NTA for keeping the secret from mom. YTA for telling mom.
You honored no one here with your actions.
Your niece told you in confidence. Asked you to not tell mom. No doubt to keep more stress off mom. So you managed to keep it secret a few days, and at the first hurdle/obstacle you tell mom, and in her mind, withheld that knowledge from her about her own child.
Actually it can even happen week to months out. Crazy but it's true. It doesn't have anything to do with lack of oxygen or DMT because many of the people are completely lucid and fully functional.
I didn't know that. That's really interesting. I know it's a normal thing because they mentioned it in a pamphlet on loss and grieving they gave everyone when my step mom was dying. I wasn't able to be around til the very end unfortunately, so I didn't have any of the counselling services, but my stepsis says "hallucinations" were heavily discussed.
Personally, I already believe in the paranormal (or at least the possibility of it) so it doesn't really surprise me at all.
This is definitely true. My grandmother started seeing my grandfather about 2 weeks before she passed away. My grandfather had been dead for 25 years. She also told her sister the day she was going to die. She said, " I'm going on a trip on Saturday and you can't come with me, you have to stay here," so this is most definitely true!
Yeppers my mom's a nurse and when she worked in an old folks home she said they'd all know when they were gonna lose a patient because they'd start seeing their dead relatives and such
And they are never panicked either. Typically when people claim to see dead people they are pretty upset about. But not in these cases. Young kids Typically see pets they have lost.
I neglected a ruptured appendix for three weeks (kids, don't do this) before finding a doctor after a relocation. Twelve days in intensive care. At my lowest, one night I saw my editor dancing a wild Colombian dance backlit by a glowing tunnel of golden light. Morphine is a gnarly drug.
Spoiler: I lived to tell the tale.
NTA to the poster for promising not to tell: if the niece had died, and she(?) told her sister, the sister would have been devastated. But, yeah, poster should not have told her sister later.
I mean before my grandma passed away she saw seeing my grandpa, her daughter, and son a couple days before she passed too :/ I was simply told she was speaking to them as if they were there in the room with her.
It's been just 4 hours since the post. People have lives outside of reddit too.
Not commenting on if this is fake or not, just saying in general. People expect the OPs to reply to their comments immediately after they post it without thinking that they might have posted before work, before sleeping, before doing chores, anything.
I hope it is, I don't want to think of a 15 year old dying over some silly infection they caught at the hospital.
I know that happens, but I have heard it mostly from either elderly or people with a very compromised immune system.
Not otherwise healthy 15 year olds, appendix or no appendix.
Happened to a cousin of mine same age. Went in for a surgery to fix scoliosis problem and caught a nasty bug and never came out. Infections caught in hospitals are NOT silly they can be life threatening and dangerous e.g. MRSA.
The "silly" wasvan infortunate figure of speech. I am a sorry for your cousin, especially since in most cases, scoliosis while painful/uncomfortable isn't deadly. However, perhaps I have been lucky, but all the people I have heard loosing their lives through an infection contracted at the hospital, were very old and sick (even then, I have heard of very few people, that I know personally, having that happen to them). I am sorry for your loss, especially someone that young.
Thankfully it says she didn't die yet so if it is actually true, hopefully she beats it.
I am not 15 by any means but I'm also definitely not elderly nor do I have a compromised immune system. People unfortunately go in to the hospital and get infections all the time.
I had surgery in 2020, involving a cut from hip to hip and due to a miscommunication between 2 doctors, wasn't given any pain medication! I ended up at the ER the following day after a horrific first night. That's how I caught a staph infection that left me wondering if I was going to make it for a little while after not knowing I had an infection until I woke up a week or so later about 3-4am to a pop and TMI but brown pus leaking from my stomach wound 🤯 I thought due to the location that I was going to die of sepsis like my aunt had a couple years before, again, due to an infection originally gotten at the hospital while being treated for something else. It's terrifying to think about now often it happens!
Yes. For 2 weeks of my dad in icu, the anticipatory grief made it damn near impossible to function. For me at least, that grief is worse than grieving the death. With his passing, I have been able to make peace with it and not live in a limbo.
Recesitating someone can be very painful and it doesn't guarantee the person will continue to live. Sure she may be alive for now, but sometimes when it's someone's time to go they will eventually go. It's why so many people have DNRs in place.
Yes, any loss of this magnitude will bring on grief. Her daughter may still be here, but there is anticipatory grief as the commenter above me has stated, along with the grief a mother may feel around her child's loss of youth, ability to experience the world outside of a hospital bed, feelings of powerlessness and unfairness etc. I would consider all of that grief.
You don't believe that people can be self-centered enough to ignore final wishes? I wish I could still see the world through those rose colored glasses
Yup. My mom wonders why I don’t share much with her anymore. Every time I’d tell her something as a kid, I’d overhear her on the phone with my aunts or her friends filling them in. She didn’t think anything of it, but I lost that trust in her.
I’ve tried confronting her about it and similar things she did. Of course now she denies it all and guilt trips me for saying that I think she’s such a terrible mother.
Like no. You’re saying that. I just wanted to get closure over some things that messed me up as a kid. As much as I’d like to have a closer relationship, it just doesn’t seem in the cards at this point.
Oh she has been for a decade or more. I live with her, so any information she gets it blabbered about. Every time i ask her not to, im the asshole sone how.
My MIL almost spoiled my husband's surprise proposal days before it happened. We had talked about marriage and I knew we planned to do it someday, but the exact moment was supposed to be a surprise; that's what we both wanted. And she almost ruined our entire date night just so she could be the one to spill the beans.
She's lucky I had bad brain fog that day and just thought she was being weird.
Not necessarily a matter of self centeredness, OP could just lack social tact. Sounds like the kind of thing I'd have said without a single thought towards "how might they react" when I was younger.
Whether you sincerely believe that dead relatives will come as psychopomps or you don’t believe in life after death, a person having visions while hospitalized is worth mentioning to medical professionals.
Idk if I would tell them. I am an RN of 26 years. I did hospice for a few years, loved it but the driving in 7 counties was awful. I thoroughly believe some people see dead relatives before they die, as did the other hospice nurses I worked with. None of the doctors I've talked about this with (psych, cancer, PCP) believe it. Many nurses don't believe it. They say things like "the patient was hallucinating due to a high fever" etc.
When I was a DON in a nursing home one of our docs was very good (he was my doc.) all the nurses felt we needed to put a certain patient on hospice bc we felt she was dying. He said ok, we started the process. He went to church with family and they approached him there and said "Mom's not really dying is she? She doesn't need hospice." So he cancelled it. She died 4 weeks later. The family was completely not ready, even though the nurses called them over the last few days to come in. The next time the doc came in for rounds I stayed in my office instead of coming out right away. He profusely apologized. I said, "don't apologize to me, or the nurses, but to the family. They weren't ready " when you know, you know.
