Where you fall in the birth order of your siblings — or pecking order, if we’re calling it like it is — has been found to have an impact on all kinds of personality traits and family dynamics. And, it turns out, it affects how you behave in other parts of life too, like how you interact with your therapist, for example.

Your birth order affects how you act in therapy, according to a therapist.

Tai chatur describes himself as a “therapist and sibling,” and he is also an actor and comedian. On his TikTok channel, he wraps all of this together to create light-hearted, often hilarious videos about his life as a therapist and the clients he encounters, and perhaps none have been quite as revealing as his ongoing series about how birth order manifests in therapy sessions.

Every one of them feels spot on in a way that feels like a direct attack — according both to the commenters on his videos, but also according to me, who is in the unique position of being all four kinds of sibling at once, to an extent anyway. Stay with me here because it’s complicated.

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I have an older brother who’s much older and was out of the house before I was in kindergarten. Our parents split when I was a newborn, and my dad got my brother and my mom got me. Then my dad remarried and had my two younger brothers with my stepmother.

So! To my mom I’m the baby, to my dad I’m one of the two middles, and, since the oldest is so much older, the youngest barely know him, to my little brothers I’m the “big brother.” Oh — and since I only ever lived with my mom, far away from my dad, I basically grew up like an only child.

So as a youngest, middle, oldest only child, which is a thing I just made up, I can authoritatively tell you that Chatur’s takes on birth order will feel eerily resonant wherever you fall in the hierarchy!

Oldest children try to take care of everyone — even the therapist.

You know how it is when you’re the oldest — you’re always taking care of everyone, offering advice, and role-modeling for your doofus younger siblings. Chatur’s take on the oldest child sees them basically doing this to their therapist, too — caretaking and trying to replicate the parent-child relationship that oldest siblings often end up having with their brothers and sisters.

Oldest kids, and especially oldest daughters, often end up being parentified, so is it really that far-fetched that an eldest sibling would offer their therapist a cozy blanket so they can comfort themselves while having to listen to their problems, as happens in one of Chatur’s sketches? Not really! Thanks for the call-out, Mr. Chatur.

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Middle children will do basically anything to avoid confronting their feelings — until they finally explode, of course.

We’ve likely all heard of “middle child syndrome,” the sibling who spends their entire life in the shadow of their older and younger siblings — and maybe even becoming the scapegoat in particularly dysfunctional families. Theoretically, I mean. I’m not speaking from experience or anything.

Anyway, Chatur’s humorous takes on these types of clients feature middle children who say “no thank you, I pass!” when asked to examine their feelings, but then need a mop and bucket for their tears when they finally DO open up due to not being paid enough attention to all their lives. Well! If we’re going to start telling essential truths around here, I’m leaving!

Youngest children try to be the best at everything — including in therapy.

Now we all know the youngest children are always the spoiled favorites — or, at least, that’s how their older siblings stereotype them! And that dismissive attitude can leave you feeling like you have to work overtime to get anyone’s approval, which according to one of Chatur’s skits, means babies of the family try REALLY hard to impress, even in their half of the therapeutic relationship.

In one sketch, the youngest child tells Chatur that “if I’m not the best, people won’t care about me,” and then whips out an entire essay he wrote about the topic for his therapist to ingratiate himself into his good graces.

Yeah, that resonates! After all, by the time the baby comes around, parenting is already old hat for mom and dad, and you can feel a bit overlooked — as any youngest child who’s noticed there are basically no baby photos of them despite their parents having a multiple-volume compendium detailing every breath their older brother or sister has ever taken (don’t ask me how I know).

Only children plan everything down to the letter and avoid risk at all costs.

Now we’ve all known an only child who seems, you know … kinda different. Which is a misnomer, thank you very much — only children are just more comfortable being alone and have deeply cultivated niche interests to match, okay? SORRY YOU’RE SO BORING, NON-ONLY CHILDREN.

But Chatur depicts this as manifesting in a sort of risk-averse hyperdependence. The only child characters are not only acutely aware that they might come off as weird, but they’re also always solving for potential pitfalls in relationships.

The result? An only child character who says he’s never fallen in love. “If you fall you get hurt! No, I make careful decisions after planning every detail of the relationship,” he deadpans. Hmm … yeah that one hits a little too hard, I think I might need to call my therapist.

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John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.