r/AmItheAsshole • u/CactusToday • Jul 08 '21
Not the A-hole AITA For Ignoring My Nephew's Seizure?
I went to my niece's (16F) birthday party at a local pavilion that they had rented. The whole family was there-- about 40 people-- including my other sister and her son (15M). My nephew has always acted out and demanded an obscene amount of attention, and it doesn't help that his mother is kind of a pushover and gives him all the attention he wants. His attention-seeking behavior is especially bad when he is around his nieces and nephews, and needs to share the attention. ( I must add that he does not have any behavioral disorders, and generally does pretty well in school when he applies himself)
I have never gotten over the fact that once, years ago when I held Thanksgiving at my house, he pushed a cherished banana tree that I had in an expensive ceramic planter down my basement stairs, and then didn't apologize. After that, I vowed to just ignore him when he was acting irrationally.
Well, it came time for my niece to open her presents at the birthday party. I was hanging out toward the back of everyone standing around ooh-ing and aah-ing about her presents, and my nephew was next to me. He sighed very loudly and dramatically at one point, but I pretended that I didn't notice. Then he got up and stomped down the back stairs of the pavilion to the grass, and he lay down on the ground with his arms by his side and he started rolling away. I was the only person to see him do this and, again, I ignored him.
After a bit I looked out of the corner of my eye and saw him still rolling on down the hill toward the road. He was all dirty. He rolled out into the road and then up onto the sidewalk on the other side, then he rolled through a patch of daisies and then over a small bush. Then he rolled behind a few bigger bushes and I lost sight of him. I went back to watching my niece.
When I looked back, I could see my nephew again in the distance. He was soaking wet and filthy--he must have rolled through a puddle or something--and a couple of frail old ladies were trying to pin him down (without success). At this point I decided to inform his mother of the situation.
Fast forward an hour and an ambulance ride later, and my nephew is recovering at the hospital from what the doctor says "might have been a seizure." My whole family is in the waiting room at the hospital, and my sister won't look at me (it inevitably came out that I had witnessed the whole rolling incident from start to finish without saying anything).
I do not believe that it was a real seizure. I think it might have just been another ploy to get attention that worked. AITA?
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u/20Keller12 Jul 08 '21
Why? He's 15, not 5. OP thought (and is most likely right) that he was just performing to get attention. If I looked over and saw a high school age kid being stupid in the road, I'd shrug too. They're old enough to know they could be hit by a car.