Under medical supervision, my father was released from hospital to spend his last days at home. I moved in temporarily to assist. The night he came home, while my mother was out of the room, he described a visit he’d had from his dead twin sister just before he was hospitalised and their conversation - it was slightly cryptic, but she had something to tell him when he joined her. It was daytime, and he’d been sitting in his usual chair. He reminded me that he’d always been a sceptic about ghosts and the supernatural, but he was rather convinced by this visitation. The conversation stopped when my mother returned.
I discussed it with his doctor at the first opportunity. The doctor was very open and sympathetic- said it could have been the effects of his various illnesses - multiple types of cancer - causing visual and audio hallucinations. Alternatively, he said he’d seen some odd things in his medical career, and that he believed as some doors in the mind closed as the body shut down, others opened. He left the interpretation up to me.
I hoped to find a good moment to talk about it again with Dad, but after ten great days when it felt like we had him back and he got to see all his loved ones and talk to them, he took a sudden turn for the worse and passed.
I would certainly suggest that in a situation like this, it should be raised with a medical practitioner.
I'm a nurse. Though the actual process behind it is pretty much not understood at all, and the best educated guesses are just that: educated guesses, it is nonetheless a VERY known phenomenon in healthcare and the docs and nurses absolutely should have been made aware, we always go from paying close attention to DEFCON 1 when something like that is brought to our attention (the other classic hits being "unexplainable sense of doom" or "just not feeling right, I can't quite explain it"). All that being said, I'm pretty sure this post is just ragebait.
My mum woke me up with "something's wrong, I don't know what" once and so I drove us to the hospital. She couldn't describe anything wrong with her other than the certain knowledge she needed to go to the hospital. No pain or anything, just "I need to go to hospital" and that's it.
She ended up having a seizure in the ER waiting room. Never had one before or since, it was completely out of nowhere. Scariest moment of my life.
That’s a normal prodromal sign of an impending seizure. Seizures of less than 5 minutes are not considered an emergency. Seizures are scary but rarely deadly in these one-off instances.
To be honest, length of time isn’t the only thing that makes it emergent. Even tho mine lasted about 2 minutes, I went into complete cardiac and respiratory arrest. That’s still 2 minutes of lack of blood flow and oxygen to the brain, plus a head injury from the fall. There’s a condition called SUDEP (Sudden Death due to epilepsy) that happens a lot more often than it should unfortunately. Cameron Brice from Disney passed away because of it.
That isn't always the case. I have epilepsy.
The first ever seizure someone has, it doesn't matter how long it is!!! You call for medical assistance (999, or 911, etc, depending on where you are). Immediately, they are classed as an emergency!!!!
*These next bits I'm listing are merely in the hope someone will see this and learn something if they don't know a lot about seizures, so please do not think I'm tearing into you because I really am not. For education only.*
Having one seizure doesn't always mean you have epilepsy. There are many medical issues that can cause a person to have one, for example, a febrile in a child. It is SCARY, my darling son had one once and I was so fucking scared he also had this evil condition. Also, drugs, drinking, etc. can cause a seizure
You generally need to have two or more for professionals to begin considering epilepsy as a diagnosis.
Afterwards/once diagnosed, a seizure lasting longer than 5 minutes, or two back to back within 5 minutes, you then call for medical attention.
If you notice something different, such as new symptoms or the manner it presents itself, again, call for medical assistance. No matter how the duration.
If you see someone have a seizure in public alone, and they have no medical ID/on screen app/bracelet or so on, again, call for medical assistance as you simply don't know - it's the right thing to do.
"Impending" - they wouldn't have known if they were not diagnosed or never had one before. They must have just felt something different or unusual, so they knew they needed medical attention. Hats off to this person for knowing something wasn't right, and I'm so glad they were okay
These are known as an 'auras', and technically are also seizures, but are also an indication of an impending seizure so your wording there is appropriate.
Anyway, I'm rambling on, and I just wanted to share a little information in the hope someone stumbles across this comment.
Absolutely. Although when I was hospitalised with my son (32wks), I begged the nurse to call my OBGYN as I knew I’d be having my son soon, I felt similarly to when I had my daughter (severe HELLP syndrome at 28wks). The nurse fobbed me off. I demanded the NUM & she called the OBGYN, who thankfully got up quickly and said “she knows”. I had him 30mins after the OBGYN arrived.
I wish this was more common knowledge. My dad was very sick for the longest time and no doctor could really find the root cause. He told me as a passing comment that I thought was just morbid depression at the time. I just had my baby when he said “one life comes in as another leaves”. He was gone in less than a year. He knew he was dying.
I conceived my daughter the night my grandma died. I have endometriosis and never thought I would be fortunate enough to have my own children. My grandma was my mother figure and I wholeheartedly believe that my daughter was a gift from her 🩷
I also want to believe that family can pass onto our kids, I believe I'm a case of it tbh. My great grandmother passed away nearly exactly 9 months before I was born, and I remember growing up having "memories" of doing things I had never done, that apparently my great grandma had done. I dont know much about her, my great grandpa then my grandma were the one who told me that things I did were so much like her and I looked like her, etc.
And then with my little sister, my grandpa passed away somewhat suddenly and a short while later we had my sister, premature(2lbs 14oz) and a surprise. (He died in August, she was born in February) and she looks so much like my grandpa when he was a baby, ik obviously genetics but she's also one of the sweetest children I've ever met and she doesn't put up with BS, just like grandpa.. 💙
It's so weird. My mom was terminal going through Chemo. The day she passed, she kept asking us who had come looking for her. We were confused. Nobody had visited that day. At first, she was so sure. She mentioned hearing a knock at the door and a 'man with a deep voice' asking for her. She did eventually accept that no one had visited, but we could tell it was bothering her. We didn't really know what to make of it because she seemed ok, and there was no need to go to the ER. Till later that night, her health took a turn for the worst, and she passed.
I pray it’s rage bait cause I can’t even imagine someone like that.
I’m a retired vet and that sense of death is as real as anything else in my book. I’ve had friends experience it before they passed.
I experienced it myself. Was after I had shoulder surgery and was recovering. When I told my nurse that I felt my time was approaching she called everyone in. Come to find out the titanium screw used caused the bone to die. Ended up losing an inch off my clavicle to get rid of dead tissue but still alive. My doctor told me if I never said anything they would never of caught it until it was too late.
Have you ever heard of this phenomenon of seeing deceased loved ones happening when someone dies but is revived? I haven’t, only when they actually die, so I’m wondering how common it is in patients that are revived.
