BBM
You are absolutely correct on all counts. I have lost both a sibling (when I was a child) and a son (and struggled with helping my other children through the trauma, both of whom happen to have varying degrees of aspergers). There is absolutely ZERO comparison between how an adult processes a loss and how a child processes a loss.
My older brother died when I was six. I remember being extremely concerned about my sister and parents (far more than my brother). And i remember playing with my cousins at the funeral home and being very excited because everyone was bringing me presents. What my brother's death meant and its impact was something I was far too young to be able to process. Children process death as they grow and develop intellectually and emotionally, and looking back it's a very strange process... to mourn years later for someone you barely remember. And it messes you up in so many ways... your view of the world, your feelings of safety and security are forever different from your peers. And that difference shows, and separates you. (Part of that, I'm sure, is that I had no therapy of any kind after).
As an adult, when I think about my brother, I feel some sadness for the relationship we might have had, but I wouldn't call it grief really, not as an adult would think of it. Hard to explain and put into words. By the time I understood his death and what I lost, he had been gone so long I didn't miss him. There's a distance there, the relationship we had is too far away, it's just a distant and vague memory. I certainly would not speak of him in the same way as I would as someone I lost as an adult.
And I'm sorry, but no one can understand the way a child thinks about the loss of a sibling unless they have experienced it. The trauma impacts you physically, mentally, and emotionally. It is overwhelming and it changes you. When my son died, I was able to talk to my kids very specifically about what they were feeling and thinking. And my husband said he had no idea that they were thinking what I *knew* they were thinking. And my kids are extremely concerned about my husband and I, and each other. Both are in both trauma and grief therapy, and, especially with the aspergers, they have a very hard time speaking about it. It will be many years before they recover, and even with the counselling the trauma has changed them forever.
So BR... he's forever damaged and traumatized, just from her death. Add that she was murdered into that, another layer of security stripped away. And to have his parents accused... more security stripped from him. It's so important for children to feel safe in the world, and he has probably never had a single moment since that night where he truly felt safe. And he likely never will. The world will never feel safe for him.
His memories are likely vague, (due to both his age at the time as well as the result of the emotional trauma). And due to the circumstances I'm sure he's heard the story of that night many, many times. What he really remembers versus what he "remembers" because he's heard it over and over, there's no way to tell, and I have no doubt it's all mixed up in his mind.
I'm not at all surprised that he doesn't show any grief about his sister at this point, 20 years later. (When I tell people I had a brother who died, and they say "I'm sorry", I think "why? I was a kid and it was a million years ago", and I know I don't show grief when I thank them for the thought)
And I'm not surprised he seems to have been more concerned about his mother than his sister... IMO, having experienced it and watched my children go through it, that's completely normal. She was in front of him crying, JBR wasn't. And he was too young to understand and process the loss in the same way an adult would.
Children think very concretely, and for kids with aspergers that's especially true. If he is on the spectrum, his lack of socially acceptable expression and his "distance" would simply add on to and amplify what a "neuro-typical" person would express. IMO
I've never been a BDI, because I don't see anything abnormal about his reactions as a child going through that. I do think RDI, but I don't see Burke involved at all.
All IMO, MOO, ETC.
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