To celebrate National Siblings Day, Becci Howell has used her firsthand experience as both a young carer and adult carer for her brother, Chris, who has SMA, to write this blog. Becci is a Community Support Practitioner here at SMA UK, but also serves as a moderator for Siblife, a Facebook group that offers support to adult siblings whose brother or sister has a lifelong disability.

My experience of being a sibling to my brother who has SMA has led to so many different and complex emotions. I was only eight when my brother was diagnosed with SMA at four, the same type of SMA as my mum. Some of these emotions included feeling guilty about not having SMA, fear about the future and what this would look like for my brother and me, my relationship with my parents and expectations as a child carer and into adulthood, and although these emotions never go away, they’re carried differently at different times.

I was grateful to find Sibs, to know that there was somewhere I could go for information and support, and I realised that I wasn’t alone in feeling the emotions I had. Sibs have support for both children and adults, and now as an adult sibling, Siblife is a brilliant Facebook group that has made me feel more resilient to cope with some of the difficult times that have come along. Sibs has given me the support that I couldn’t have found anywhere else from others who understand what it’s like to be a sibling, this is why I chose to be a moderator for Siblife too, to give back to an invaluable space for adult siblings, and a charity who just ‘gets’ what being a sibling really feels like.

Check out the Siblife Facebook group here
Check out the Sibs website here