There’s a big difference between accommodating a mental illness and enabling it, and not every family figures out where that line is.

When a young woman asked her family to travel to her for her birthday after years of making the trip herself, her agoraphobic sibling responded with guilt trips and accusations rather than any effort to meet her halfway.

She decided for the first time not to give in — and spent her birthday wondering if she had made the right call.

You’ll want to keep reading for this one.

AITAH for not accommodating my agoraphobic sibling?

To give some context, my sibling (30) has struggled with agoraphobia for a few years now and is essentially housebound except for the odd trip to the grocery store.

Because of this, their sibling depends a lot on their parents for just about everything.

They currently live with our parents, who pay for all of their expenses and run all of my sibling’s errands — picking up groceries, prescriptions, withdrawing money from the ATM, etc. — which just further enables my sibling.

The family has pushed this sibling to get better, but they always make excuses.

My sibling has been saying they are going to start therapy for months now, but every time I check in there’s an excuse for why they haven’t gone yet.

She moved away years ago, but for a while, she tried to visit as much as she could.

I (23F) moved about an hour and a half away from my family home a couple of years ago to be closer to the city.

My sibling has struggled with agoraphobia since before I moved, so I have made an effort to visit them regularly, as well as travelling down for birthdays, holidays, etc.

This was never previously an issue, as I was single and only working part time — plus I was still feeling homesick and enjoyed going back to see everybody.

But lately, life has gotten busy.

However, I’m now in a relationship and have a full-time job which is very emotionally taxing, so I don’t have the time and energy to visit home as much as I used to.

The rest of my family is pretty understanding of this and have made the occasional trip down to see me.

Her sibling isn’t near as understanding.

My sibling, on the other hand, takes me not coming down as often as a personal attack and has accused me of prioritising my partner over my family — which is untrue.

The most recent example, and the reason for this post, is my birthday.

As mentioned, for the last few years I have travelled back home to celebrate my birthday with my family. This is slightly annoying, as I don’t have a car so I have to take public transport, which adds another hour to the travel time — but I would still do it because I wanted to see everyone.

So this year, she wanted to mix it up a little, but her sibling had a huge problem with this.

This year, I decided to take a few days off work and asked my family if they would travel to me to celebrate instead.

Everyone agreed except, of course, my sibling.

Their expectation was that my family would come here, have a birthday meal with me, and then transport me back to our hometown so I could see them.

But she wasn’t on board with this.

I shut this idea down pretty quickly, reiterating that I only have a few days off work and I just want to relax for my birthday this year, as my job has been really draining recently.

Her family then proceeded to take her sibling’s side.

Their response was to guilt trip me, accusing me of purposely excluding them because I know they struggle with long trips, and venting about how much they struggle with their agoraphobia.

I am sympathetic to this. I have struggled with severe anxiety on and off for my entire life, so I understand how debilitating it can be and how difficult it is to break out of that mindset.

But she thinks her sibling isn’t holding up their end of the deal.

My issue is that my sibling just will not try. They’ve gotten so accustomed to living in this agoraphobia bubble, with everyone running around after them and being endlessly accommodating, that I feel my sibling has no reason to try to get better.

This has led to some pretty big consequences.

They have missed funerals, weddings, birthdays, and time with family members who have now passed — and there is still absolutely no effort.

As harsh as it may sound, I feel that if my family continues to enable this avoidant behaviour, it will continue on forever.

She’s made plenty of efforts to contribute to her sibling’s recovery, but still they just don’t budge.

It may not seem like it from the way this is written, but I’ve been very supportive of my sibling since they started struggling with this. I’ve tried searching for therapists on their behalf, offered to come with them for short walks and drives as exposure therapy, and tried to be as encouraging as possible of any progress they make.

I don’t say anything negative about their current situation, as I know they’re depressed and I don’t want to make them feel worse. I’m just not sure the best approach is to continue to endlessly accommodate them without question.

She decides to just swallow the guilt and stand her ground.

I’ve decided, despite feeling incredibly guilty, that I won’t be travelling back to see my sibling for my birthday.

AITAH?

It’s hard to miss time with family, but it’s also hard to watch your loved ones be self destructive.

What did Reddit think?

This commenter agrees this sibling is behaving incredibly selfishly.

A commenter who struggles with the same condition speaks up.

Her parents need to start planning ahead a little better.

She needs to position this as the two-way relationship it is.

She has spent years travelling home, searching for therapists, and offering exposure therapy walks — and her sibling has spent the same time finding reasons not to try.

If there’s ever a time to be a little selfish, it’s on your own birthday.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.