The SPACE Between: My Journey as a Child, Sibling, and Wife of Someone with OCD

Part 2

When someone in a family has OCD, they are not the only person affected. OCD impacts the entire family system. It demands accommodation from others, and family members experience pain witnessing their loved one suffer. I have lived in the ripple effect of OCD my entire life: first as a child of someone with OCD, then as a sibling, and now as a wife of someone with OCD. While every individual’s story is different, this is mine.

Growing up, my little brother was one of my favorite people. Being just eighteen months apart, I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t by my side. Our mom chose to homeschool us and, to simplify things, taught us the same curriculum. This often meant he had to keep up with material intended for my grade, and we spent countless hours together, side by side. When we transitioned to public school, we each formed new social circles and drifted apart at times, though the usual sibling spats continued. In middle and high school, his brilliance frequently placed him in some of my classes, much to my teenage dismay.

Despite our close-knit upbringing, things began to change when I left for college. For the first time, we were physically apart. This distance allowed our bond to grow in ways I hadn’t anticipated. We were able to miss each other and reconnect without the constant presence that had defined our relationship.

Even as we started our college journeys, I noticed a subtle shift in my brother. Although deeply invested in his STEM studies, he became less socially active. Communication became sparse, but I chalked it up to his demanding academic schedule. I assumed he was just stressed and fully immersed in his coursework. He was always someone who gave his all to whatever he pursued, so I didn’t think much of it.

When my brother moved out of state for his first job after graduation, his work schedule became grueling, and communication became even less frequent. His absence started to feel unsettling. My parents and I voiced our concern, hoping he was taking care of himself, but we were reassured by occasional photo dumps and updates about camping trips. We convinced ourselves he was just caught up in the whirlwind of his new life, figuring things out on his own.

It was around this time that I began to notice a growing sense of resentment toward my brother and my family’s response to his behavior. The expectations placed on him seemed far more forgiving than those placed on me. If I didn’t respond promptly to calls or messages, I wasn’t met with the same understanding he received. It felt deeply unfair that my own lapses and mistakes weren’t excused as being “busy with work,” as his often were. This left me with a quiet frustration I didn’t know how to express.

At the same time, I struggled with guilt and shame for even thinking about myself, knowing my brother was facing such profound challenges. Being a sibling to someone struggling with health issues, mental or physical, adds a unique layer of complexity to the already familiar experience of sibling rivalry, with its mix of jealousy, competition, and conflict. There is a delicate balance between shrinking your own needs to accommodate what the family is managing and simultaneously wanting to shout that it isn’t fair. I felt an unspoken pressure to be the “child without problems,” especially as everyone, including myself, was so focused on my brother.

Then came the pandemic.

During COVID, my brother landed a prestigious job with a top tech company, something he had worked tirelessly for over a year to achieve. I was proud of him, but as the world shut down and remote work isolated him further, I began to sense that something wasn’t right, though I didn’t know what. His isolation wasn’t just due to stress. It was OCD. At the time, I had no idea.

Our family continued to assume he was overwhelmed by his job. But as months went by, I started to realize there was more at play. There were frightening moments, and wellness checks became more frequent as my parents and I worried about him being alone and disconnected. One of his friends even called me, unable to reach my brother. My heart dropped.

Eventually, my brother came to stay with my parents for a few months. During that time, they described him as a shell of the person they knew, someone who spent hours in the bathroom, worked endlessly, and seemed overwhelmed with anxiety. It was then that he started seeing a therapist at my parents' urging. I felt a glimmer of hope. He was finally getting the help he needed.

But when he returned home, things did not improve as I had hoped. His struggles intensified, and it wasn’t until nearly a year later that I truly understood the depth of his mental health battles.

Then came Christmas 2023.

When my parents and brother visited my husband and me for the holidays, we knew it was time for a difficult conversation. My husband and I had privately discussed the need to offer my brother a place to stay and focus on his mental health.

When we picked him up from the airport, my brother looked physically unwell, thin, and exhausted. He told us he had lost his job and had been unemployed for nearly a year. The gravity of his situation hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt overwhelming grief for my brother, grief that I hadn’t known sooner, and guilt for not doing more to support him during his darkest moments.

