When you’re a teenager, you yearn for freedom and independence. You want to hang out with your friends, try out new activities, have fun, and generally feel like you’re in control of your life. That being said, you also want to feel loved and supported by your family. However, if you’re forced to skip outings while also being ignored at home, it’s going to weigh on your emotional health.
One teenager went viral on the AITA online community after turning to it for help with a very sensitive issue. She opened up about how her family’s entire day revolves around caring for her special needs stepsister, whom she “low key hates.” After her step-sibling was admitted to the hospital, the teen refused to visit her. Scroll down to read the full emotional story and to see what advice various internet users had for the distraught teen.
Having a special needs step-sibling can be incredibly challenging. As much as you help out around at home, you might, at times, feel resentful
Image credits: cottonbro studio / Pexels (not the actual photo)
A teen shared how she barely gets any freedom or support at home due to her disabled stepsister. Things got so bad, she refused to visit her in the hospital
Image credits: Curated Lifestyle / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: mystepsisterisspecia
Image credits: Gabriel Ponton / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
The situation the teen found herself in is incredibly complex, emotionally messy, and full of pressure
There are lots of different frustrations bubbling up to the surface here. At the core of the sensitive family drama are four main issues. Firstly, the teen who vented her frustrations and mixed feelings online has a tense, entirely one-sided relationship with her stepsister.
“I’m not sure what’s wrong with her because no one ever wants to discuss it with me, but she’s nonverbal, breaks her bones a lot, and has severe epilepsy and will have many fitting episodes. She also doesn’t understand stuff. That’s probably the easiest way to put it. She’s just a human body with nothing inside,” she explained the situation.
“I don’t want to sit there feeding her banana pudding and wiping her drool. I didn’t ask for this,” she added. “[...] I just don’t want to go and visit someone who doesn’t even know I’m there.”
The second problem is that the teen feels like she is backed up in a corner, with no way out. For one, she has to sacrifice her free time to help around the house or take care of her disabled stepsister.
On top of that, she claims that her parents constantly find ways to remind her that she’s not as kind to her step-sibling as she could be.
Thirdly, the teen associates hospitals with the passing away of her mother. She’s still working through traumatic memories. And she doesn’t want to be in an environment that makes her feel deeply anxious and upset.
And finally, it’s very likely that the teenager is suffering from compassion fatigue or caregiver burnout. It might be the case that the teen actually does care about her stepsister. However, she may be emotionally exhausted from her entire life revolving around caring for her. This is a lot of pressure to put on a young person’s shoulders.
Image credits: Getty Images / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Having to constantly be exposed to chronic stress and other people's suffering takes a toll on your health and empathy
As Charlie Health explains, compassion fatigue is what happens to you when you are consistently exposed to other people’s suffering, trauma, or distress.
Compassion (aka empathy) fatigue is often seen in people who spend lots of their time helping others. Though it can impact anyone spending time with people who are stressed or suffering, it is most prevalent among mental health professionals, doctors, nurses, and social workers.
Meanwhile, caregiver burnout happens when you face prolonged, unmanaged stress. In a nutshell, you are physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted due to chronic stress. This is most common among therapists and mothers.
Verywell Mind stresses that even when people want to empathize with others, they might find that they don’t have the emotional and physical resources to do so.
“Authentic compassion, as opposed to being polite or nice, is a complex neuropsychological process that is related to frontal lobe executive functioning, the most recently developed and most complex of cognitive processes. To engage in compassion, you have to be cognitively present, understand one’s social surroundings, and be aware of one’s impact on others,” Dr. Eric Zillmer, Professor of Neuropsychology at Drexel University, explains.
Compassion fatigue can happen very suddenly, when a person feels helpless or as though they are not in control. It leads to life dissatisfaction, lack of empathy, and PTSD symptoms.
On the flip side, burnout, which is linked to excessive pressure, builds slowly over time, and results in a loss of motivation, energy, and interest.
What are your thoughts, Pandas? Do you think the teenager was wrong to refuse to visit her hospitalized stepsister, or do you support her? What do you think you would do if you were in her shoes? What life advice would you give her if you could talk to her directly? Share your thoughts below.
The story went viral online. Here's how many internet users viewed the incredibly sensitive situation
A handful of readers thought that nobody was in the wrong here
However, not everyone was on the teen's side. Some people called her out for lacking empathy
