this is a community like r/AmITheAsshole except unlike that subreddit here you can post interpersonal conflicts, anything that's AITA but is not allowed there even posting about Scar from the lion king and trying to convince redditors that he was not the AH. rules: don't berate others and no pornography we have children here
Two years ago, my daughter moved back in with us, insisting that she had a mysterious disease called "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.” She has now been lying in bed for the last two years, only rarely venturing outside for doctors’ appointments (during which she makes us use a wheelchair to transport her to + fro the office). She fears that any exertion will make her worse and she will “end up on a feeding tube.” She makes my wife cater to her by bringing her food and water at least twice a day.
It is my suspicion that my daughter’s mental health history contributes to this disease she is so fixated on. She was diagnosed with BPD several years ago after a suicide attempt, and though she denies having it now, I have done my best to inform her medical team of that diagnosis, as well as her other past mental health disorders including anorexia several years ago, which was so severe that she needed to be hospitalized. I love her and want the best for her, and think it benefits none of us to hide this history from her doctors.
I think she has moved back in with us as a way to escape the stresses and responsibilities of real life, and she is using this new diagnosis of CFS as an excuse. She never had a full-time job and seemed content to coast on part-time jobs after her graduation in 2019, and (conveniently) the pandemic of 2020 interrupted her search for work. After this, she never went back to work again, not even part time. She claims she tried to find work in the year after the pandemic and before she became bedridden, but my daughter does not have the most trustworthy track record. (See: BPD diagnosis.) She did apply and get into grad school, but in my opinion this is still a step down from finding a fulltime job in terms of the "stages of life."
She has thus far managed to manipulate both of her doctors—her GP and her “CFS specialist”—that she indeed has "Severe CFS" caused by a Covid infection. She's done this with the help of a psychiatrist who also specializes in Long Covid related situations, and who seems to be very easily manipulated himself and treats my wife and I as though we are abusers. (Of course he would, given that he has consistently heard my daughter’s side of the story. Even when we spoke to him in private, with my daughter’s consent, and I tried to get my point of view across and to be heard, he was adamant in painting me as the villain, and he did not seem to “hear” me at all.) Before the psychiatrist spoke to the GP, the GP seemed ambivalent about whether my daughter’s condition was physical or psychological, but now the GP insists, along with my daughter and the CFS specialist, that she does indeed have CFS. My daughter has manipulated other psychiatrists in the past as well, for example, making them believe that I am a "Bad Guy."
On the practical side: my wife and I are in our late 60s and we are not getting any stronger. I recently had back surgery which is very painful, and it is quite the experience hearing my daughter wailing from upstairs for her food while I have a gaping wound in my back for which I was prescribed opiates. My wife has bad knees and it pains me to see her going up and down the stairs in order to wait on my daughter, whom I genuinely believe is perfectly capable of getting her own food and water herself, despite what she has told herself and convinced her doctors to tell her. She asked for me to bring up some water the other day and when I told her that she is capable of getting it herself, she became very angry and called me an "asshole" (ironically)
My daughter is nearly 30 and while I understand how comforting it may be to stay in the nest, she needs to learn to be self-sufficient so that she is not depending on her parents as we age into our 70s, 80s, 90s. So: WIBTA if I told her she needs to stop blaming everything on CFS, get back on her feet and learn to support herself?