Hello Reddit ! Well I think it’s the first time I’m writing a post here, so I apologize in advance if I do anything wrong. TLDR at the bottom.
First, we’ll go with a little introduction of us protagonists, so you might better understand why I ask something that seems so natural for everyone else.
I am 25, f, not a native English speaker. I am currently in vacation with my grandma and my sister, 27. Also I am diagnosed ADHD and currently trying a new medication that is “slowing” me a little bit mentally.
As ADHD is apparently genetic, my grandma would be the closest person I know who could have it : multiple interest, hyperverbal, always doing tons of things, very cultivated as a result of her insatiable appetite to discover things, empathetic mess, etc…
My sister has anger issues that scares me a bit. She’s very blunt with words and she bottle up emotions until she lashes out on me. Yeah just me, not grandma for now. She raised me since she was 9, as my parents divorced and wanted to live both a new youth. My mother (grandma’s daughter) is kinda narcissistic and only cares about herself, made us miserable for years and would play with our emotions. My dad did the “absent status” since we were 10 and 12, and he was an enabler that needed emotional abuse and dilemmas to thrive. So we’re kinda f**ked up for expressing and feeling emotions in a healthy way.
So, here we are !
Now the situation :
My grandma lost one of her three brothers few days ago, from a long battle with his health issues. It happened just before we went traveling with her.
She wanted to visit her dying brother with her second brother, as she felt it was “the last time”. But unfortunately she was the one discovering his lifeless body on his bed when arriving at his home. It affected her deeply as you can imagine. But as she was raised, she learned to always put her feelings last and keep going for everyone’s sake. So she said she’d still go in vacations with us. So far, she made it work.
The issue now happened yesterday night. My sister had planned herself a game party with some of our friend on discord at 9pm. I was okay with going along but felt something was off, so it was optional. I tried to talk about it to my sister but she said “it’s a part of grieving, that’s okay”, rolling her eyes back. I still felt it wasn’t good but as she was starting to get angry, I said nothing.
So when we went for a walk at 8:45pm, she watched her phone to be sure to be on time for the game. At 8:55pm she told grandma we would go back to the hotel room to install our setups. Grandma looked so bummed, but said it was okay and said she’d continue to walk by herself a bit.
I asked my sister multiple times if we shouldn’t go with her, while we watched her leave, as she wasn’t feeling okay. My sister was fed up and told me to go if I wanted, but that I’d betray my agreement to play with my friends and her (???).
I’m sure my friends would have been understanding, as they are really caring people. To not make her unleash on me, I went with it.
The game was good but I wasn’t feeling it. I’d check the time multiple times because I was worried for my grandma, thing that upset my sister really much.
At 10:40pm I was so worried I called my grandma to ask if she was okay. She responded with a really sad voice that she was, and hung up. Few minutes later she was back to the hotel room with us, but really silent. That’s not something normal at all, so I put my computer down and went to see her.
When I asked her if she was okay she started to cry and told me to “just leave” multiple times, that’s what I did. Then she went to rest a bit on the balcony.
I texted my sister (to not speak out loud in the room) what happened and my sister rolled her eyes again, and asked me out loud if I wanted to continue the game or not. It was with a really agressive tone.
I kept checking on my grandma until we all went to bed.
This morning, she still wasn’t feeling really good so I spoke about what shall we do for grandma with my sister. She then told me she has much more to worry as I’m apparently “not myself” and that is stressing me too much, still angry at me apparently. To be honest, no, the treatment doesn’t work much like that but as she has cared for me all those years she still see me as a little girl unable to cope by myself, while I’m really independent in reality. It bothers me but to not add up I can keep it to myself.
Later, my sister confronted her. My grandma said she wished we went to walk with her yesterday night, but it seemed we didn’t want to spend time with her. Both cried and some words were said…
I do wanna spend time with her. I just didn’t believe my instinct to go with her because my sister planned something and she was angry. I don’t know what to do if the instructions are unclear or if people don’t tell me things directly. I’m just a bit slower to notice things right now and to stand for myself.
We are all bottling up, but I feel the priority is my grandma now. I just don’t know what to do to show I support her and I’m here for her. I never dealt with grief this bad coming from someone else, never learned to show vulnerability, I don’t know how to help but I want to. My support system (irl friends and psychiatrist) are all in vacations really far away and not reachable for long periods of time. I’m sorry if this is too much, I feel it’s an emergency I wasn’t prepared for.
TLDR : I want to help my grandma go through the loss of her dear brother and show support, while not upsetting my sister with anger issues. All of this because I’m under new medication for ADHD and apparently I’m stressful to manage for the moment.
Thank you Reddit and have a nice day o/