My father says this all the time about my brother, and I hate it. I would be the first one to admit that my brother can be difficult sometimes; he can be really moody and mean to my father and he can be very self-absorbed and fixated on his own special interests, but a) what 17 year old isn't? and b) he has Asperger's, and if anything, he has overcome so many of his difficulties due to his diagnosis that I would think my father should be proud of him instead of being annoyed that he spends a lot of his time playing video games and talking about Vanguard and Yu-Gi-Oh and other card stuff.

I think my brother is pretty awesome and I love him absolutely unconditionally, but I can also see why my father would be disappointed, since my brother probably isn't what he expected when he envisioned having children and I know it's been hard for him...but at the same time, it upsets me when my father makes comparisons between me and my brother and telling me how he really didn't enjoy his one night a week with my brother because he spent the whole time talking about this girl he likes and not having a "real conversation" and how he enjoys spending time with me way more because I can have "real conversations" about politics and stuff.

I hate a) feeling like I'm taking something away from my brother who I love more than anything and b) knowing that my father's love for me and pride in me comes from the fact that I read the New York Times every day and have a 4.0 GPA at a prestigious university and will be a highly successful and affluent lawyer someday, which measures up to my father's expectations way more than my brother. I hate knowing that even just a few years ago, I was a disappointment when I was dealing with a lot of anxiety and depression and wasn't functioning as well as the way I am now and I hate feeling like I'm one step away from turning into a disappointment again.

I was talking about this with T today and her perspective is that this is 100% my father's issue and nothing I need to take on...but at the same time, I think if she was his therapist instead of mine, she might find some more validity to the idea that children can genuinely be disappointments to their parents. I think when people reach a certain age, it's natural for them to look back on their life and have regrets about the things they wish they'd had and the things they never will have, the way their kids could have turned out but didn't, the way their life could have gone, etc.

So I get it, but at the same time I hate that I'm being set up as the success and my brother as the failure, because I love my brother so much and don't think he's a failure even a little bit. I think he's amazing and has so many skills and so much potential and so many really special things about him and is such a strong person for overcoming some very large setbacks and obstacles in his life. I think he is an inspiration, and I hate that his own father can't see that too...

There isn't ever a good reason to think your own kid is a failure, right?