Man doesn't help autistic sister; leaves her in hospital for three days. AITA?
When this man feels guilty about his sister, he asks Reddit:
"AITA for not helping my autistic sister and leaving her in the hospital for three days?"
I (34M) have two sisters 36 and 27. My youngest sister has several mental disabilities including autism and intellectual disabilities. She is fully capable of doing household cleaning, cooking, hygiene, communicating and can read and write at a primary school level.
Currently she lives alone in a government support house and has 24 hr carers who prompt her to do her chores and take her out on outings.
My sister has extreme behaviours and during meltdowns and tantrums she will threaten people, kick and hit carers and refuses to do anything cause she wants her carers to do them for her. She has a care plan in place which enforces her to do her own cleaning and help curve her bad behaviour.
As bad as it sounds, me and my older sister do not like our younger sister or our father (65M). Our childhood was hell growing up with her. Our mother would try her best to teach her good behaviour and independence and I would see some progress.
However, our father would coodle her because he didn't want to deal with her meltdowns and would brow beat our mother when she would try and get her to do chores or correct her behaviour. When our sister hit 18, our mother packed up and left the day after her birthday without telling us or our father.
Our father tried to rope us in helping with our sister when this happened but we refused and he was left to take care of her. It took years for him to get enough assistance from the government so that she can get proper care.
Whenever our sister doesn't like a carer asking her to do chores or something else she will call our father who will yell and brow beat the carer. Because of this and her meltdowns she runs through a lot of carers.
This happened a couple of weeks ago when my sister exploded and had another meltdown because she was in a bad mood and a carer asked her to do some cleaning. Our father was out of town for work and yelled at the carer over the phone. The carer called the police and an ambulance and walked out.
Our father was calling me and my sister up trying to get us to help but we refused so she was held for three days in the hospital. When our father came back he had to take care of her for a week while the company organised more carers.
Our father called us up a couple of days ago telling us how traumatised our sister is from the hospital and how exhausted he is. He said it was wrong for us to hate our sister so much and not step up in a time of crisis. I told him that he brought this on himself and it was his fault she was like this.
Our extended family has been texting us saying how we are failures as family and we need to put the past behind us. I replied that they are welcome to step up and help as well.
I am second guessing on whether I should have at least helped while my father was out of town because she had made a lot of progress lately but I still heavily resent her. AITA for leaving her in the hospital?
Let's see what readers thought.
bittertradition938 writes:
This sounds exhausting and I am sorry about the bad experiences you have had and continue having. Yes, we should help out family members, but we should also take care of ourselves.
And my verdict is absolutely NTA. You have not abandoned your sister on the street. She was in a hospital = she was safe, surrounded by the people most capable of taking care of her. Which is (no offence to you) better for her than it would have been to stay with you/your sister. She needs professional care, not “family help”.
remarkablehelp writes:
NTA. My dad is on the spectrum and I know exactly what you’re talking about. Family will try to guilt you sometimes, but at the end of the day your sister is not your responsibility. If you feel like it would be enabling her bad behavior, then you need to hold onto that.
You do not always need to rescue someone. There were resources available and the carer did what they felt was right. Maybe this will push your father to hold your sister to be a bit of a higher standard because he was inconvenienced. I know that it’s hard OP, but it’s not on you. Don’t let it get to you.