My (26f) sister Nancy (39f) and I have had a strained relationship for as long as I can remember. For a bit of background, Nancy’s parents were my late aunt and uncle, who passed away in a car accident when she was 6 and my parents adopted her. Growing up, I realized that she got more love and care than I did, but I just wrote it off because I didn’t want to blame her for her trauma or how she handles triggers.
When I was a teen, I got tired of her always needing to trump my accomplishments or be the centre of attention. I finished high school when I was 16 and after I received my matric results, my parents planned a big party for me but the week before, Nancy “fell” down a flight of stairs and my party had to be cancelled.
As I was sitting in the waiting room with my parents, I had an epiphany and realized that a lot of her “accidents” coincidentally happened when something big was planned for me.
For example, a month before my 21st birthday, which was going to be spent on a cruise, she started having “dizzy spells” and a few days before, she “fell” off the roof as she was trying to “patch a few leaks”. Rightfully, I was upset, and my parents lashed out at me for being selfish when my sister got injured trying to do something to help them.
When I graduated with my MBA at 22, she very sick after eating shellfish, which everyone knows she is deathly allergic to. The day after my partner proposed, she got into an “accident” while driving on a sunny day with great road conditions, saying that she didn’t see a light pole or something.
He threw me a surprise engagement party and guess who accidentally ate prawns and was rushed to the hospital halfway through the party? To avoid any drama at my wedding, my partner and I decided to elope with a few friends, and it was the first time something was all about me, for once.
My parents were bitter about not being part of wedding celebrations so we planned a reception type thing for friends and family on our 2nd anniversary. My dad will walk me down the aisle and my mom will do the something old thing, etc.
They had been buzzing with excitement and looking forward to the “wedding." The event is this coming weekend and guests have already started flying in as they want to celebrate the whole week and treat it as a reunion of sorts.
But like every other big moment of my life, I am writing this post sitting in the hospital waiting room because Nancy apparently had a big psychotic break because her boyfriend dumped her in FEBRUARY so there’s a psychiatrist admitting her for 21 days as he believes she’s a danger to herself.
My parents are trying to talk me into postponing because it would be heartless of me to celebrate while my sister is “cuffed to a bed” for the next 3 weeks.
I had a meltdown of my own and told my sister that if she wanted to go to Heaven that desperately, could she not have done it when we were younger so I could be spared from all her drama and now there’s a handful of family members who are calling me a cruel bridezilla for taking my stress out on my sister when she’s so unwell.
I told all of them that I would be proceeding with the “wedding” as a lot of time and money had already gone into it and they’re welcome to mope around the hospital to support my sister. They told me that I was unfair for making them have to choose between a party and my sister who is "on her deathbed."
Edit: I know she isn’t on her deathbed. Any sane person reading this knows she’s not on her deathbed. But to my family, this is a life or death situation because “only God knows what they’ll do to her in there” and they’re especially incensed by the very limited visitation because they’re convinced the psychiatrist is doing it so she can get pumped full of medication and so the hospital can make money yada yada yada.
Far-Juggernaut8880 said:
Think you definitely should speak to her doctors about her history of “accidents” that happen at the same time of big events/successes in your life. Maybe hearing it from the doctors will get your family’s attention
OP responded:
I have already spoken to the psychiatrist assigned to her, hence the very long psychiatric hold. That’s just another thing that pissed my family off because they felt I did that to be spiteful, even after I pulled out every receipt and date I could think of, spanning the past 15 years.
neogeshel said:
Well for one she's not on her deathbed that's a bizarre thing to call it.
Even_Speech570 said:
Your sister is a drama Queen and your parents are her flying monkey attendants. “Deathbed”? WTF? She’s on psychiatric hold which is hardly a deathbed. Please go NC with these people. Who knows what antics she will pull when you are in labor trying to deliver your first child. NTA
Snoo-74562 said:
What a fantastic opportunity. She is locked up, safe....and totally unable to create more drama. You should apologise to your parents and everyone who heard you explode. Say that the stress got to you because you know a lot of what you have done is non refundable you were very upset. After all what can you do except continue? How are you going to stop it without loosing thousands?
Say that you don't want to cause your sister more distress now that she is on deaths door. You must immediately tell her that you have cancelled the wedding. Tell everyone that she must not know that the wedding is actually happening and that you have told her that it has been cancelled so she can focus on her recovery and to spare her any guilt about being unable to attend.
Organize a big get well soon card and basket for her signed by lots of her loves ones. You must also tell the medical staff about all the other episodes of self harm and insist that she is there for the full 21 days. Express concern that her stay will be so short. Hopefully that will mean she can't get out on the big day.
Your big challenge is going to be convincing your parents to get in on the deception but it shouldn't be too hard to sell.
First, my sister tried to discharge herself by signing a refusal of hospital treatment, which wasn’t successful and she apparently had a whole meltdown and hurt one of the staff members so she had to be sedated and restrained.
After I heard about this, I decided to call her psychiatrist up again and told him that this is part of her MO, she’ll get hurt and then once she’s gotten enough attention or something of mine has been cancelled, she’ll then get herself discharged because she’s miraculously feeling better.
And I think that’s what she was banking on now but what she didn’t consider is that psychiatric hospitals operate very differently from regular hospitals. I also think she realised that for the first time, her plan wasn’t working and I’d still be celebrating something and tried getting out so she could physically disrupt the ceremony but oh well.
The day after I made the post, I took the suggestion quite a few people made and created a whole spreadsheet of the “incidents”. I went through the discharge papers my parents still had at their house and went through a deep dive of my iCloud to find old pictures and stuff of special moments in my life and then compared all the dates.
Lo and behold, there were 11 special moments and 10 discharge papers, all with eerily close dates, from a few years before my 16th birthday to now. I showed this list to my parents and… nothing. They decided to stick to their guns, telling me that my sister has always been clumsy and the stress of big events would obviously make her more prone to getting hurt.
I then asked them why she never had any accidents before or after her own milestones, like her graduation or her engagement party and I didn’t get an answer. I felt my heart break into a million pieces and decided to just cut my losses because I really was talking to walls.
I then told them that I was okay with them not attending the wedding ceremony they had guilted me into having and that I had enough people who truly loved me there to support me. I also told the other flying monkeys in the family that they had my permission to stay away and go sit in the hospital, waiting on someone who currently isn’t allowed to have any visitors.
I then switched my phone off so that I could focus on getting ready for Saturday and all communication had to go through my partner, who was filtering out everything before it reached me. The ceremony started off great and I actually don’t regret doing it, even though I didn’t want it in the first place. It felt so darn good to see relatives and friends I hadn’t seen in a while.
Halfway through, my parents arrived and my dad started talking to other relatives about how disappointing it was that he didn’t get to walk me down the aisle a second time and how he didn’t raise me to be so selfish by celebrating things while my own sister is probably chained to a bed with no one there to support her.
My relatives then talked him into leaving and I didn’t hear about his tantrum until this morning, which I’m very grateful for. My relatives also had to deal with a friend of my sisters turning up to the reception in a white dress but the joke was on her because I was in a modern traditional BaSotho dress and I still fully stood out as the bride.
Right now, I honestly just feel… numb. And defeated. And it feels like I’ve lost my family even though they were never really family. It hurts to be in this situation and a part of me is mourning what could’ve been or what I deserved but never got.
A lot of people told me that going NC is never easy and I think it’s finally starting to sink in. But a lot of people also told me to focus on the good. I have a lot of good things going for me now and I should be in the moment. This might not be the dramatic update people were expecting but that’s all there is for now.