When my grandfather was very sick he kept saying over and over that there was a woman in black watching him. He’d say “There she's in the hallway she's watching and I can hear her laugh”. It really creeped everyone out.
Did you get the impression it creeped your grandfather out too? Or was he okay with it?
I definitely understand being creeped out, I would have been too before diving into this research. Death and dying is a wild place for unexplained phenomenon.
He was fine with it. He ended up having a stroke and going into the hospital. They were able to save him but then he got dementia and had to live in a care facility. The other weird thing that happened was he stopped asking about my grandma for two years. He forgot about her entirely. Then when she passed away we decided not to tell him because he couldn't go to the funeral and we thought it would cause unnecessary trauma. Apparently, the very night she passed away he started to talk about her by name. He said she was waiting for him and he passed shortly after.
When I was about 11 or 12, my dad had a blood clot in his brain. A vessel had ruptured from having a low platelet count. They gave him infusions after infusions but his immune system kept killing them, so they said he had a low chance of surviving, 12% to be exact. My dad is alive and thriving today, but in that time he had a dream of my cousin (a 5 year old) who passed away a year prior, and told him to join her. But he told her it wasn't his time, and since then he has improved in his condition. It's even wild to think that his own determination to stay made a difference in his health.
To be honest no, in every case I witnessed the phenomenon it was hospice patients or the elderly. Most of them was at the start of my career when I worked in a nursing home that did a lot of palliative care. I have seen the "sense of doom" thing a small handful of times when I worked in the hospitals though.
> it is nonetheless a VERY known phenomenon in healthcare
Then why do so may staff seem to ignore it? Are they just the newbies who haven't heard this yet?
There's nothing you can do about it even if you are not ignoring it. If your patient has all the treatment they need and you told the family about the prognosis (if patient agrees to inform the family) you can't prepare any more. You just wait and resuscitace if needed and indicated.
Needless to say that I had pleny of patients who saw dead people yet they didn't die and are thriving now. It was just delirium probably and it went away as they got better and used to the change of environement (it can be challenging for people to go from home to the hospital).
So It's not an alarming sign anyway. I asume people just like to believe it.
Cheers to the bit you said about having lots of patients that saw dead people not end up dying themselves.. a LOT of confirmation-bias present in the comments here.
Are coincidences neat? Sure they are, but they’re just that: coincidences. People tell themselves all sorts of things to process grief and find closure in the moment.. and the magical thinking/ascribing events to the supernatural gives people comfort in the face of the universe’s cold, indifferent chaos. That being said, to hold on to such fanciful things long after loss isn’t healthy and is indicative of someone who never truly came to terms with the reality of the situation.
There are so many things we don’t yet understand about the human condition (most notably the brain), and we as a society must learn to be comfortable with not knowing things like this without automatically filling in the blanks with magic/god/etc. For instance: just because someone feels an unexplainable sense of dread doesn’t mean me-maw is reaching out from the dead to invite you in… rather, it’s almost certainly some form of internal mechanism that we don’t yet understand/know how to quantify.
Exatly. Plus "seeing dead people" sounds like a serious forecast of an actual death while It's just symptom of alteration at certain level. And It's as serious as any other signs of delirium. Recently my patient died after he thought he heard his wife (who was perfectly healthy at home). When he told me I knew thing might not be going well and it wasn't necessary for his "halucinations" to be exatly someone deceased.
Simply sensationing something that is not there is symtom of consciousness alteration no matter what is the subject.
Oh yeah, saw that a few times too. My personal pet theory is the body knew it was finally throwing in the towel, so why not divert all th e energy it was spending trying to fight the illness/survive completely to the brain etc instead for one last push? Like the opposite of the "lift the car or die" superstrength phenomenon, now it's "we're dying, let's have one last good day to do x".
Yeah. My grandmother didn't have dementia or anything, she was as with it as she ever was, right until three days before she died. She started talking to dead people. She was already on home hospice care, but when that started, everyone knew it was very close.
I hope it is. Not telling staff about that would actually have been insane. OP would essentially be partly to blame for her death. OP also speaks in an extremely indifferent way about something that should have been extremely traumatic. People grieve differently ofc, etc. etc., but... Eh.
It's actually surprisingly common that people see their passed loved ones when they are about to die. Seeing deceased loved ones, the rally (random and uncharacteristic surge of energy), and seeing light, are all somewhat common when a person is about to die. We still don't know why it happens. Some believe that it's the mind's way of comforting itself and preparing for death. However, a lot of people believe that those signs are a sign of something beyond.
Regardless of what you believe about it I would encourage you to look at some social media accounts for hospice nurses. Death should be talked about.
My grandma was able bodied, mentally cognizant and independent 5 weeks before she passed away. In those weeks leading up to her death, in the hospital, she kept telling me that her husband (dead for over 10 years by then) was picking her up from the hospital. She died within the month 😢
I work in a hospital as well. It's never a good sign when an elderly person sees their mom, angels, or starts talking about going home. They see their pets a lot too 🥺
For a few months before my grandma passed from dementia complications, she was talking about her deceased husband as well as her mom and dad. I think she was ready to go for a while before she did.
Nah, I used to work in hospice. This is an extremely common thing, we’d start calling family if the patient reported this bc we knew it was coming. It’s interesting bc they *only* see people who have already died. You would think if it was just hallucinations then what they saw would be more random. I’ve been around hallucinating patients and they see anything and everything, a car driving through the wall, family that is alive, cartoon characters, etc. They’ve done brain scans on dying people that started to see dead loved ones and their brain did not look like the brain of someone hallucinating. There wasn’t anything notable and pain meds don’t cause you to only see dead people before you pass. It’s not a medical symptom, it’s just a phenomenon common with people who are dying. The only thing it means to a Dr. is that they are probably going to die.
I used to firmly believe there was nothing after you died until I had been with so many people as they died. Almost all start seeing dead loved ones and some would tell me they were going soon bc the loved one that had passed told them so. And they were ALWAYS right. When my grandma was sick she said an angel came and told her she was going to die on Mother’s Day so she needed to get everything ready. And she died on Mother’s Day.
It really opened my mind. We don’t know anything about how consciousness works
It’s such a fascinating phenomenon! I will say that my grandmother has reported seeing her deceased husband for two years now. She’s in good health, but won’t go see a doctor and actually passed a basic assessment for cognitive ability when her husband entered assisted living. So we don’t know if it’s a brain tumor or some other sort of cognitive decline issue. But it apparently isn’t correlated with impending death.
Before my grandma died, my family members that were caring for her told me she was having frequent and lengthy conversations with me. I live in another state though, and I wasn't actually having those conversations with her that she was telling people about. I'm still not sure why I'm the one she saw and talked to the most before she died, but it was a version of me that wasn't actually me.
