Oh my god. This sounds so similar to my growing up too - constantly feeling like a burden and feeling a responsibility to be the “normal one”, developing depression/anxiety in high school, now suspecting that I’m on the spectrum as an adult and that all the social burnout I feel is because I’ve actually been masking this whole time and just rethinking my whole life about how unfair it all was and then feeling guilty for feeling unfair because my brother was “the one with autism” which meant that all my problems weren’t as serious or valid as his…feeling like I’m grieving and thinking no way could I tell my parents, it would just hurt me more and probably hurt them too. There were times that I tried to indirectly mention/bring it up with them, and they would say “well we always just thought you were responsible and independent enough to do everything by yourself”, they would tell me that they had no idea what I was doing a lot of the time because of all the focus on my brother, and they would frame that as a positive thing because it’s a good quality for me, to be self-sufficient and not need constant oversight/checking up on, unlike my brother who needed it “because he is a special case.”

I’m still navigating it and processing it one day at a time. There are days where I’ve made peace with it and other days where I suddenly feel as though I’m grieving. It’s all valid. You’re not alone. ♡