Being the oldest also means bearing a ton of the responsibility. Usually, responsibility you never asked for.
And that's tough. You need to have your 'you' time! But when you grow up as the oldest sibling, sometimes that can be totally difficult to come by.
u/VileZ_ asked:
Oldest Siblings of Reddit, What do you hate about being the oldest sibling?
Here were some of those answers.
The Long, Slow Path
GiphyWe had rules of "when you get to X age you'll get X thing you're allowed to do!" like stay up later, watch worse rated movies, etc. But I was the oldest kid of 3, and the second I was allowed to do anything my little bros were instantly allowed to do it too.
I PAVED THE WAY FOR YOU GUYS.
Subverting Disappointment
My older brother told me his whole life, he hated the fact that whenever he made a mistake he was a big disappointment to our parents, but when the rest of us made the same mistake later, our parents were already pretty much over it.
I just bought a motorcycle and my parents went out of their minds. My brother said he had been waiting a long time for one of us to get a bike first so he didn't have to be the disappointment.
Accepting Responsibility
When things go wrong and your parents aren't able to be there for you, it's usually the oldest sibling that has to step up.
My mom got sick when I was in high school and college. And everything then became my job. I'd go buy the groceries after school, I'd get home early to cook for everyone, I would take my brother out to buy clothes/supplies, I had to do the majority of the cleaning.
It has left me a little bitter. I was 16-17 and trying to raise my sibling because my mom couldn't. I had all the house mom duties and none of the perks.
Leave Me Out Of This
I'm the oldest of 6, and we're all in our 30s and 40s now. But back about 15 years ago when I was in my 20s and my parents were getting divorced, I was the one they both wanted to vent to, because they were too immature to talk rationally to each other. So as the oldest I was stuck with a lot of go-between tasks, which I did not enjoy at all.
Never Vulnerable
The pressure to always be fine. Always be ok. There was very little room for me to ever not be anything but put together and composed. I've had to have my crap together since I was like 8. I learned long ago to not ask for help. Siblings can ask. Hell one can get more financial help from parents as an adult in her 30's then was even possible for me as a college student.
It is what it is...
Twas Not I, Forsooth
Everything was always my fault, always. Even if it wasn't me that did it, it was still somehow my fault. I even moved away to live with my Dad and when my sibling did something bad my Mom would call to yell at me about how it's my fault. If I were more clever and more stupid at the same time I might have responded with something like "so you're telling me I can control my sibling better than you can?"
Being The Leader, Always
That I will never have someone to watch my back or defend me against our parents the way I do for them.
Being their protector is innate when you're the oldest. You feel it naturally or it's drilled into you. I still do it as adults - "quit harassing X over his veganism!" "Hey I heard you had a tough week in med school, are you ok?" Etc. Those instincts don't come naturally to youngest siblings (not that they're assholes but it isn't hardwired into the way they interact with me like it is the other way around). Or they have no empathy for the problems I'm going through because they haven't gone through them yet. I wish I had that.
It's Basically All New Parents
Parents got to make all their parenting mistakes on me. Also parents never had money with 3 kids until after I left the house. Parents also learned that being super ridiculously strict didn't work well either, so my brothers got to do what ever they wanted. Sometimes I think my brothers have a skewed sense of what their parenting was actually like, because they lived quite different childhoods than I did.
Now they act like I was some kind of evil teenager because i rebelled and they don't realize the living hell their childhood would have been if I didn't "break" them with my.. um.. punkness. Ya, if I got to watch The Simpsons, listen to rock music, and be able to leave the house ever without having to check in every 30 minutes like you guys did, maybe I wouldn't have rebelled so hard.
The Blood, Sweat, And Tears Of Siblingdom
I had to fight for every little thing. Staying up late, staying home when sick, getting my first phone (even though I paid), joining social media, going out with friends, having to get a job at 15, and especially what I took in college despite paying every single penny of it myself sans loans.
I love my little brother more than anything but he will never know how hard I had to work for everything I have. When my dad had a mental breakdown and didn't work for almost a decade, I was the one who picked up the slack and took care of us. When we came on better times, he got everything he could ever want. I was happy for him but it's really hard living with so much responsibility and so little love from your family. Maybe I'm just an entitled big sister. I don't know if I deserve to feel this way.
Suddenly, Mom Part Two
GiphyI'm much older than my siblings, like more than a decade older, so what happened was that when my siblings where born I was basically forgotten until I was needed for babysitting. If I wanted to do something in high school and I had to stay after school I couldn't because I had to babysit. If I wanted to go out somewhere I basically had to make an appointment with my mother so she could check if I didn't have to babysit. I felt more like an employee, this lasted until they got into middle school. I have a child of my own now and I can't believe just how equal it was to taking care of my siblings, I was basically their second mother.
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.