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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

If I sent you this message, what would you do?

303 replies

QuestionableMouse · 04/10/2018 15:25

Message was "help migraine pills drink help please"

I sent it to my sister after waking up with the worst migraine I've had for a while. I never ask for help, ever. I sent it at 12:20. She's still out shopping and I've had no help from her or my parents. Just managed to make it downstairs to get a drink.

I'm feeling pretty sorry for myself and quite fragile so I'm not sure if I'm being unreasonable in feeling a bit annoyed and upset.

OP posts:
SleepingStandingUp · 05/10/2018 01:19

Well assuming you were my sister and I loved you, I'd either pop in or call. Because even if you WERE attention seeking clearly you still needed some attention so yeah I'd check you were ok

HoppingPavlova · 05/10/2018 01:28

I can’t even roll over in bed let alone walk downstairs.

Yes but also guessing you can’t get on your phone and post lengthily posts on Mumsnet at the time either.

SwanConvoy · 05/10/2018 04:03

You have asked for honest answers here. If I got that message, my reaction would totally depend on who had sent it.

For some people, this would trigger absolute panic in me and I would fear they were having a stroke or a brain haemorrhage or something. Given the way it is worded, it sounds like someones final message before blacking out a desperate cry for help. These would be people who would never send something like this unless it was a dire emergency. I would call them and if I couldn't reach them I would be heading straight over.

For other people, who have form for this 'type' of behaviour it would wind me up. Unless you are in absolute dire straits this type of message sounds staged it also has no regard for the receiver and how such a message could worry and upset them. I would have no have problem receiving a request for help but this is unnecessarily dramatic.

I have a friend who often sends me disturbing messages - that sound like she is about to take her own life or do something drastic. I used to panic, drop everything and call her to be met with a cheery 'Hi darling' to find she is watching TV...

GinIsIn · 05/10/2018 04:16

Probably text back ‘can’t out shopping can’t’ and think you were being a massive drama queen.

JudgeRulesNutterButter · 05/10/2018 04:48

can’t out shopping can’t GrinGrin

OP, can I ask: why didn’t you text something like “just got a migraine, please please please can you come get me my tablets, worried I will fall over if I try the stairs xxxxxxx”?

glitterystuff · 05/10/2018 04:56

Wow... Some of the answers on here.

Firstly, I get migraines, they're not always catastrophically bad, but they're diagnosed by a GP as migraines and respond to triptans like migraines do. Some people get migraines that don't even hurt! Just vision symptoms.

BUT! Some people (like my son), get pain that is catastrophically awful. I have occasionally had those myself - once in hospital - and all I did was lie completely rigid, cry, and keep my eyes shut the whole time - even when a doctor was speaking to me.

If I'd been at home alone and the pain was that kind of severe I might have tried to call for help and been incoherent too.

If I received a text like that I'd take the person at their word and respond. Even if it was just to call or text back and say "I can't come right now but I will be with you asap".

And why can't OP have recovered a little since the initial pain was that bad? Maybe she panicked at first and now she's a bit less in pain and calmer and wondering if she just got blanked by her sister?

To be honest though OP, it could just as easily be that she didn't get the message.

I wouldn't worry about it too much - or all this criticism either. Anyone would think you killed your sister's cat by some of these reactions. Hmm

There is some good advice though - keep meds close by at all times.

Hope you feel better soon.

ChicagoLil · 05/10/2018 06:37

Am I being gaslighted?

Ellisandra · 05/10/2018 06:48

@QuestionableMouse thanks for singling me out there Hmm

Yes, no-one forced me to read the thread. But you did rather encourage me to read it all under false pretences. I’m a believer in RTFT before you comment. I think it’s a bit unfair to bitch about someone that does that.

Your second text was completely different in tone. So yes, a complete waste of time.

If you’d recovered enough to post on here, you’d recovered enough to be bothered to check what you’d ACTUALLY send her. Given that the whole point of your thread was wanting to know how prople would react to WHAT YOU SENT.

Don’t mutter about people not having to read your thread, when YOU posted it here expressly wanting people to do so. Very rude Hmm

puddleducker · 05/10/2018 06:51

WutheringFrights well put.

Some of the responses here are awful, and serves to prove why so many people with invisible disabilities struggle. From The Migraine Trust:

Severe migraine attacks are classified by the World Health Organization as among the most disabling illnesses, comparable to dementia, quadriplegia and active psychosis.

As a chronic migraine sufferer, if I sent that message to any family member or close friend, they would be around as soon as they could to help as they know about my illness and would realise it was really bad if I was asking for help as I usually manage. Sometimes though they break through. I've had to crawl on my hands and knees down stair before in absolute agony when I've been caught out.

