So, my sister “Haley” (14F) isn’t doing the best. She struggles with school, mental health, and also is kind of emotional where she’ll bully me a bit to fit in or make a mean joke about me for validation because I’m the “weird autistic girl”.
Well, I don’t really know what to tell Haley, so I’m wondering if her friend “Charlotte” (14F) is really a bad person for this? Charlotte has a history of being bullied, so Haley states that she’s one of the only people who’s been there for Haley.
Apparently, Charlotte’s moving to a mountain state while we’re in the Midwest. Haley’s also scared that Charlotte will just make new friends and forget her.
I reassured Haley that Charlotte was nice and would always talk to her over text or calling, but Haley said she didn’t want to just be someone Charlotte knew online and could never see in person.
She’s also saying she’s mad at Charlotte, she hates Charlotte and wants to block Charlotte, and is trying to get me to agree that Charlotte’s mean for not telling her sooner that she’s moving away.
You must log in or register to comment.
No.
14-year-olds do not have the agency to decide when and where they are moving. That is almost always a consequence of a change in their parents’ life.
And given that your little sister seems to be going through puberty and all of the hormones and everything like that, (hopefully that is what’s going on and she’s not just someone who has decided to be hateful), it makes sense that Charlotte would attempt to downplay the change and try to wait for a good time to let her know about it.
And it’s not like she waited until two weeks or something before the move. She has told her at the very least several months in advance.
I definitely don’t think Charlotte is the asshole. In this kind of situation, it’s the world that’s the asshole, because these things suck and there aren’t any ways around it. Your sister is justified in being unhappy at the prospect of not being able to see Charlotte in person.
But also, would anything be any different if Charlotte had told Haley that she was going to be moving? Because if Haley is scared that Charlotte will make new friends and forget her, then that fear exists regardless of when Charlotte told Haley about the move. Which is to say that I think it’d be good to validate Haley’s fears regarding this a little, in that this is a reasonable thing to worry (as long as it’s proportionate), and exists separately from the upset of when Haley was told.
Something that might help is emphasising that Charlotte may well hold similar fears, and that this might even be why Charlotte didn’t tell Haley for a while. Maybe there was a dash of denial going on, like “I am anxious about whether I’ll be able to make new friends and whether Haley will forget me, so I’m just going to ignore the future and enjoy things while I can”. It’s an immature response, but not unreasonable, especially for a 14 year old.
