As a child, this young man had chronic illnesses that left him in the hospital for extended periods of time, and during those times, his family almost never visited him.

Now that he is an adult and on his own, his dad and brother got in a car accident and are in the hospital, but he is choosing not to visit them.

The family in this story is now angry at him for not visiting, even though they never visited him when he was sick.

AITA for not visiting my dad and brother in the hospital after they were in a serious accident?

I (19M) am the middle child in my family. I have an older brother and sister who are in their 20s and a younger brother and sister still in high school.

This can be very difficult for anyone, especially kids.

As a kid and teen I was in and out of the hospital a lot. I have a heart condition and a kidney condition. Both of them leading to infections and other problems throughout my life.

It sucked in so many ways but one of those ways was how my family did not give a crap.

Wow, this family just neglected him.

Once I was admitted to the hospital I would rarely see anyone from my family while I was there. One of my parents would come for the doctors rounds but that would be it.

They’d leave me again to go home or back to work. My visitors were mostly my lifelong best friend turned boyfriend and his family. They visited me almost every day.

This is really nice of them.

Sometimes it was just his parents coming to visit me if no kids were allowed to visit. But they always made sure to call once I had a cell phone and stuff. I saw them significantly more than my own parents and my own siblings.

Even when I was really sick one time and they weren’t sure if I could recover I didn’t get a parent staying with me. It was something that a hospital social worker visited me over several times during my many hospital stays.

So, he made it clear that it was hurtful what they were doing.

And when I was discharged from the hospital and I’d say how much it hurt to not have anyone there from my family I got brushed off and my siblings were like omg why would we want to be there.

My parents said they had more than me to worry about and part of being sick was having to grow up fast and accept I wasn’t the center of their universe.

He is right, they treated him like a burden.

In general my family treated me like a burden and took their resentments about my health out on me.

Just after I turned 17 my parents gave me the okay to move in with my boyfriend and his family.

The boyfriend’s family was very supportive.

What prompted this was I had a surgery and my boyfriend and his parents stayed the whole time while my parents left. My boyfriend’s parents then asked my parents about them taking me in and my parents said sure.

I have been practically no contact with my family since.

Accidents can be terrifying.

That was until the accident my dad and older brother were in. They were in surgery for many hours and stayed in hospital for weeks.

I didn’t visit them and didn’t really answer calls from my family. I muted them for a while. I’m considering blocking them now.

I can’t say that I blame him.

But it just didn’t sit right to visit when they cared so little about visiting me in the hospital and treated me like a burden.

By not going I set them all off to be angry that I wouldn’t go and how I expected them to visit me for all those years and yet I won’t do the same and lead by example.

100% agree, the family was way out of line here.

It made me mad that they’d bring up a kid wanting his family to visit him in the hospital and compared it to two grown men expecting the now grown up kid to visit them.

The thing is I know it was serious. It was even in the local news. And I just don’t know if I did right or wrong really.

It is fine whether he went or not.

Because a part of me wonders if I did do a bad thing by not visiting even once.

AITA?

He is under no obligation to go if he doesn’t want, but it could have been an opportunity to try to reunite with the family.

Maybe the people in the comments have some good insights into what should be done.

They don’t deserve anything.

This commenter makes a good point.

Protecting yourself is not wrong.

They taught him to be like this.

This is exactly what he should say.

They are reaping what they sewed.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.