'AITA for telling my cousin that it's not my fault she bought her degree?'

"AITA for telling my cousin that it's not my fault she bought her degree?"

I am 18 years old, non-binary (closeted) and I live with my parents, my father who is 68 and my mother who is 60. We are closer to my father's family because they live closer to us than my mother's relatives.

My father has a brother, 72m, married to my aunt, 70f. They have a daughter, my cousin, 40. I can't stand my cousin because she thinks she is better than everyone else and has a degree in psychology. One day, we were at my aunt's house for my niece's birthday, 6f (my stepbrother's daughter, 48m).

At some point, my cousin and I started talking and she said that she can't stand that all these people are diagnosed with dyslexia because, in her opinion, it's just an excuse for stupid people who don't try hard enough and that she knows this because she has a degree in psychology.

I looked at her and told her that I am severely dyslexic, dysgraphic, and dyscalculic and that I have a really hard time reading and writing. She laughed and told me that I was just stupid. I decided to ignore her comments and went to entertain my niece. When it was time for presents, my cousin gave my niece a book and told her to ask me to read it out loud.

Of course, my niece did. I panicked because I have a hard time reading, let alone reading out loud. Luckily, my mother noticed and told my niece that she would read it to her because she loves to read. After my niece moved in with my mother, I confronted my cousin and asked, "What's your problem?"

She told me that I just needed to practice and stop pretending. At that point, I got angry and told her that it wasn't my fault that she had bought her degree in and therefore didn't really know what dyslexia was. After this exchange, both she and I went out so as not to ruin the party, but she started insulting me for all my choices, from my appearance to my tattoos, and even said that I wasn't feminine enough.

I remained calm, since I'm used to her insults by now, and went back inside to play Lego with my niece. However, today I received a text from my aunt accusing me of being a bitch for insinuating that my cousin's degree was fake. Even though my parents told me I did the right thing, now I'm not sure if I did it right. So AITA?

Not long after posting, OP shared a small update.

EDIT: Hello everyone, I want to thank you for all the nice comments you left, I want to specify one thing my cousin has a degree in psychology but luckily she works as a secretary in a company. Then I decided to restrict contact with my aunt and my cousin, I don't want to cut off contact with them to keep peace in the family, but I will limit contact with them a lot.

The comments quickly rolled in response.

Hypno_psych wrote:

NTA - as the holder of a psychology degree I can confirm that we were taught in details about various learning disabilities and neurological differences such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalcula, etc.

I wonder if she’s ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is also a noted psychological theory that states that people who know a small amount about a topic tend to grossly over estimate their actual knowledge, which actual experts believe they always have more to learn.

Ruadhan2300 wrote:

NTA, and I'd like to high-five you for giving a sick burn and retaining your cool.
She sounds terrible. FWIW, Psych Degrees are notorious for giving a false sense of "understanding how people think." I've never known someone who took one who didn't come out of it with a "more knowledgeable than thou" attitude.

Sounds to me like she's using whatever her degree said (which undoubtedly was not denying concepts like Dyslexia in the early 2000s) to validate her own shitty worldview and then leveraging the "authority" her degree lends her to wield that worldview like a weapon. You're absolutely right to call her out on it, and I'm glad your parents have your back on this.

calling_water wrote:

NTA. Your cousin was trying to provoke you and put you down, which is extremely rude anyway and especially at a child’s birthday celebration. There’s no other reason to direct your niece to ask you specifically to read the book to her. All ugliness came from your cousin, not your response. And IDK whether she bought her degree but it certainly sounds worthless as education.

lavasca wrote:

NTA. You did the right thing. A middle aged person is verbally ab-sing a teenager! It sounds like she doesn’t even have a graduate degree? Is she actually qualified to diagnose anybody with anything? Is she a licensed therapist? What kind? Probably nothing.

When I was in undergraduate the most agtteand voracious readers were dyslexic. They weren’t even using audiobooks. It eas a lot of hard work for them. I am aware that you have to really deal with a lot of obstacles to read. It does not speak to your intelligence level at all.