{"id":311770,"date":"2026-02-26T19:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T19:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/311770\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T19:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T19:48:08","slug":"growing-up-with-a-mentally-ill-sibling-means-living-in-shadow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/311770\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing up with a mentally ill sibling means living in shadow"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday, Nick Reiner pleaded not guilty<\/a> in the killings of his parents, legendary director Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle.<\/p>\n

Much of the national conversation about the Reiners has focused \u2014 rightly so \u2014 on the failures of the U.S. mental health system and the tragic loss of two lives.<\/p>\n

But the people I keep thinking about are Reiner\u2019s siblings, who have allegedly distanced themselves from their brother<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is likely they spent years shouldering fear, shame, vigilance, and responsibility in silence. So often, siblings who grow up alongside serious mental illness are overlooked \u2014 a hidden burden I know well, having grown up as the only sibling of a brother diagnosed with schizophrenia like Nick.<\/p>\n

Forty years ago, my brother died by suicide. He was 24; I was 21. I spent decades grappling with the impact his illness had on my family and me.<\/p>\n

During childhood and as a teenager, I moved easily through school \u2014 friends, activities, the appearance of normalcy \u2014 while carrying the secret of his mental illness. I believed that if people knew about him, they would think less of me. Long before I understood how profoundly it was shaping my life, I was already adapting to it \u2014 anticipating chaos, managing my own emotions so my parents didn\u2019t have to, and learning to measure my worth by how little burden I added.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tUnseen mental health experts: people with mental illness<\/a><\/p>\n

I never believed my brother would hurt anyone, but after his death I sometimes dreamed he was still alive and threatening me or my parents. I suspect Reiner\u2019s siblings lived with a similar quiet sense of danger.<\/p>\n

According the National Institute of Mental Health<\/a>, nearly 1 in 5 U.S. adults experiences a mental health condition each year. Behind each diagnosis is a family system. Millions of children grow up with a brother or sister whose illness impacts daily life. Yet siblings are rarely assessed or offered ongoing support.<\/p>\n

In third grade, I hid a paper covered in red marks under my mattress. I couldn\u2019t bear to disappoint my parents. I had always made them proud with my good grades, but this time I felt like a failure. Over time, my desire to bring positivity to my family became weighty perfectionism. I imagine the Reiner siblings may have encountered the same. This is what \u201cbeing strong\u201d can look like: internalizing disappointment, mistaking performance for worth, and carrying responsibility that should never belong to a child.<\/p>\n

As a child, I sometimes wished my brother weren\u2019t alive. The guilt was crushing. Nobody helped me understand that such thoughts could be a natural response to fear. Siblings need support where they can speak honestly without shame.<\/p>\n

My parents loved my brother fiercely. They sought out the best doctors, followed recommendations, adjusted medications, and tried to keep him safe. Once, as a teen, I stepped in myself, reaching my hand in his mouth to grab pills he was about to swallow.<\/p>\n

My grandfather was a prominent psychoanalyst, one of the founders of the Institute for Psychoanalysis in Chicago. Even expertise and access could not protect our family from the realities of severe mental illness. By all accounts, the Reiner family also sought extensive treatment and support<\/a> over many years \u2014 a reminder that even in the most devoted and well-resourced families<\/a> cannot escape the consequences, no matter how terrible: Reiner\u2019s sister Romy was reportedly the one to find their parents\u2019 bodies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When my brother died, grief unleashed decades of those powerful emotions I had suppressed. I was heading into my senior year at Northwestern University, suddenly responsible for navigating a world that had never really seen me. Slowly, through therapy and intentional support, I learned that recovery is not only for the person who is ill \u2014 it belongs to everyone who lives in their orbit. And it does not happen automatically once a crisis ends.<\/p>\n

I see these dynamics now as a parent. My daughter is on the autism spectrum and has a mood disorder. We work closely with clinicians to support her safety and well-being, while also attending to her neurotypical siblings. I watch for subtle signs of over-responsibility: the child who consumes stress quietly, who believes their role is to make everything better for everyone else. Having lived through the consequences of waiting too long, I am acutely aware of the risks of ignoring siblings\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n

In the Reiner case, warning signs reportedly stretched back decades: childhood behavioral issues, violent outbursts, treatment encounters. Yet our systems too often wait for danger to become imminent before intervening, leaving families \u2014 siblings included \u2014 to live on edge much of the time. Our systems are built to respond to imminent danger, not to the chronic, low-grade trauma of siblings. Siblings should not have to wait until adulthood, or until tragedy, to be seen.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThe U.S. mental health care system failed my brother \u2014 and millions like him<\/a><\/p>\n

For me, healing began with finding a therapist I connected with and sticking with therapy consistently. It also meant intentionally building a support system beyond my family: friends, community groups, spaces where I did not have to minimize my experience. Self care became essential: sleep, nutrition, and self-compassion were not luxuries but protective tools. Speaking openly \u2014 and writing, even when it felt heavy \u2014 helped me stop carrying my story alone.<\/p>\n

For parents, devoting one-on-one time to children who are not in crisis, acknowledging their experiences, and validating their feelings without trying to fix them can make an enormous difference. \u00a0One of the most grounding things anyone ever said to me was: He has an illness. You didn\u2019t cause it, and you can\u2019t cure it. You can only control what you can control. You have to let go of what you can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

That lesson in acceptance extended far beyond childhood.<\/p>\n

For siblings in the future, we need to do better. Insurance reimbursement should explicitly include preventive therapy for siblings \u2014 not just crisis intervention after trauma. Pediatricians, schools, and mental health providers should routinely check in on siblings\u2019 well-being and screen for anxiety, depression, and trauma exposure. And when hospitals and clinicians create safety or discharge plans, siblings \u2014 when age-appropriate \u2014 should be included.<\/p>\n

Now, at 60, I finally feel at peace. Not because I erased the past, but because I learned to hold grief and gratitude together \u2014 love, guilt, sadness, and joy side by side. Healing is possible. But it shouldn\u2019t require a lifetime of being strong. Siblings like the Reiners deserve to be seen \u2014 not just after tragedy, but long before it.<\/p>\n

Debra Manetta is a writer and certified life coach in New Rochelle, N.Y., and the sibling of a brother who lived with schizophrenia. She also brings experience as a parent of a child with neurodivergence to her work with siblings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Monday, Nick Reiner pleaded not guilty in the killings of his parents, legendary director Rob Reiner and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2322,163,85,46,522,523],"class_list":{"0":"post-311770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-advocacy","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}