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Parent prioritizes son's wedding over daughter's anxiety attack, family judges her. AITA?

Parent prioritizes son's wedding over daughter's anxiety attack, family judges her. AITA?

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"AITA for telling my daughter she is being selfish and that she needs to take an uber since I am not leaving her older brothers wedding"

Adventurous-One-8593

This has been a built up issue, my son got married this weekend and this issue isn’t dying so I am going here. My daughter has very bad anxiety, she is 19 and I will call her Shelly.

Shelly used to go to therapy when she was a minor but stopped when she turned 18. Ever since the her anxiety has been out of control, and due to this she won’t drive anymore.

She has a license but refuses to drive. We live in the USA and driving is basically needed or it’s a big inconvenience for the people around her. Also she is an adult so it not like we can force her to drive.

This is the issue, my son was getting married and she was uncomfortable with so many people around at his wedding. She asked me to take her home, I told her no and if she having difficulties wait in the car. She told me it’s freezing outside and she needs to leave. I told her no again turn on the heat in the car and wait if she needs to be away from people.

She don’t like this answer and told me she will have an attack if she stays and she needs to go home. I told her to take an Uber than I am not leaving. She don’t like this and this was turning into a full argument. Shelly told me I need take her home again and I had enough.

I told Shelly she is being selfish, that she has many opinions and I will not deprive her bother (my son) of his parents being at his wedding. If I took her home I would miss his wedding since it was a hour drive here.

She called me a jerk and left to stay in the car for a bit. She was back about an hour later for the rest of the wedding. She has been pissed since and her younger brother is copying her.

Here were the top rated comments from readers:

starfire92

NTA. I unfortunately have a friend like this who hijacks situations bc of his anxiety or ruins plans. They will make promises and then break them the day of or the day before. This person has:

  • RSVPd to a bachelor party and then backed out the day of, which left additional costs for the rest of the groomsmen to share

  • made us leave events early bc they could not stand to be there even when we explained it might be too high stress of an environment for them

  • made us take all the attention off the person we were celebrating to make them feel comfortable and celebrated.. like when you have two kids and one kid wants to blow out the birthday kids cake candles and open gifts

  • participated in our annual Kris Kringle and then had anxiety about being included, asked to be removed then when Christmas came was upset that they weren't included

  • we offered to have him apart of our Mario group costume (Mario, Luigi, waluigi, him Wario, me dry Bones) he declined, made another costume entirely and was upset at being the odd ball out

I get his limitations. I get he has fomo. But others can't restrain their lives to accommodate his majority of the time. Your daughter can't make demands like that when you've done everything to cover your bases and provide her multiple options.

Edit to add context: we put up with this friend because we've known him since middle school and he has psychosis, previously misdiagnosed with schizophrenia and had been institutionalized in the past. Which is why we try our best to accommodate him but after so much time there is only so much we can do.

Antelope_31

Nta thank god you said no. Notice how she magically was able to cope when push came to shove? That tells you a lot. She is used to getting her way and it’s high time she start living in the real world and take responsibility for her own life.

She needs to stop using anxiety- a perfectly normal emotion- as an excuse not to push herself to learn tools to cope and take responsibility for her own life and future, including seeking therapy if needed. Her emotional manipulation and threats need to lose the power they’ve had in the past. Again, NTA. It’s called good parenting. She’s 19, not 9.

HPNerd44

NTA 100% as you’ve stated as she is now an adult you can’t force her to do things. She quit therapy and that’s on her. If she has a panic attack it is not your responsibility. She is now an adult and needs to figure out how to handle this.

Expecting her mother to miss her own child’s wedding is absolutely selfish. You need to sit her down and lay out expectations. She has decided to quit therapy, she has decided to no longer drive, it is now on her to decide how to handle the difficulties she’s going to face as a result of this.

If she’s still living with you then a requirement of staying with you needs to be therapy. Panic attacks are awful but if she’s of sound enough mind to try and blame you because she might have one then I question the validity of them in the first place.

coastalkid92

INFO: is there a specific incident that sparked Shelley's driving anxiety? And did you guys discuss what Shelley would do if her anxiety got too high at the wedding?

The OP responded here:

Adventurous-One-8593

No specific incident, she is terrified of controlling a car. I did bring it up and told her I will not be leaving, she assured me it wouldn’t be an issue.

Witty-Stock-4913

NTA. And next time, don't bring her with. She has options to get her anxiety treated that she's refusing to exercise, and choosing to do this in the middle of someone else's major life event screams main character syndrome.

She had options, she just didn't like the ones that didn't make her the center of this. Every time she brings this up, offer her therapy to deal with her untreated anxiety and then refuse to engage her further.

So, do you think the OP made the right call? What advice would you have given them?

Sources: Reddit
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