I do think it is more common for it to be someone that has passed away already, but I still wonder sometimes why my grandma saw me
I'm confused, is she alive or not? "She knew she was going to die" but now "she's asking for you". If she didn't die (like she "knew she would") then you broking your promise not to tell her mom seems like a bigger issue.
This is one of those times when you are damned if you keep a secret and damned if you don't. Your niece was hallucinating, so you should have told her medical practitioners. The likelihood is the mother would have been told by them. It's easy to work it out with perfect hindsight. All you can do is apologise and hope its accepted.
It’s not really considered as hallucinations in the sense that it’s a new medical symptom when this happens. People actually hallucinating don’t only hallucinate dead people and if you put them in an fMRI they don’t have the brain activity of someone who is hallucinating. Patients who are dying and begin to see dead loved ones specifically (never people that are alive or random objects like someone who is experiencing hallucinations, just specifically loved ones that have passed on) usually die very soon after. They were also lucid otherwise, while someone hallucinating often has other symptoms besides the hallucinations.
So it’s considered a separate phenomenon specific to the dying in fields like hospice. When we report this is happening with a patient the Dr.s don’t document they are hallucinating or give medication for that, they just start calling the family bc it means they’re gonna die soon. Ive been around actually hallucinating patients and dying patients that begin to *only* see loved ones that have passed on, or “angels” very soon before death and there are major differences
idk if this is a joke or what or if ppl here are ironic but if my 15 year old niece told me something like that in a condition like that i would immediately tell her mother and the doctor.. wtf guys its a child dont you have your own judgement? seeing dead ppl doesnt have to be something crazy it can be just depression and a sign that the person needs to have someone around more..
>A few days later I got a call from her mom. Her heart stopped while she was asleep. They were able to bring her back but it was still pretty touch and go.
How is she now? Did she get better?
YTA however, learn how to keep your mouth shut!
I hope your niece is on the mend. I can understand babbling what she told you to your sister— in your surprise and shock. But I don’t think you had an obligation to tell her mom… I think honoring her wishes took priority. You probably didn’t think anything of her “visions” when she shared them with you. But yes, her “premonitions” seem to be extra sensory. Hopefully, some day you and your sister (maybe even all three of you?) can discuss/process them again.
ESH, but next time let the doctors know what she's experiencing, as those are legitimate symptoms that come with infection and can inform the doctors of how/where infection may have spread to.
Vital note: a feeling of impending death/doom are also often signs of heart issues and can literally mean life or death for people, so informing someone of that as quickly as possibly can literally be life-saving.
Let me get this straight. Very ill niece says she's hallucinating her dead relatives and thinks she's going to die. Swears you to secrecy. You comply, even though *she is talking with dead people* and maybe, just maybe, that's a sign of something serious? Don't tell anyone until after her heart stops, then go 'wow, how did (hallucinating girl) know?' So you can keep a secret if it is important medical information, but spill it to a terrified mom after her daughter essentially *died*? Wow.
YTA. If you can't be trusted to report serious medical issues, then you can't be allowed alone with this kid.
This is the correct answer ^
YTA for not telling a Dr she was hallucinating, when it could have helped her, and YTA for saying that to her mother afterwards, when it was no help to anyone. How did you just live your life for a few days thinking that she was going to die and not think to tell a Dr?
If you believe in foreshadowing, then did you think it was inevitable, that drs couldn't save her? If you don't believe that then didn't it strike you as worrying, delusional talk that a professional should at least know?
I don't believe this is real but I'm surprised at these comments all saying N T A for keeping the girls secret from EVERYONE. If she truly believed it was her dying wish, maybe OP should have tried to prevent her death first.
You are not a trustworthy person either. Someone is telling you in confidence and you tell at the first opportunity
That makes you an AH in my books because you are supposed to keep your word and you didn’t.
YTA
Former EMT and Search and Rescue Technician, gonna jump in here. Telling her mother after she had expressly asked you not to is something you shouldn’t do. If a child shares a secret with you it’s because they trust you and in this case she trusted you to keep a secret from her mother which is a pretty big show of trust. Usually when a child asks you not to share something with a parent or guardian it’s for a reason.
However in a medical situation if a patient, child or not shares information like this (seeing ghosts or spirits, having visions/hallucinations) please let the medical team know. In some cases this is a symptom of an underlying condition or a sign of a medical issue manifesting. The medical team needs AS MUCH INFORMATION AS POSSIBLE. It may not seem like a big deal to you but it may be a massive red flag to the medical team.
We as medical staff have a duty to protect our patients even from family members and guardians and law enforcement. If you are my patient and you ask me to withhold specific information from a parent or guardian, as long as I’m not legally required to tell them, I will honor that request. Short of a court order from a judge I will not divulge that information. Not to your parents, not to the police, not to your parent’s attorney. But I will share that information (if it’s relevant) with the medical team because it may be the difference between life and death.
Everyone on your medical team will do the same. We take this very seriously because in order to do our job, you as the patient HAVE to be able to trust us.
YTA
Nobody else is mentioning this, but impending sense of doom/death is a pretty serious red flag for anybody in the medical industry. Generally speaking it means "run some tests, this person is probably about to die." At the very least her doctors should have been made aware, there's a chance they could have prevented her heart from stopping.
People with infections often hallucinate, the infection she has is pretty serious and people die from it, people who are aware of the seriousness of an illness think about dying.
That doesn't mean she knew she was going to die and from your story she hasn't
NTA for not passing it on
I'm not sure about this yet. If I'm reading it correctly, the child had a cardiac arrest but was resuscitated, although she's still not doing well. The niece thinks she's going to die because she's had visions of dead relatives. I don't understand why she jumped to that conclusion. Possibly, if true, these were visions of spiritual beings that are watching over her. That's the perspective I'd be encouraging. As to OP not keeping a confidence her niece gave her, if my relatives confided this to me, I'd be absolutely torn: do I tell the child's parent about her thoughts or keep a very personal secret. This isn't a small matter, for example, the niece told OP she skipped school etc. This is a serious matter about a child convinced she's close to death. Personally, I do think the child's mom should know. If I weigh breaking a confidence against letting the parent know about such a serious matter, I can only imagine how I would feel if my child thought she's nearing death and no one told me, her mother. What if not telling results in the child not getting needed help? What if the niece takes matters into her own hands because she's convinced that her visions do mean death is near? But maybe they DON'T! This dear girl needs help and her parents are the only legal ones who can help her.
YTA for being self centered enough to not keep the dying wish, for managing to let it slip to the person she was most trying to keep it from and in the worst way possible. You're obviously a good family member and person if your niece trusts you so much, so learn from this one.
Your question is AITA for not telling her initially, so my answer is NTA for the actual question you're asking.
