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The original was posted on /r/amitheasshole by /u/aliengal1999 on 2024-01-22 11:25:26+00:00.
I 20F and my sister 27F just had a massive fight and I can't understand if I'm in the wrong. Also apologies for the formatting, I'm on mobile.
So my 3 older sisters and I have a groupchat we all keep in touch in. My sister "May" 27F sent a picture of her bedroom at her boyfriends and how she set it up, in the background I saw a few of my things, including the christmas present she bought me in the background. It was a really nice hair brush and hair clip set in my favourite colour that I was really happy to get from her on christmas.
I was obviously a bit annoyed when I saw it, and messaged "Is that the gift you got me for christmas? Maybe don't buy me anything if you're just going to take it, I can buy one for myself then", which to be honest may have been an emotional reaction in the moment. My other sister "Bella" 30F messaged "yea thats rude why take a gift you bought lol", and it escalated from there.
May instantly got angry, told me that she doesn't care if its rude, because she's trying to be rude to me, since I never messaged her when her cat died. For some context, May's cat unexpectadly and suddenly died around 3 weeks ago, it shocked and hurt the whole family especially may, as he was her "companion animal". Now, when he died, May asked for space, and stayed at her boyfriends, I was dealing with a stressful situation in my life and was afraid to message May because I didn't want to bother her.
I have extreme anxiety and May scares me. She has Bipolar and is very unpredictable. I've had a problem with using avoidance to cope with anxiety because I psych myself out, and I kept thinking what if I send my condolences and shes messages back "don't talk to me, I don't want to think about him right now" or calls my condolences fake or something? I just got too afraid of her potential response and said nothing since it seemed like the safest option.
So, May continued to say that she won't be nice to me, because I wasn't there for her, and she was there for me when my "fucking rabbit" died last year. I just kept trying to communicate and say I'm so sorry, you're unpredictable and I didn't know how you'd respond if I said anything, May said "fuck you, piss off" and my other sister bella said "its commom sense to say something to family when a pet dies" and I just kept saying I was afraid to say anything.
The conversation completely switched from May being wrong for taking back a christmas gift, to me being wrong for saying nothing when her cat passed away. Bella then sent a message saying me and May are both aggressive and overeactive, and that I should accept I'm wrong and should've known better, and both said I should seek therapy for my avoidance.
I just feel so villainized, I have autism and anxiety and struggle to get "common sense". I get so afraid of how people will respond that I say nothing. I can't help but feel like my sister May is in the wrong because its so hard to tell when she'll go nuclear.
AITA For saying nothing?