AITA for refusing to visit my stepbrother in hospital after his accident
i (32f) lost my mum to cancer when i was 9, she was in hospital for almost six months before she died and i was in and out every day for the last stretch. the smell, the lighting, the corridors, all of it is still lodged somewhere in me.
my dad remarried when i was 17 to a woman with two kids of her own, one a year older than me and one two years younger, and we shared a house for a few years before i moved out for uni and never moved back. weve done nothing more than family christmases since, and ive seen the younger one (my stepbrother, 30) maybe four times in the last decade, its not a bad relationship its just a nothing relationship.
he was in a motorcycle accident ten days ago, multiple surgeries, induced coma for four days, hes stable now but theyre keeping him in for weeks. my dad called me the night it happened and i said how can i help, he said come visit him.
i havent been able to, ive tried twice, i drove to the parking structure once and sat in my car for forty minutes before driving home, then i told my dad i would come the weekend after and called him saturday morning saying i was sorry, i couldnt do it.
he was patient the first time, not the second, he said my stepmom is going through the worst week of her life and the one thing she has asked is for the family to be at the hospital, and im the only one not showing up. he said it doesnt matter that hes my stepbrother and not my brother, this is what family does, and that if it was about mum i should have worked through it years ago because life is going to keep handing me hospitals whether i like it or not.
i cant explain to him that its not just the hospital, its that ive been told i should treat them like family for fifteen years and ive never actually felt like family with any of them, and now that someones life is on the line im supposed to summon something i never had, and it feels dishonest.
my grandma (mums mum) called me from overseas two days ago, she said she heard from someone in the family i was being put under pressure and i didnt have to do anything that put me back in that hospital.
my stepmom hasnt spoken to me directly but my dad isnt speaking to me at all, i sent flowers and a card and got a thank you text from my stepsister, nothing from anyone else.
AITA?