Lost and Found Middle Child

We all wear many hats. We all identify in many ways. Me? I’m a wife, daughter, sister, cat mom, dog mom, friend, Disney aficionado-just to name a few.

I’ve also always identified as the black sheep of my family. For as long as I can remember, I’ve self-diagnosed myself with middle child syndrome.

“Middle child syndrome refers to the psychosocial pressures experienced by middle children, who may feel excluded, neglected, and misunderstood.”

The parallels between middle child syndrome (or even just being a female in western culture) and being an adolescent young adult cancer patient are vast.

As a middle child, I compared my life to my siblings, measuring my worth by their milestones. I wondered how our appearances and personalities could be so different. I wondered how they both ended up with such great genetics, and not me. Comparison truly is the thief of joy.

As a cancer patient in my 30s, I compared my journey to others online, scrolling through stories of people who seemed to be handling it better, healing faster, suffering less, bouncing back quicker, having support from many friends as well as their community while I sat on my couch with my family living their lives over 600 miles away, and me having just two solid friendships. Both my own doing.

As a middle child, I felt lost— never quite belonging, always in the background. As a cancer patient, I often found myself asking, ‘How is this my life now?’ I didn’t fit the image of what cancer was ‘supposed’ to look like (and nobody seemed to miss an opportunity to tell me just that) and yet, there I was. A shell of myself. A person I didn’t know or recognize. A person I needed to get reacquainted with.

Here’s what I know now: Being unseen doesn’t mean you don’t exist. Being lost doesn’t mean you can’t find your way. And being an AYA cancer patient—just like being a middle child—doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to take up space.

The good news? I have strategies now. When negative emotions start creeping in, I don’t let them fester and grow. I have strategies now. The most important thing is to not resist those feelings, but don’t stay stuck in them either.

Notice negative emotions. Allow them. Feel them. Then decide what to do with them! Sit with them for a little bit. Go for a walk. Journal. Listen to music. Have a good cry. Write a letter to cancer. You can throw it away when you’re done. You can burn it! Scream into a pillow. Cry in the shower. Have the ice cream. Take a nap. Call a friend.

I used to think feeling lost meant I was failing. Now, I see it differently. It just means I’m still finding my way—and that’s okay.

Your emotions will have less power when you acknowledge them. Whichever coping mechanism you choose will work more effortlessly each time when you bring mindfulness and awareness to the activity.

I wish I had this knowledge growing up. I might have handled getting a spider for Christmas from my sister while my brother laughed as I freaked out.