Survivors guilt?

Is that even a thing, maybe there is another term for it?

For context I spent a lot of time when I was younger looking after all of my younger siblings, in a pretty effed up family situation which I won’t get into, and later on ended up spending a lot of time looking after my younger brother in particular teaching him basic life stuff and he lived with me for a bit.

I feel like despite the cards we were given and how unwell I was at one point as a result of this trauma, I’m doing pretty well overall, like I have a job, partner + kids, hobbies etc. I still struggle but I’m functioning day to day just fine.

But my younger brother who I spent so much time on supporting has been left behind here somewhere, when I let go of the reins a little bit and let him go out into the world something went wrong, and I hadn’t seen him since before COVID when things were supposedly going pretty well for him. We were in contact recently and I can see he’s in a bad place and has run into a fair bit of trouble with the police.

I feel guilty. I managed to break out of the cycle but he’s still stuck in it.

I almost don’t want to get involved which is another layer of guilt, I just don’t want to get into a situation where I’m caring for him again when I have a young family to care for or I get involved with his legal issues with the police. I don’t want to associate myself with this kind of thing anymore. To be perfectly honest I’d prefer to detach myself from all of my bio family (not including ones made by me, obviously).

I feel sick thinking about this… I feel awful for him yet I feel awful for not supporting him right now when he needs me, I obviously didn’t do enough in the beginning.

I can’t bring myself to block and no respond to his messages because I’ll live with the guilt forever, but I know his attachment style is that when I reply, he will want every minute of my time and every ounce of my energy.

😩