Sunday May 28th 2024

This is going to sound super mean. But I just need some place to vent. Please try to hear me out on this.

So, yesterday I visited my mom who is staying at her boyfriends' house for the weekend. Because my little sister is at her dads' this weekend me and my other sister decided to stay home. But yesterday I drove to my mom and visited her and stayed for dinner, and in the evening I went back home. My sister was home alone yesterday and had to make dinner for herself. She needed to find something to eat, go to the store, buy the ingredients and make it. This is something that she has done while I am present and there to help her. But yesterday was the first time she needed to do it alone, without me helping her. Because I wasn't home.

But while she was in the store she called me. My sister told me that they didn't have the ingredients there to make the dish she wanted to make. So she needed me to tell her what to do. She already had a new dish in mind and just needed to know what ingredients she needed to buy. No problem so far, I was a little annoyed that she needed me to tell her what she needed to buy because I don't know what she was going to make. But I was able to help her. I told her she needed to buy some sauce for her pasta. This is sauce we have at home, but we didn't have a lot left. So I asked her if she had checked if we still had some sauce at home. But she didn't check. I will give it to her that this sauce wasn't on the list of ingredients she needed for her original dish. But at this point I was so annoyed I stopped calling just to calm down.

Immediatly after I called her back but she didn't pick up her phone. And then my mom was mad at me because my sister told her I never answered the phone. But I did! I just put down the phone for a couple of seconds and called her back. So now my mom was mad at me for a lie. I told her the truth and my mom told me that it was rude of me to end the call. And I'll admit that it was rude. I was just so annoyed. But my sister was able to figure it out so she had dinner that evening.

And today I didn't have food for myself so I needed to go to the store. I told my sister I was leaving and she was mad that I told her that I was only buying food for myself and not for her too. But I didn't know that she needed food too. I checked the fridge before I left and saw some leftovers so I assumed that she would eat that. She told me that that wasn't enough for a whole meal so she needed food too. I asked her what her plan was, because we didn't have anything at home.

My sister then told me that her plan was to take a shower and read a book. I got mad, because the store was closing in an hour (the store is only open before noon and it was already 11:00). She told me that she hadn't thought about dinner and asked me to buy something for her to eat. I got even more mad because she needs to be able to take care of herselve because I won't be at home all the time.

Eventually me and my sister decided to meet up at the store so she could buy food for herself. I could have just sucked it up and bought a meal for the both of us, but this isn't the first time this has happened. And I didn't feel like buying food for the both of us, and her never paying me back. This isn't my monthly allowance we are talking about, this is money I earned by working.

At the store, she just followed me around the whole time. When I went to grab a pizza, she took one too and said it was her dinner. I don't know why she did that, because she doesn't know how the oven works despite me telling her over and over again.

I messaged my mom about how upset I am. But she just told me that "it's hard for your sister too. You need to help her, and teach her these skills. She can't help the fact that she is disabled." I get that, and I get that she struggles with a lot of things. But this isn't the first time these things have happened. I already had to go to the store and buy food for her because she forgot, I already had to help her because the store didn't have the ingredients she needed. She knows how to handle these situations. I already told her to put 'going to the store' in her agenda so she doesn't forget. But she doesn't listen. I already told her that she needs to have a backup plan when she goes to the store in case they don't have the ingredients, but she doesn't listen.

I have bought a couple of pizzas to put in the freezer. So next time when we are home alone, and she forgets to go to the store, I have a backup plan. But she needs to feel that her actions have consequences. I feel like it will keep happening unless she finally learns these things. We have been staying at home, buying groceries and making our own dinner every other weekend for a couple of months now. So this isn't a new thing.

And now she has posted a video on tiktok. Telling people I am a bad sister, and her friends in the comments all say I am a bad person. I always hear "she has autism, she needs extra help, you need to support her because she can't do the things other people can.' Nobody actually listens to me. I have been helping her for her entire life. I had to stay after school so she doesn't have to take the bus home alone. I had to walk about an hour away from my college campus to pick her up after a school trip because she can't take the train back home. I had to plan entire trips because she won't, but she wants to go anyway. I have to constantly think for her, because she won't. I don't mind a lot of it, but it gets tiring after a while. Instead of me needing to give her less support because she is older, I need to keep giving her more support. I don't want to invalidate her feelings and her needs, but I hate having to throw my life around because she can't do something by herself. No matter how many times we help her, and teach her how to do things on her own.

What will she do when I don't live at home anymore? Or when our mother can't take care of her anymore? I don't want our little sister to have to help take care of her older sister. I don't want to constantly redirect my life to help her do basic stuff. Some things she can't do even though we have practised for her entire life. I don't think she can ever go somewhere on her own, let alone take public transport (something that you learn to do on your own when you are 12 years old). She will be 19 years old this summer, and she can't even think about needing to eat that evening. But when someone else went to the store she will ask 'what are we going to eat for dinner' in the morning. So she does think about food, but not about where that food comes from.

Sorry this is a long one. I just needed to vent somewhere.