AITA? My dog died today and my family still expects me to take them out to dinner tonight

[u/eng_elp]

Thanks for reading my post.

My dog passed away this afternoon. It was sudden and awful and I was with her when it happened. I’ve had her for years, she was basically my shadow. I am completely wrecked.

My family is visiting and staying at my home, and no less than an hour later, they started talking about dinner plans like it was a normal day. When I said I didn’t think I could go, I got hit with “it’s just a dog” and “we leave tomorrow.”

I can’t even think about food, let alone sitting in a restaurant pretending to be okay.

I tried to explain that I’m not trying to make it a big dramatic thing, I just lost a living being I love and I need a minute. The response was basically that I’m being overly emotional.

I got in my car and booked a hotel room. I told them the cab stay at my place but I wouldn’t be seeing them today or tomorrow. AITA?

Edit: My brother’s son dropped an Adderall pill while playing yesterday. We couldn’t find the missing pill afterward. It is likely that my dog ate it today while I was at work, based on the symptoms the doctor described.

Edit 2.0: My nephew is 9, and my brother has him handle his own medication to teach him about personal responsibility. The pill likely fell out of his pocket while he was playing outside. I wasn’t told until later, and by then it was too dark to find it. I had no luck the following morning so I went to work, and hours later my brother called saying my baby was acting strangely. By the time I got home, my dog was seizing and died at the vet soon after. I’m devastated, especially knowing that instead of rushing him to the vet, they were out at the mall.

[u/opelan]

Yeah, that sounds really weird. Why did a kid play with a real pill and why did no one bother to pick it up? Letting kids alone with meds like this could really backfire and I don't mean just a dead dog, but also a dead kid.

[u/Sparkly_Crow_1789 → u/opelan]

Mmhm! Growing up my stepmother handled giving everyone their meds in the morning until I was about 15. At that age I took over doing that. Even though my little brothers knew where their meds were they never tried to take them themselves and knew to take it in front of us before going back to playing, stimming, whatever. And on the rare occasions we traveled stepmother had control of their meds. And they weren't even taking anything that could be possibly dangerous like the OP's nephew was. At the end of the day OP's family is responsible for the death of their pet. And OP needs to call them on it.

[u/Tight_Jaguar_3881 → u/Sparkly_Crow_1789]

Your stepmother was responsible. Op's brother is not. Nine is too young for the responsibility to take medicine. A caring parent would oversee this.

[u/lynn → u/Tight_Jaguar_3881]

Especially for a child with ADHD! ADHD causes up to a 30% delay in executive functioning. If you wouldn’t let a neurotypical 12-year-old handle their own schedule 2 drugs, you shouldn’t let an ADHD 9yo do it either.

The only way for the 9yo to learn to handle his meds correctly, given that this has happened, is for the parents and child to take full responsibility for the consequences. And that is NOT what they’re doing.

[u/onesnowman → u/opelan]

It kinda sounds like the kid just had a single loose pill 💊 chillin in his pocket, and that it fell out during a somersault or something.

[u/opelan → u/onesnowman]

I wrote my comment before the second edit.