. Whether the relationship was close, complicated, estranged, or somewhere in between, the death of a sibling changes who you are and reshapes family dynamics.

My Lived Experience of Sibling Loss

Exploring my own lived experience of losing my brother in my early twenties has helped me understand some of the reasons I struggled so much with openly expressing my grief. I minimised my own pain because I felt it wasn’t as valid as the grief my parents were experiencing. My way of coping was avoidance, which left me feeling isolated and unable to share how much I was hurting.

I believed my main role was to support my parents through their unimaginable pain and, in doing so, I denied myself the right to grieve. I thought that because the pain of losing a child is so unbearable, my loss as a sibling could not be compared with theirs. But there is no hierarchy in grief, and one person’s heartbreak does not diminish another person’s feelings.

Being the “Strong One” for My Parents

My pain was real, and my loss was profound, but like many surviving siblings, I became “the strong one,” the unofficial carer of my grieving parents. People asked how my mum and dad were coping but rarely asked how I was.

My brother had been the older sibling, the protector, and when he died, that role passed to me. I took it seriously, and it weighed heavily on me throughout much of my adult life.

Not only did I lose my brother, but I lost the family life I had known before his death. My parents were no longer the same parents, and I was no longer the same daughter. Our relationships had changed, and all our futures looked different to how they had looked when he was alive and well.

How Therapy Helped Me

After years of emotional suppression, I finally went to therapy. I was able to speak honestly about my emotions, and, for the first time, I learnt that my grief was just as valid as anyone else’s. Understanding this and giving myself permission to grieve the brother I loved so deeply was incredibly liberating.

Since then, I’ve worked hard to change the belief that my parents’ pain was greater than mine. I have accepted that we all lived through a devastating loss, and each of our heartbreaks existed separately but fully.

Therapy helped me see how profoundly my brother’s death had shaped my relationship with my parents. It helped me recognise that it is okay to live my own life, rather than trying to fill the place my brother once held. I no longer need to carry the weight of being the strong one.

What I Wish I’d Known Then

I often find myself thinking how much easier my grief process might have been if I had known then what I know now. But perhaps, in sharing what I’ve learnt through both my personal experience and my work as a counsellor, it may help others have an easier journey.

Most importantly, I learnt that my grief mattered just as much as anyone else’s, and talking about my feelings would have helped me process my unresolved emotions. Keeping everything locked inside only intensified my pain, and emotions have a way of finding their way out eventually, even when you try to suppress them.

I also wish I had known about continuing bonds which is the idea of finding ways to stay connected to someone who has died. It can be incredibly healing and a way of honouring their impact on your life. I often think how much more my children would know about their uncle if I had felt able to talk about him, rather than keeping so much inside.

And, very importantly, self‑care is essential. Rest, sleep, nourishment, exercise all matter. Neglecting your own wellbeing doesn’t help anyone, and suppressing your grief to protect others only prolongs your distress.

Moving Towards Healing

Healing doesn’t mean forgetting. It means allowing yourself to feel the pain rather than suppress it, learning to adjust to a life that has changed, and finding ways to carry the person’s memory forward with you. Healing is an ongoing process in which you make space for grief, for love, and eventually for hope, so you can find ways to move forward and live a meaningful life.