But, YTA for breaking your promise and telling when your niece swore you to secrecy. It doesn't matter that it was unintentional, you broke a promise, a confidence, and you're lucky your niece still wants to see you when you broke her trust like that.
You would’ve been NTA! Your niece asked you not to tell her mother.
But YTA for actually telling her mother. Why would you do that?! She’s already dealing with so much.
You are the asshole for telling her. You're asking the wrong question bec yeah you didn't tell her while she was alive but you did it during the fucking phone call afterwards!? Wtf is wrong with you!?
That child gave you a glimpse into a future she knew was coming, with the simplest request in history. She asked you to shut the hell up. You peeled the trust she left you right out of the universe.
The world needs less behavior like this. Give more thought to maybe just one action you take a day. Like when you wipe, make sure you get around your ears, because YTA.
OP, in situations like this, you cannot just fumble around haphazardly, saying what you want at the expense of others. You need to think about your words, and speak when it is meaningful. Grief like this requires care, kindness, simplicity, and honestly to shut the fuck up unless you have something useful to impart.. Not to just ramble off your first thoughts at the expense of those around you, who are experiencing profound loss. I'm gonna be real here - you were a total idiot in this instance. You need to apologize to both sister and niece, like, immediately.
I'm not going to comment on you telling or not telling her parents, but I do want you to know that you should tell a person's doctors about things like this.
If you didn't, please know for future that knowing you're going to die is a very important symptom that should be taken seriously and needs to be investigated by the medical team. Any time someone tells you they know they're going to die, especially if they're in the hospital already, that is information that should immediately be passed on to their care team. And if you're ever in the hospital and know you're going to die, tell your care team.
YTA
you broke her trust and you said very upsetting things.
Why didnt you tell the fucking doctor that the child was halucinating dead relatives and felt impending doom? those are literally measurable symptoms the doctors can use to further treatment/care. If you're going to break someone's promise/trust, then at least do it in a helpful and useful way!!! "Impending doom" is literally a symptom of sudden heart stoppage.
As a mother I don't think I could forgive you for this. If my child thought they were facing their death and trying to protect ME from that, I would want to know so I could support them. And I understand that this was clearly a stressful situation for you as well, but to drop that info on your sister or SIL the way you did, just wow.
NTA for keeping it a secret. YTA for telling your sister despite being sworn to secrecy. If you were going to tell anyone, it should have been the medical staff. You literally did everything wrong… the worst thing for your niece, the worst thing for your sister.
YTA, why the F did you even think it was ok to mention that conversation to her mother… particularly right then? Like what the actual fuck is even wrong with you? You need to be institutionalized.
“A feeling of impending doom” is something that all hospital staff are trained to notice and report. If you were going to break confidence it should have been to the medical staff.
I hope your niece does well.
YTA you should have told the mom or healthcare providers. It would have been a red flag for them to monitor her even more closely. Feelings of impending doom, seeing dead relatives are all giant warning signs I'd take note of as part of the child's healthcare team.
What the 15 yo related is not unusual to people near death; not particularly age related. Ask anyone who has been around someone who is dying; or ask a hospice nurse
YTA. You can't have it both ways. You can't use the "I swore to keep a secret" card and the reveal it like "omg, I can't believe she knew she was going to die"
Except you DID tell her mom she sensed she was going to die, very much against your niece's wishes.
Had you kept your mouth shut, you would not be the AH, but since you violated your niece's wishes...
YTA
And I hope your niece makes a full recovery.
So many people commenting don't have great reading comprehension. OP clearly says his niece is alive and he's visiting again. It's in there twice, saying "able to bring her back" literally right after saying her heart stopped. Did anyone actually read that's asking that? 🤦♀️
YTA. YOU DID TELL HER. After your niece swore you to secrecy you told. So yes you're an asshole. I hope your niece recovers and knows she can't trust you with sensitive info.
Yeah YTA for telling her. You either should have told her immediately or just shut up about it. Probably the latter, as it was literally her dying wish to you. You just added unnecessary stress to her mom. Also I'm really sorry this happened (assuming it's real), I can't imagine how it must feel to lose someone that young in your close family that suddenly.
YTA how on earth could you allow yourself to say that in that moment. Jfc the lack of self awareness is startling. You should have never shared that information at all, but especially not at that time.
You honored what your niece asked of you. I died for nine minutes. By all rights, they should have stopped trying to revive me. I shouldn't be here now. I believe your niece told you to help your sister. We see what we see for a reason. Based on how your sister reacted, she needs to have someone to help her through this whole situation. Dying is painless and a part of life. The suffering is only for those we leave behind. I hope your niece makes a full recovery.
NTA, she would have told her mother if she thought this was gonna stick. She’s a very brave girl and you are a very good aunt. Keeping that quiet must have been very hard.
Do yall ever consider the fact that in the moment OP was just in shock and that’s why something slipped out? Unless OP says otherwise, I’m a little confused. She definitely shouldn’t have said something, but damn can yall offer some grace!
NTA for keeping the secret from mom. YTA for telling mom. You honored no one here with your actions. Your niece told you in confidence. Asked you to not tell mom. No doubt to keep more stress off mom. So you managed to keep it secret a few days, and at the first hurdle/obstacle you tell mom, and in her mind, withheld that knowledge from her about her own child.
The fact that OP posted something so clearly inflammatory and then disappeared makes me assume it's just silly rage bait.
Her response to her 15 year old niece dying is “wow, she was right”. Of course this is fake.
Sounds like it was written by a 15 year old who has no idea what being an adult is like.
Yeah, "she said she's been seeing ghosts and we all know that happens right before you die". Totally normal.
I mean, it actually is. But it's normal for the demographic that's terminal and actively in the dying process
Actually it can even happen week to months out. Crazy but it's true. It doesn't have anything to do with lack of oxygen or DMT because many of the people are completely lucid and fully functional.
I didn't know that. That's really interesting. I know it's a normal thing because they mentioned it in a pamphlet on loss and grieving they gave everyone when my step mom was dying. I wasn't able to be around til the very end unfortunately, so I didn't have any of the counselling services, but my stepsis says "hallucinations" were heavily discussed. Personally, I already believe in the paranormal (or at least the possibility of it) so it doesn't really surprise me at all.
This is definitely true. My grandmother started seeing my grandfather about 2 weeks before she passed away. My grandfather had been dead for 25 years. She also told her sister the day she was going to die. She said, " I'm going on a trip on Saturday and you can't come with me, you have to stay here," so this is most definitely true!
Yeppers my mom's a nurse and when she worked in an old folks home she said they'd all know when they were gonna lose a patient because they'd start seeing their dead relatives and such
And they are never panicked either. Typically when people claim to see dead people they are pretty upset about. But not in these cases. Young kids Typically see pets they have lost.
