Opinion: I had a brother with schizophrenia. I can’t stop thinking about Nick Reiner’s siblings

STAT News · Feb 26, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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On Monday, Nick Reiner pleaded not guilty in the killings of his parents, legendary director Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle. Much of the national conversation about the Reiners has focused — rightly so — on the failures of the U.S. mental health system and the tragic loss of two lives. But the people I keep thinking about are Reiner’s siblings, who have allegedly distanced themselves from their brother. It is likely they spent years shouldering fear, shame, vigilance, and responsibility in silence. So often, siblings who grow up alongside serious mental illness are overlooked — a hidden burden I know well, having grown up as the only sibling of a brother diagnosed with schizophrenia like Nick.Forty years ago, my brother died by suicide. He was 24; I was 21. I spent decades grappling with the impact his illness had on my family and me. During childhood and as a teenager, I moved easily through school — friends, activities, the appearance of normalcy — while carrying the secret of his mental illness. I believed that if people knew about him, they would think less of me. Long before I understood how profoundly it was shaping my life, I was already adapting to it — anticipating chaos, managing my own emotions so my parents didn’t have to, and learning to measure my worth by how little burden I added. I never believed my brother would hurt anyone, but after his death I sometimes dreamed he was still alive and threatening me or my parents. I suspect Reiner’s siblings lived with a similar quiet sense of danger. According the National Institute of Mental Health, nearly 1 in 5 U.S. adults experiences a mental health condition each year. Behind each diagnosis is a family system. Millions of children grow up with a brother or sister whose illness impacts daily life. Yet siblings are rarely assessed or offered ongoing support. In third grade, I hid a paper covered in red marks under my mattress. I couldn’t bear to disappoint my parents. I had always made them proud with my good grades, but this time I felt like a failure. Over time, my desire to bring positivity to my family became weighty perfectionism. I imagine the Reiner siblings may have encountered the same. This is what “being strong” can look like: internalizing disappointment, mistaking performance for worth, and carrying responsibility that should never belong to a child.As a child, I sometimes wished my brother weren’t alive. The guilt was crushing. Nobody helped me understand that such thoughts could be a natural response to fear. Siblings need support where they can speak honestly without shame. My parents loved my brother fiercely. They sought out the best doctors, followed recommendations, adjusted medications, and tried to keep him safe. Once, as a teen, I stepped in myself, reaching my hand in his mouth to grab pills he was about to swallow. My grandfather was a prominent psychoanalyst, one of the founders of the Institute for Psychoanalysis in Chicago. Even expertise and access could not protect our family from the realities of severe mental illness. By all accounts, the Reiner family also sought extensive treatment and support over many years — a reminder that even in the most devoted and well-resourced families cannot escape the consequences, no matter how terrible: Reiner’s sister Romy was reportedly the one to find their parents’ bodies. When my brother died, grief unleashed decades of those powerful emotions I had suppressed. I was heading into my senior year at Northwestern University, suddenly responsible for navigating a world that had never really seen me. Slowly, through therapy and intentional support, I learned that recovery is not only for the person who is ill — it belongs to everyone who lives in their orbit. And it does not happen automatically once a crisis ends. I see these dynamics now as a parent. My daughter is on the autism spectrum and has a mood disorder. We work closely with clinicians to support her safety and well-being, while also attending to her neurotypical siblings. I watch for subtle signs of over-responsibility: the child who consumes stress quietly, who believes their role is to make everything better for everyone else. Having lived through the consequences of waiting too long, I am acutely aware of the risks of ignoring siblings’ needs. In the Reiner case, warning signs reportedly stretched back decades: childhood behavioral issues, violent outbursts, treatment encounters. Yet our systems too often wait for danger to become imminent before intervening, leaving families — siblings included — to live on edge much of the time. Our systems are built to respond to imminent danger, not to the chronic, low-grade trauma of siblings. Siblings should not have to wait until adulthood, or until tragedy, to be seen. For me, healing began with finding a therapist I connected with and sticking with therapy consistently. It also meant intentionally building a support system beyond my family: friends, community groups, spaces where I did not have to minimize my experience. Self care became essential: sleep, nutrition, and self-compassion were not luxuries but protective tools. Speaking openly — and writing, even when it felt heavy — helped me stop carrying my story alone. For parents, devoting one-on-one time to children who are not in crisis, acknowledging their experiences, and validating their feelings without trying to fix them can make an enormous difference. One of the most grounding things anyone ever said to me was: He has an illness. You didn’t cause it, and you can’t cure it. You can only control what you can control. You have to let go of what you can’t. That lesson in acceptance extended far beyond childhood.For siblings in the future, we need to do better. Insurance reimbursement should explicitly include preventive therapy for siblings — not just crisis intervention after trauma. Pediatricians, schools, and mental health providers should routinely check in on siblings’ well-being and screen for anxiety, depression, and trauma exposure. And when hospitals and clinicians create safety or discharge plans, siblings — when age-appropriate — should be included. Now, at 60, I finally feel at peace. Not because I erased the past, but because I learned to hold grief and gratitude together — love, guilt, sadness, and joy side by side. Healing is possible. But it shouldn’t require a lifetime of being strong. Siblings like the Reiners deserve to be seen — not just after tragedy, but long before it. Debra Manetta is a writer and certified life coach in New Rochelle, N.Y., and the sibling of a brother who lived with schizophrenia. She also brings experience as a parent of a child with neurodivergence to her work with siblings.