Not My Responsibility
You’re going to need a little backstory. I have two sisters and a brother, and one of my sisters is the most dumpster fire person I’ve ever met. I’d like to say she wasn’t always this way, but now looking back, there’s always been a sense of entitlement with her that I could never quite understand. My sister is three years older than me.
We lost our mom very young. I was five. We were raised by my father. Now, my sister is not my full sister. We share the same mom, not the same dad. However, my father met our mom when she was pregnant with my sister, adopted her right away, and her real father never wanted a relationship with her and signed over parental rights immediately.
We didn’t find that out until right before my mom passed, though. I guess she didn’t want to die without telling her. Makes sense. Anyway, my sister was a runaway. It started young. Every time she’d get in trouble—she’d run. And it wasn’t that my dad was strict, quite the opposite. He yelled a lot, but we never got hit, we never even got grounded.
We of course had to help out around the house because he worked midnights, but overall, he was a decent enough parent. He never treated my sister any differently. Never made it seem like she wasn’t his child. Heck, he was the only one there when she took her first steps. But she started getting interested in boys, bad boys that were in lock up, normal teenage rebellion on her part.
The first time she ran away she ended up going to her real father’s house. My dad tried to hide it, but I could see how hurt he was. She kept running away, and she’d come back for a month or two, then leave again. Sometimes for a few days, sometimes a few weeks. Sometimes months. Months of not knowing where she was. My dad would follow any lead he had.
We’d be out well past dark almost every night trying to find her. I heard him crying a lot. And then the big change hit. She got pregnant at 18 and had the baby at 19. She moved back in, and my dad paid for everything until the kid was nearly three. At that point, he told her she had to get a job. Instead, she moved out with a man who paid for everything and took care of her kid.
She didn’t love him, and she made that obvious. They fought all the time. He got her pregnant, but dude only stays for so long before he finds someone who actually does love him and does want to be with him. He buys my sister a trailer, and she insists she will get a job now. She lives down the street from me, we offer to drive her places (she doesn’t have a license), and we offer to watch her kids for free.
We offer to let her come over and use our Wi-Fi. For months she comes over and uses the Wi-Fi, but doesn’t fill out applications for jobs. She downloads movies instead. I ask her all the time: Did you pay rent this month? Did you feed your cat? I had two cats and was always offering her litter and food. She always said she was fine.
Months go by. She tells me she’s getting evicted in three days. She had stopped letting me in her house for about 3-4 months. Anyway, I help her move her stuff out. Then I find out what’s really been happening. She hadn’t been feeding her cat. He’s SKIN and BONES. There was nothing left of this cat. There are Cheerios in its food dish.
I take it home. I rename him. The vet says another 2-3 weeks he would have starved. He puts on 14 lbs within a year. He’s happy and healthy now. She still tells people I kidnapped her cat. Then she meets another guy, and this guy has a rap sheet. He’s been behind bars for big time things. He makes her give her daughter (from the guy she never loved) to the girl’s father.
He still has her. She stops contacting her daughter. Then it took an even darker turn. I get worried about her because she starts posting some bizarre things on Facebook and not answering my calls. Things that are not her. Things that sound like she’s being forced to write these humiliating posts about how awful she is.
I ask for a welfare check on her. She blocks me and I don’t hear from her for over a year. Our grandmother passes away, and I try to get her to go see her. She makes up some excuse and doesn’t talk to any of us until three months later when my family held a service. My grandma didn’t want a funeral; she wanted a party after people had a chance to grieve properly.
She has a kid by this bad guy now. Getting ready for the party, she has to pin her shirt to her bra because her shoulders are showing and he says she looks inappropriate. I get her alone, and she says she’s happy. I tell her she can leave if she wants to. She doesn’t. I try to talk to the guy for a little bit, and things seem okay. His parents are great, fantastic really considering their son.
But, they ask my sister and the boyfriend to sign over rights to their new baby to them, in exchange that they will buy them a house. They agree. They get pregnant again to replace that child, and they don’t tell me until the day she goes into labor. I’d been talking to her every few weeks at this point. She never mentioned it to me even once.
I give her $3,000 when they move to help them get the kids their new bedrooms as she’s seeing her daughter again and they still have their first child and now this new kid. Neither her nor her boyfriend work. Of course not. Two months later, she asks me for $350 but I am hurting for money and I can’t give it to her. I tell her I can in a few weeks when I get a bonus. More unsettling truths come out.
She tells me her power is shut off and this guy’s parents took the kids. I still can’t help her. She tells me never to call her again, that I’m a bad sister and an awful aunt. That I’m pathetic and needy. She hits all the low blows. I just said okay, let me know if you change your mind. She blocks me. She contacts me two days later and her story has changed.
She needs $125 for a hotel room. I tell her to just stay at her house without power, as the kids aren’t with her and it’s not hot or cold. She then says her house was broken into. Every time I tell her no, there’s a new story as to why she needs this money. I send her $40 for food. I then find out through a mutual friend that they are selling their newly acquired home (18k home) for $5,000.
They are rehoming their dog for a fee. I am blocked from seeing these posts. The comments indicate she has sold both of them. I block her because I don’t want to confront her. What’s the point? She’s just going to lie. Whatever the real reason is, she’s not going to tell me. At this point she has not spoken to 90% of the family in months, my grandma’s funeral being the only time, and before that, it’s been years.
She starts messaging all of them for money. She tells them I’m a liar because I warned them what was going on. She says she’s sleeping under a bridge now. They refuse to go to a shelter because they will get split up. My parents offer to take her kids. My parents offer to let her move in, but jailbird can’t come. She chooses the so-called bridge.
My parents told me yesterday that they got custody of her first child. I see her second child quite regularly, as the father and I have a great relationship, but she hasn’t spoken to her daughter for months. I feel guilty for not doing more to help her, at the same time I feel like I have officially reached my end with her. There is nothing more I can do.