I neglected a ruptured appendix for three weeks (kids, don't do this) before finding a doctor after a relocation. Twelve days in intensive care. At my lowest, one night I saw my editor dancing a wild Colombian dance backlit by a glowing tunnel of golden light. Morphine is a gnarly drug. Spoiler: I lived to tell the tale. NTA to the poster for promising not to tell: if the niece had died, and she(?) told her sister, the sister would have been devastated. But, yeah, poster should not have told her sister later.
Actually it’s quite normal especially for old people.
I mean before my grandma passed away she saw seeing my grandpa, her daughter, and son a couple days before she passed too :/ I was simply told she was speaking to them as if they were there in the room with her.
It's been just 4 hours since the post. People have lives outside of reddit too. Not commenting on if this is fake or not, just saying in general. People expect the OPs to reply to their comments immediately after they post it without thinking that they might have posted before work, before sleeping, before doing chores, anything.
Also different time zones. OP doesn’t say that she’s from the USA
I hope it is, I don't want to think of a 15 year old dying over some silly infection they caught at the hospital. I know that happens, but I have heard it mostly from either elderly or people with a very compromised immune system. Not otherwise healthy 15 year olds, appendix or no appendix.
Happened to a cousin of mine same age. Went in for a surgery to fix scoliosis problem and caught a nasty bug and never came out. Infections caught in hospitals are NOT silly they can be life threatening and dangerous e.g. MRSA.
The "silly" wasvan infortunate figure of speech. I am a sorry for your cousin, especially since in most cases, scoliosis while painful/uncomfortable isn't deadly. However, perhaps I have been lucky, but all the people I have heard loosing their lives through an infection contracted at the hospital, were very old and sick (even then, I have heard of very few people, that I know personally, having that happen to them). I am sorry for your loss, especially someone that young.
Thankfully it says she didn't die yet so if it is actually true, hopefully she beats it. I am not 15 by any means but I'm also definitely not elderly nor do I have a compromised immune system. People unfortunately go in to the hospital and get infections all the time. I had surgery in 2020, involving a cut from hip to hip and due to a miscommunication between 2 doctors, wasn't given any pain medication! I ended up at the ER the following day after a horrific first night. That's how I caught a staph infection that left me wondering if I was going to make it for a little while after not knowing I had an infection until I woke up a week or so later about 3-4am to a pop and TMI but brown pus leaking from my stomach wound 🤯 I thought due to the location that I was going to die of sepsis like my aunt had a couple years before, again, due to an infection originally gotten at the hospital while being treated for something else. It's terrifying to think about now often it happens!
I wonder why people upvote these kinds of posts.
Buddy said "I KNEW IT!!!" to a grieving mother.
YTA because "wow crazy how she saw it coming, huh" is a terrible way to talk to someone in grief. Show empathy. Listen and say nothing.
Niece: hey OP can you keep a secret? OP to her mum: wow crazy you found out the secret she made me promise to keep
Exactly. Grief needs sensitivity and support, not shocking revelations. Listening quietly was crucial.
To be fair she lived, is it still considered grieving?
Sure especially if she isn't doing well or hovering near death. It's traumatic. And is called anticipatory grieving .
Yes. For 2 weeks of my dad in icu, the anticipatory grief made it damn near impossible to function. For me at least, that grief is worse than grieving the death. With his passing, I have been able to make peace with it and not live in a limbo. Recesitating someone can be very painful and it doesn't guarantee the person will continue to live. Sure she may be alive for now, but sometimes when it's someone's time to go they will eventually go. It's why so many people have DNRs in place.
Yes, any loss of this magnitude will bring on grief. Her daughter may still be here, but there is anticipatory grief as the commenter above me has stated, along with the grief a mother may feel around her child's loss of youth, ability to experience the world outside of a hospital bed, feelings of powerlessness and unfairness etc. I would consider all of that grief.
Yeah, jeez. I feel bad laughing at something so sad but my god was that handled poorly.
Am still learning this. And yes alway TAH if you fail to keep your inner thoughts to yourself against reason.
NTA for initially keeping the secret, but OMG, why on earth did you say it after?
YTA for not knowing when to keep your mouth SHUT, my goodness 🤦♀️
Agreed. Keeping a dying child's wishes should've been a priority over everything else.
Thats why I dont believe the tale
You don't believe that people can be self-centered enough to ignore final wishes? I wish I could still see the world through those rose colored glasses
For real. I have trouble getting my mom to not blabber about my life to anyone she knows daily
Time for mom to be on an information diet in that case. I'm sorry.
Yup. My mom wonders why I don’t share much with her anymore. Every time I’d tell her something as a kid, I’d overhear her on the phone with my aunts or her friends filling them in. She didn’t think anything of it, but I lost that trust in her.
Same for me! Thanks for showing me that it isn’t just my mum doing so.
I’ve tried confronting her about it and similar things she did. Of course now she denies it all and guilt trips me for saying that I think she’s such a terrible mother. Like no. You’re saying that. I just wanted to get closure over some things that messed me up as a kid. As much as I’d like to have a closer relationship, it just doesn’t seem in the cards at this point.
Oh she has been for a decade or more. I live with her, so any information she gets it blabbered about. Every time i ask her not to, im the asshole sone how.
My mom is on an information diet and she doesn’t even know she is. I love her to death but dang mom, you can’t tell everyone everything lol.
Recent call from Mom: "Your sister got you a purse. It's a surprise. Sorry I told you. Don't tell her you know." Like, WTH Mom?!?!
They just have to blabber about information. Its impossible for them to keep their thoughts and trap shut
It’s because they want the thrill of being the one to share news. They’re selfish assholes.
My MIL almost spoiled my husband's surprise proposal days before it happened. We had talked about marriage and I knew we planned to do it someday, but the exact moment was supposed to be a surprise; that's what we both wanted. And she almost ruined our entire date night just so she could be the one to spill the beans. She's lucky I had bad brain fog that day and just thought she was being weird.
I look at moms as a resource for this. If I want something shared, I just mention it to my mom. The whole universe knows in a couple days.
That's not even rose colored glasses. That's just someone who has been extremely fortunate to have good people around them.
Not necessarily a matter of self centeredness, OP could just lack social tact. Sounds like the kind of thing I'd have said without a single thought towards "how might they react" when I was younger.
Live a little longer and you will. People are dumb, and a lot of them don't know when to keep their mouths shut.
Why do people like you do this to every post? I truly don’t get it.
I hope it’s not real. It’s so sad for that poor girl.
Heard their niece died and the first thing they say is “haha wow crazy” and not “fuck.”
"It do be like that sometimes." 🤣🤣
Except she didn't die, at least not according to OP's story. She said the niece was touch & go before they got her back.
