My Sister Faked Diabetes For Attention. When She Was Exposed, She Destroyed My Life-saving Insulin While I Begged For Help. Am I Wrong For Wanting Her To Rot In Prison?
The Insulin Ultimatum
My sister held my insulin over the sink and said, “If I can’t have diabetes, then neither can you.”
When I begged her to stop, she laughed and said, “You’re sweating already. What’s that, 400? How long till your organs shut down?”
I didn’t say a word. That was 9 days ago. This morning, she was crying in court while they read the charges out loud. What’s the worst thing your sister ever did to you?
A Jealousy Like No Other
My sister pretended to have diabetes because she was jealous of the attention mine got me from our parents. Jade was 5 years older than me and treated my type 1 diabetes like a personal insult. She’d hide my glucose meter before meals, steal my juice boxes meant for lows, and tell our parents I was using my condition for attention.
When I was 10, she threw away my insulin before a family trip, and I ended up in the ICU. She told everyone at school I was faking symptoms for special treatment. My parents told me to be patient with her, that she was just jealous of the medical attention. They had no idea how dangerous her jealousy would become.
When Jade was 18, she announced at dinner that she’d been feeling dizzy and shaky between meals. She pulled out one of my glucose meters and went through the history, claiming that some of the wonky blood sugars in its history were actually hers from when she borrowed it. Our mother immediately made her an endocrinologist appointment while Jade started telling all her friends that she was probably about to get diagnosed with diabetes.
The blood tests showed perfect levels, but Jade insisted they’d missed her reactive hypoglycemia. Within a week, she was demanding the same meal schedule and accommodations I had, timing her fake symptoms to match my real insulin schedule. Every week brought new dramatic lows for Jade. Never mind that in order to get dangerously low blood sugars, you have to be injecting insulin, which Jade wasn’t. No logic here.
She’d collapse in stores, shake uncontrollably, and demand juice while people panicked. She studied my real symptoms and perfected them: the specific way my hands trembled, the confusion that came with low blood sugar, even the particular way my speech slurred when my glucose dropped too fast. She’d time her fake episodes for maximum attention, once staging a severe crash during my birthday party, convulsing on the floor until someone gave her cake.
The paramedics who came found normal blood sugar, but she claimed their meter was broken. Our parents spent thousands on specialists who found nothing wrong. Jade joined diabetes support groups where she spread misinformation to actual diabetics, then decided that the reason she was having low blood sugars without injecting insulin was because of proximity exposure to my insulin.
So, she demanded separate refrigerators. She’d wake our parents at 3:00 a.m. claiming dangerous lows, forcing them to make her food while I handled my real overnight blood sugar issues alone because I’m not an infant.
The Thanksgiving Reveal
The truth finally came out at Thanksgiving. Jade was performing her usual dramatic low when our cousin, who was visiting from out of state, mentioned seeing her eat a huge candy stash in her room an hour earlier. Jade froze mid-shake.
Our aunt, who was a nurse, grabbed Jade’s glucose meter and tested her right there. Her blood sugar was 95—perfectly normal. The shaking stopped immediately as everyone stared at her. She tried to claim the candy was treatment for an earlier low, but our aunt tested her again 10 minutes later. Still 95. No diabetic’s blood sugar stays that stable after eating candy.
Our parents went through her room that night and found her diary, where she admitted to everything. She’d been faking for over a year, researching every aspect of diabetes to make her performance convincing. They told her she had 30 days to find somewhere else to live. She screamed that they were choosing their defective child over their healthy one, but for once, they didn’t cave to her manipulation.
But Jade wasn’t done. The next morning, I woke up to find my insulin pump beeping empty, which was impossible since I just changed it the night before. All my backup insulin pens were gone from the fridge. My emergency glucagon was missing. Even my hidden supply in my bedroom was gone.
Jade stood in the kitchen holding my entire supply of life-saving medication over the sink. “If I can’t have diabetes,” she said calmly, “then neither can you.”
She’d already flushed half of it. Thousands of dollars of insulin gone in seconds. The rest she held over the garbage disposal. I had maybe 6 hours before my blood sugar would skyrocket dangerously high. The pharmacy was closed for the holiday weekend and wouldn’t reopen for 3 days.
The nearest hospital was 2 hours away. My parents had gone Black Friday shopping and weren’t answering their phones. Without insulin, I’d be in diabetic ketoacidosis within hours, my blood turning acidic as my body started eating itself.