So OP, there are people out here who understand, empathise and don't judge. In answer to your post, I would have hoped my sister would have responded instantly, and if she didn't, I'd assume she hadn't seen the message.

Sending you {flowers} and I hope the postdrone isn't too horrid.

BTW, feverfew and a daith piercing have taken mine from 18 migraine days a month to just 2 or 3 and much milder.

xx

Gersemi · 05/10/2018 07:03

Your problem is that you just asked her to bring drinks; it reads as if you wanted her to buy something to drink and bring it to you. That alone would make me think your migraine wasn't too bad, as most people with bad migraines aren't asking for drinks in the plural. There was nothing in your message about being unable to access your pills. I suspect in her shoes I might well have thought "If she needs a drink what's wrong with water or tea" and carried right on with what I was doing.

WhateverHappenedToTheHeatwave · 05/10/2018 07:08

Very different second text to before, i would still call if it was my sister but if yours didn't why do you think that is?

Maybe she didn't see it?
Maybe she is self absorbed ?
Maybe she is busy?
Maybe she thinks you have form for the dramatic?

Onky you know your sister and without her input here then i suggest you ask if you want to know.

Blackoutblinds · 05/10/2018 07:09

Your actual text that you sent to me means buy me drinks at the supermarket.

But what you posted here as your first text honest to god sounded like you’d attempted to overdose with alcohol and pills.

WhateverHappenedToTheHeatwave · 05/10/2018 07:09

And you mentioned no help from your parents, what did you text them?

Either they were all not seeing it, all busy, all self absorbed or all thinking you dramatic if they didn't reply either.

MrMeSeeks · 05/10/2018 07:31

How can you work a bar shift through a migraine??
Because some people dont have a choice?
If i took a day off every time i had a migraine ( chronic sufferer) i’d lose my job.

tinstar · 05/10/2018 07:33

So you didn't say you needed tablets, just drinks. Is the bathroom tap in the basement/3 flights of stairs away too?

QOD · 05/10/2018 07:51

Presumably they’re back from the shops now. What was their response?

Candymay · 05/10/2018 07:52

I’m with you OP. It’s hurtful to you because you say you don’t normally ask for help and therefore would expect your sister to be more supportive when you are in need. I’d feel the same. I’ve also got family that would do nothing for me though!

I notice that some people on here are really harsh. They are different; stronger; calmer; wiser. Good for them.

Strugglingtodomybest · 05/10/2018 08:19

I'd help you OP if I got that message and was only 5 minutes away. However, text messages don't always come through immediately on my phone so I may not have got it yet. Plus, as others have said, if I'm shopping, I'm probably not checking my phone.

RangeRider · 05/10/2018 08:54

Either the details are changing because Op doesn't like the responses or dsis is an extreme Brexit prepper who's been detained by tesco for trying to buy more than her share of bottled water and baked beans!
Grin Fabulous!

Bluntness100 · 05/10/2018 09:03

What an odd thread, if I got the second text, and I was at the supermarket, I'd assume I was to buy drinks, not I had to stop shopping and come home immediately to get the sender a drink, Confused

Original poster
QuestionableMouse · 05/10/2018 09:06

Sister was shopping at a supermarket five minutes away with my parents. I hoped she'd pop home, bring me a drink and my pills from downstairs and then go back shopping. She didn't, because she'd gone to a retail park at the other side of town. Neither her or my parents came back until after five. Yes I managed to get down the stairs and yes I managed to post on here but it doesn't mean I was being attention seeking or dramatic. It took me almost an hour to make it downstairs and I vomited repeatedly (at one point I was sitting on the landing vomiting into a bin bag while crying my eyes out because it was so painful). It also took a fuck load of codiene to get it under any sort of control.

OP posts:
Original poster
QuestionableMouse · 05/10/2018 09:07

@tinstar the bathroom is down two flights of stairs (it's on the ground floor). No bathrooms upstairs.

OP posts:
Beaverhausen · 05/10/2018 09:09

This is why I always ensure that I have migraine tabs in the house in stock!

MsOliphant · 05/10/2018 09:27

A three story house with one bathroom Confused

OP you are still being a little attention seeking now with ‘a fuck load of codeine’ - implying that you’ve taken too much as a regular dose is not a ‘fuckload’ Hmm

WhateverHappenedToTheHeatwave · 05/10/2018 09:40

Are your migraines normally so bad? Its seems odd that if you are the kind to not complain on illness then for people not worry when you do and ask for help.

Either they dont see the migraines as such a big deal because you usually cope without saying anything. Or they are self absorbed and don't care. Or they think you are attention seeking. Could even be all three. Some people see my anxiety as attention seeking because until i snap i endure silently, those people then don't appreciate how bad an attack can be.

So where do you go from here? Speak to your sister and parents, explain how bad it was and scatter drugs around the house for immediate access?