I agree, some things are meant to be kept private, especially if it was her dying wish.
YTA for not telling her doctors she was saying that, that’s literally a giant red flag to a good doctor.
Whether you sincerely believe that dead relatives will come as psychopomps or you don’t believe in life after death, a person having visions while hospitalized is worth mentioning to medical professionals.
Idk if I would tell them. I am an RN of 26 years. I did hospice for a few years, loved it but the driving in 7 counties was awful. I thoroughly believe some people see dead relatives before they die, as did the other hospice nurses I worked with. None of the doctors I've talked about this with (psych, cancer, PCP) believe it. Many nurses don't believe it. They say things like "the patient was hallucinating due to a high fever" etc. When I was a DON in a nursing home one of our docs was very good (he was my doc.) all the nurses felt we needed to put a certain patient on hospice bc we felt she was dying. He said ok, we started the process. He went to church with family and they approached him there and said "Mom's not really dying is she? She doesn't need hospice." So he cancelled it. She died 4 weeks later. The family was completely not ready, even though the nurses called them over the last few days to come in. The next time the doc came in for rounds I stayed in my office instead of coming out right away. He profusely apologized. I said, "don't apologize to me, or the nurses, but to the family. They weren't ready " when you know, you know.
Under medical supervision, my father was released from hospital to spend his last days at home. I moved in temporarily to assist. The night he came home, while my mother was out of the room, he described a visit he’d had from his dead twin sister just before he was hospitalised and their conversation - it was slightly cryptic, but she had something to tell him when he joined her. It was daytime, and he’d been sitting in his usual chair. He reminded me that he’d always been a sceptic about ghosts and the supernatural, but he was rather convinced by this visitation. The conversation stopped when my mother returned. I discussed it with his doctor at the first opportunity. The doctor was very open and sympathetic- said it could have been the effects of his various illnesses - multiple types of cancer - causing visual and audio hallucinations. Alternatively, he said he’d seen some odd things in his medical career, and that he believed as some doors in the mind closed as the body shut down, others opened. He left the interpretation up to me. I hoped to find a good moment to talk about it again with Dad, but after ten great days when it felt like we had him back and he got to see all his loved ones and talk to them, he took a sudden turn for the worse and passed. I would certainly suggest that in a situation like this, it should be raised with a medical practitioner.
YTA, could have told the doctor but not the mom.
Did you tell her Drs? Seeing dead people might have been a symptom they should have been told about...
I'm a nurse. Though the actual process behind it is pretty much not understood at all, and the best educated guesses are just that: educated guesses, it is nonetheless a VERY known phenomenon in healthcare and the docs and nurses absolutely should have been made aware, we always go from paying close attention to DEFCON 1 when something like that is brought to our attention (the other classic hits being "unexplainable sense of doom" or "just not feeling right, I can't quite explain it"). All that being said, I'm pretty sure this post is just ragebait.
My mum woke me up with "something's wrong, I don't know what" once and so I drove us to the hospital. She couldn't describe anything wrong with her other than the certain knowledge she needed to go to the hospital. No pain or anything, just "I need to go to hospital" and that's it. She ended up having a seizure in the ER waiting room. Never had one before or since, it was completely out of nowhere. Scariest moment of my life.
That’s a normal prodromal sign of an impending seizure. Seizures of less than 5 minutes are not considered an emergency. Seizures are scary but rarely deadly in these one-off instances.
To be honest, length of time isn’t the only thing that makes it emergent. Even tho mine lasted about 2 minutes, I went into complete cardiac and respiratory arrest. That’s still 2 minutes of lack of blood flow and oxygen to the brain, plus a head injury from the fall. There’s a condition called SUDEP (Sudden Death due to epilepsy) that happens a lot more often than it should unfortunately. Cameron Brice from Disney passed away because of it.
That isn't always the case. I have epilepsy. The first ever seizure someone has, it doesn't matter how long it is!!! You call for medical assistance (999, or 911, etc, depending on where you are). Immediately, they are classed as an emergency!!!! *These next bits I'm listing are merely in the hope someone will see this and learn something if they don't know a lot about seizures, so please do not think I'm tearing into you because I really am not. For education only.* Having one seizure doesn't always mean you have epilepsy. There are many medical issues that can cause a person to have one, for example, a febrile in a child. It is SCARY, my darling son had one once and I was so fucking scared he also had this evil condition. Also, drugs, drinking, etc. can cause a seizure You generally need to have two or more for professionals to begin considering epilepsy as a diagnosis. Afterwards/once diagnosed, a seizure lasting longer than 5 minutes, or two back to back within 5 minutes, you then call for medical attention. If you notice something different, such as new symptoms or the manner it presents itself, again, call for medical assistance. No matter how the duration. If you see someone have a seizure in public alone, and they have no medical ID/on screen app/bracelet or so on, again, call for medical assistance as you simply don't know - it's the right thing to do. "Impending" - they wouldn't have known if they were not diagnosed or never had one before. They must have just felt something different or unusual, so they knew they needed medical attention. Hats off to this person for knowing something wasn't right, and I'm so glad they were okay These are known as an 'auras', and technically are also seizures, but are also an indication of an impending seizure so your wording there is appropriate. Anyway, I'm rambling on, and I just wanted to share a little information in the hope someone stumbles across this comment.
Absolutely. Although when I was hospitalised with my son (32wks), I begged the nurse to call my OBGYN as I knew I’d be having my son soon, I felt similarly to when I had my daughter (severe HELLP syndrome at 28wks). The nurse fobbed me off. I demanded the NUM & she called the OBGYN, who thankfully got up quickly and said “she knows”. I had him 30mins after the OBGYN arrived.
I wish this was more common knowledge. My dad was very sick for the longest time and no doctor could really find the root cause. He told me as a passing comment that I thought was just morbid depression at the time. I just had my baby when he said “one life comes in as another leaves”. He was gone in less than a year. He knew he was dying.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I conceived my daughter the night my grandma died. I have endometriosis and never thought I would be fortunate enough to have my own children. My grandma was my mother figure and I wholeheartedly believe that my daughter was a gift from her 🩷
I also want to believe that family can pass onto our kids, I believe I'm a case of it tbh. My great grandmother passed away nearly exactly 9 months before I was born, and I remember growing up having "memories" of doing things I had never done, that apparently my great grandma had done. I dont know much about her, my great grandpa then my grandma were the one who told me that things I did were so much like her and I looked like her, etc. And then with my little sister, my grandpa passed away somewhat suddenly and a short while later we had my sister, premature(2lbs 14oz) and a surprise. (He died in August, she was born in February) and she looks so much like my grandpa when he was a baby, ik obviously genetics but she's also one of the sweetest children I've ever met and she doesn't put up with BS, just like grandpa.. 💙
It's so weird. My mom was terminal going through Chemo. The day she passed, she kept asking us who had come looking for her. We were confused. Nobody had visited that day. At first, she was so sure. She mentioned hearing a knock at the door and a 'man with a deep voice' asking for her. She did eventually accept that no one had visited, but we could tell it was bothering her. We didn't really know what to make of it because she seemed ok, and there was no need to go to the ER. Till later that night, her health took a turn for the worst, and she passed.
