'AITA for exposing my sister's fake cancer to our parents?' 'I ruined her life.'

"AITA for exposing my sister's fake cancer to our parents after she refused to come clean herself?"

I (34F) just found out that my sister (31F), who has been telling my whole family she has cancer for the last 8 months, has been lying. She shaved her head, said she was doing chemo, and had our parents move in to "help her through treatment."

I started to have doubt when, besides also staying out late relatively frequently, she would never let anyone attend appointments with her, and she clearly had way too much energy for someone going through aggressive chemotherapy.

Last week, I ran into the office manager of my sister's oncologist at a coffee shop (small town). I casually mentioned my sister, and the office manager was confused; she had no idea who I was talking about. I did some digging through doctors and spoke to my sister about what I learned and she broke down and spilled her guts.

It turns out she fabricated the whole story because she was in over her head with debt and wasn't able to afford her apartment anymore. The cancer story got our parents to move in and she could then stop paying her bills.

I was furious and told her that she had 24 hours to tell our parents the truth or I would. She asked me not to tell them because it would ruin her relationship with them. She did not tell them, so yesterday I took everything to our parents.

Our parents are heartbroken. My sister is acting like I had no right to "out" her and she didn't even say this to our parents, she was going to stage a "miraculous recovery" next month. She said I ruined her life, and that family should be trying to defend each other rather than expose each other.

Here's what people had to say about this one:

Additional_Mood_7997 said:

NTA for telling them. But you were a tiny bit of an AH for not demanding that she tell your parents immediately, like within 15 minutes of finding out. 24 hours is too long to be deceived into thinking your child is dying.

FluffyBunnyRemi said:

Soooooo...the doctors just casually broke HIPAA for you so you could expose your sister? Of course the office manager acted like she had no idea who your sister was, that's how you normally act when someone's acting about one of your patients, since you can't acknowledge you know anything about their medical history at all. NTA for making the sister come clean.

Content-Plenty-268 said:

NTA. There is no rule that “family” is supposed to corroborate psychopathic lies or else be accused of ruining the liar’s life.

MissionHoneydew2209 said:

It sounds like your sister is displaying sociopathic tendencies. Of course you're NTA.

maplethistle said:

NTA whatsoever. Unfortunately my ‘cousin’ pulled the same stunt. My family is still dealing with his stupidity a few years later and it’s exhausting (secondhand, my beloved albeit gullible grandparents refuse to cut him off).

My advice is talk with your parents about getting her some sort of help and go very limited contact with her (no contact if she refuses). Also don’t be surprised if she pulls a similar stunt again. From what I’ve experienced, people who do this are chronic liars who are addicted to the attention and have a permanent victim complex.

BobbieMcFee said:

So you tricked your friend into violating patient privacy, which is illegal in many jurisdictions. ESH.