Woman snaps at disabled friend on group trip, 'take your meds or stay home.' UPDATED.

Everyone has their breaking point, and unfortunately, the breaking point usually doesn't look pretty.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she was wrong for telling her disabled friend she shouldn't come on group trips if she can't keep up. She wrote:

"AITA for telling my friend that if she couldn’t keep up because of her disability, she just shouldn’t come?"

I (26F) have a pretty close group of friends. We have this one girl in our group, Sadie (27F). She has a disability that is mostly manageable through medication. Despite this, Sadie has a bad habit of ‘forgetting’ to take her pills right before we do something she isn’t interested in doing. This time, it was on a group trip we’ve been planning for over a year.

Due to how high the cost of the trip was, we each decided to take a day and plan an activity that the whole group would participate in. We also rented a van together to get to our destination as that was the most ideal situation. The first issue with Sadie came up when getting to our destination. Due to the length of the drive, everyone was going to be driving an hour to get to our destination.

Right before it was Sadie’s turn, she had a flare up, and could not drive. Our friend took over. The next morning, my friend had planned a tour of the town. We all reminded Sadie several times to take her medication as this was an expensive tour and we did not want it to be cut short. Well, she had forgotten and the tour had to be cut short.

This is when I got genuinely upset because this was now my money being wasted. Throughout the week, she had flare ups pretty often.The actual fight that led to this post occurred on my day though. The previous day, Sadie had had no flare ups. (It was also her day to plan). This was because she had set alarms to take her medication regularly so that she would be ok.

We all reminded her to please take her pills like that again. I decided to take all my friends on a trail ride on horses as the trails in this town are known for being absolutely beautiful. We paid extra for a basics lesson prior to the trail. In the basics lesson, we were all paired off based on experience and performance in the small arena that they had. I was paired with Sadie.

Well, 1/4th of the way through the trail, she started having a flare-up. I told her that I would not be turning around as this was expensive and that I was truly looking forward to this. She begged me to turn around. Finally, the ranger told us that I had to turn around with her as she was my partner. In the car, I told her that she knew how important this was to me and that she just should’ve taken the pills.

She told me that I was being ableist and that I didn’t know what the pills did to her. We got into a huge argument in which I said “if your disability can’t take being a good friend, then maybe you shouldn’t come on these trips anyway.” While I agree that it was harsh, I didn’t think I was in the wrong considering that she had cost us so much money over the years for simply not wanting to do something.

My other friends agree that Sadie is inconvenient at times but that I should’ve been more sensitive to her condition. I’m honestly torn on whether to apologize or not.

The internet had a lot of thoughts.

Careless_World_1815 wrote:

NTA. I also have a health condition that can flare up, and while I'm not sure whats up with Sadie, if she doesn't want to take her meds, then she knows she needs to stay home. She was able to keep on top them of for her day, but no one else's? And just happens to flare up before her turn to drive? Were there any other flares on the drive, or just when it was her turn?

prairiemountainzen wrote:

INFO: You say that your group of friends are close, you've gone on several trips together throughout the years, yet you don't know what Sadie's medical condition is or how her medication affects her? How is it that you know so little about her when you've been friends with her for years?

OP responded:

Close as in we spend a lot of time together. It’s a pretty big group of people, and I’m closer to some more than others. Those that are close to her have explained her condition to me, but she and I have never had time to really spend any one on one time together.

Bamaflex666 wrote:

NTA. Your “friend” is using y’all like toilet paper. Kick her to the curb. She’s a leech.

moon_song860 wrote:

NTA. Sadie sabotaged your day by not taking her meds and she knew it. She could have just stayed back if she didn’t want to take them, it was her choice. She chose to not take the meds knowing full well that she would not be able to make it to the end of the trail. And then accuses you of being ableist as a cover for her poor behavior.

Sadie needs to grow up and take responsibility for how her choices impact her friends and herself.

MapleTheUnicorn wrote:

NTA - as someone who is also disabled and unable to do certain things, I would just not go so as to not hold the group back. I think it’s telling that she let slip that it’s not that she “forgets” but “you don’t know what the pills do to her." That right there. She doesn’t like one of the side effects but isn’t being honest about it until pressed.

After receiving lots of feedback, OP jumped on with an update/clarification.

Edit: After reading almost every comment, I spoke to Sadie on the phone and apologized for the harshness of my tone. I tried to ask for more details on the medication she takes and her condition in general, but she said that she doesn’t share any of that information with anyone but her closest friends as the symptoms can sometimes be embarrassing.

I completely understood this and did not push further. We’ve decided to go out to lunch together on Friday so I can understand a little bit more about her condition and how it affects her.

OP is NTA here, but it sounds like she's taking the needed steps to understand Sadie.