As my brother described the past few years, I began to suspect he might be struggling with OCD, especially given our family history, with our mom also having OCD. However, unlike my mom, my brother’s OCD did not fit the traditional subtypes portrayed in the media. At this point, I had been working at CalmOCD for about six months, and having this new and in-depth understanding of what OCD can look like is what provided my brother with the insight to even get screened for OCD by his mental health provider. I recognize that this is a level of privilege most families are not afforded, and I am deeply grateful for the life events that led me to CalmOCD, as it has made such a difference in my family’s life.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder has two major components: obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are intrusive, unwanted thoughts, urges, or images that follow recurring themes. Compulsions are actions or rituals done to ease the anxiety caused by obsessions. My brother’s obsessions involved fears of something bad happening if things were not done a certain way, making mistakes, or feeling like life was meaningless if everything was not perfect. Most of his compulsions were internal, expressed as mental rituals or avoidance behaviors. He ignored calls, ruminated on past mistakes, withdrew from plans with friends, and even excessively slept to escape his thoughts. These were his attempts to manage the constant barrage of obsessive thoughts and anxiety.

When my brother was finally diagnosed with OCD and began treatment, he made progress in a way we had all hoped for. Our relationship flourished. Learning about OCD not only helped me understand what he was going through but also allowed me to separate OCD from my brother. He deeply cared about his loved ones and wanted to reach out to us, but OCD convinced him he would fail if he spent time on anything other than work.

Having a loved one with OCD is challenging, but not being able to see them outside of their OCD due to lack of education or awareness is even harder. As I gained more understanding, I realized I had been unknowingly engaging in “accommodation” behaviors, actions that loved ones take to help the person with OCD feel better, but which ultimately reinforce the disorder. My accommodation behaviors, when I lived far away, included normalizing my brother’s avoidance and rationalizing his lack of communication. When he moved in with my husband and me, I shifted to behaviors like avoiding discussions about his career or trying to help him “not feel anxious” by doing things for him, which was exhausting.

Looking back, I recognize that I often normalized and even celebrated my brother’s achievements without fully seeing how deeply they were tangled with his fear of failure and OCD. I hate to think that I was another voice in his head, perpetuating the idea that his value was only tied to his productivity or success. Our culture often normalizes and even celebrates this, despite its harm to individuals. I also carry deep shame that, while I help my clients recognize and challenge these societal standards, I failed to see or address them in my own personal life.

I am thankful for treatments like Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE), which offer family members alternative ways to support someone with OCD, even if they are not ready to work on it themselves. I have learned that the best way I can support my brother is to encourage him to face his fears, use his tools, and resist accommodating behaviors. This is much easier said than done. Watching him face intense anxiety during exposures, while resisting the urge to step in and make him feel better, is incredibly challenging. I still make mistakes, but not accommodating OCD is how I can best support him and it is within my control.

As a sibling of someone with OCD, I have learned that support is not always about having all the answers or fixing everything. It is about holding space, encouraging growth, and allowing your loved one to face discomfort with support. It is about separating the person from the disorder, acknowledging your own role, and being intentional in every interaction. It is about showing up without judgment for myself and my brother, time and again. It also means recognizing and honoring your own emotions. It isn’t fair that your family member has OCD, and it is normal to feel hurt, frustrated, or overlooked when expectations within the family feel uneven. Taking care of yourself throughout this process is essential, you deserve support just as much as your sibling does. You don’t have to shrink your own needs or minimize your experiences to ensure that your sibling is taken care of. In fact, healthy family support often requires creativity: it is possible to stretch resources, adapt roles, and find ways for everyone to feel supported. There is usually more than enough support to go around, and it is okay if the system looks a little different than what you imagined.

I have come to understand that supporting my brother and myself through OCD is not about perfection, but presence. It is about witnessing the small moments of courage, allowing space for mistakes, and honoring the complexity of our emotions. I have learned to celebrate progress without needing to see every victory, and to extend patience and care even when the path forward feels uncertain. I am also incredibly grateful that he is allowing me to share a small part of his journey, despite the level of vulnerability required to document the many ways OCD has impacted his life. His intelligence, thoughtfulness, and generosity continue to inspire me, and being able to walk alongside him, while also tending to my own needs, is a reminder that growth and connection are possible even in the midst of long-standing challenges.