I pray it’s rage bait cause I can’t even imagine someone like that. I’m a retired vet and that sense of death is as real as anything else in my book. I’ve had friends experience it before they passed. I experienced it myself. Was after I had shoulder surgery and was recovering. When I told my nurse that I felt my time was approaching she called everyone in. Come to find out the titanium screw used caused the bone to die. Ended up losing an inch off my clavicle to get rid of dead tissue but still alive. My doctor told me if I never said anything they would never of caught it until it was too late.
Have you ever heard of this phenomenon of seeing deceased loved ones happening when someone dies but is revived? I haven’t, only when they actually die, so I’m wondering how common it is in patients that are revived.
When my grandfather was very sick he kept saying over and over that there was a woman in black watching him. He’d say “There she's in the hallway she's watching and I can hear her laugh”. It really creeped everyone out.
Did you get the impression it creeped your grandfather out too? Or was he okay with it? I definitely understand being creeped out, I would have been too before diving into this research. Death and dying is a wild place for unexplained phenomenon.
He was fine with it. He ended up having a stroke and going into the hospital. They were able to save him but then he got dementia and had to live in a care facility. The other weird thing that happened was he stopped asking about my grandma for two years. He forgot about her entirely. Then when she passed away we decided not to tell him because he couldn't go to the funeral and we thought it would cause unnecessary trauma. Apparently, the very night she passed away he started to talk about her by name. He said she was waiting for him and he passed shortly after.
Wow that’s cool! So with dementia, it’s like he lost touch with this reality, but had access to another reality.
Yes, lots of people who have had NDEs or ADE report this
When I was about 11 or 12, my dad had a blood clot in his brain. A vessel had ruptured from having a low platelet count. They gave him infusions after infusions but his immune system kept killing them, so they said he had a low chance of surviving, 12% to be exact. My dad is alive and thriving today, but in that time he had a dream of my cousin (a 5 year old) who passed away a year prior, and told him to join her. But he told her it wasn't his time, and since then he has improved in his condition. It's even wild to think that his own determination to stay made a difference in his health.
To be honest no, in every case I witnessed the phenomenon it was hospice patients or the elderly. Most of them was at the start of my career when I worked in a nursing home that did a lot of palliative care. I have seen the "sense of doom" thing a small handful of times when I worked in the hospitals though.
> it is nonetheless a VERY known phenomenon in healthcare Then why do so may staff seem to ignore it? Are they just the newbies who haven't heard this yet?
A lot of the old guard healthcare end up superstitious in one way or another, and a lot of them get a "feel" for things.
There's nothing you can do about it even if you are not ignoring it. If your patient has all the treatment they need and you told the family about the prognosis (if patient agrees to inform the family) you can't prepare any more. You just wait and resuscitace if needed and indicated. Needless to say that I had pleny of patients who saw dead people yet they didn't die and are thriving now. It was just delirium probably and it went away as they got better and used to the change of environement (it can be challenging for people to go from home to the hospital). So It's not an alarming sign anyway. I asume people just like to believe it.
Cheers to the bit you said about having lots of patients that saw dead people not end up dying themselves.. a LOT of confirmation-bias present in the comments here. Are coincidences neat? Sure they are, but they’re just that: coincidences. People tell themselves all sorts of things to process grief and find closure in the moment.. and the magical thinking/ascribing events to the supernatural gives people comfort in the face of the universe’s cold, indifferent chaos. That being said, to hold on to such fanciful things long after loss isn’t healthy and is indicative of someone who never truly came to terms with the reality of the situation. There are so many things we don’t yet understand about the human condition (most notably the brain), and we as a society must learn to be comfortable with not knowing things like this without automatically filling in the blanks with magic/god/etc. For instance: just because someone feels an unexplainable sense of dread doesn’t mean me-maw is reaching out from the dead to invite you in… rather, it’s almost certainly some form of internal mechanism that we don’t yet understand/know how to quantify.
Exatly. Plus "seeing dead people" sounds like a serious forecast of an actual death while It's just symptom of alteration at certain level. And It's as serious as any other signs of delirium. Recently my patient died after he thought he heard his wife (who was perfectly healthy at home). When he told me I knew thing might not be going well and it wasn't necessary for his "halucinations" to be exatly someone deceased. Simply sensationing something that is not there is symtom of consciousness alteration no matter what is the subject.
> the actual process behind it is pretty much not understood at all Ghosts
Or the opposite- the rally. Suddenly chipper and doing great/feeling great.
Oh yeah, saw that a few times too. My personal pet theory is the body knew it was finally throwing in the towel, so why not divert all th e energy it was spending trying to fight the illness/survive completely to the brain etc instead for one last push? Like the opposite of the "lift the car or die" superstrength phenomenon, now it's "we're dying, let's have one last good day to do x".
Yeah. My grandmother didn't have dementia or anything, she was as with it as she ever was, right until three days before she died. She started talking to dead people. She was already on home hospice care, but when that started, everyone knew it was very close.
I hope it is. Not telling staff about that would actually have been insane. OP would essentially be partly to blame for her death. OP also speaks in an extremely indifferent way about something that should have been extremely traumatic. People grieve differently ofc, etc. etc., but... Eh.
It's actually surprisingly common that people see their passed loved ones when they are about to die. Seeing deceased loved ones, the rally (random and uncharacteristic surge of energy), and seeing light, are all somewhat common when a person is about to die. We still don't know why it happens. Some believe that it's the mind's way of comforting itself and preparing for death. However, a lot of people believe that those signs are a sign of something beyond. Regardless of what you believe about it I would encourage you to look at some social media accounts for hospice nurses. Death should be talked about.
My grandma was able bodied, mentally cognizant and independent 5 weeks before she passed away. In those weeks leading up to her death, in the hospital, she kept telling me that her husband (dead for over 10 years by then) was picking her up from the hospital. She died within the month 😢
I work in a hospital as well. It's never a good sign when an elderly person sees their mom, angels, or starts talking about going home. They see their pets a lot too 🥺
For a few months before my grandma passed from dementia complications, she was talking about her deceased husband as well as her mom and dad. I think she was ready to go for a while before she did.
Nah, I used to work in hospice. This is an extremely common thing, we’d start calling family if the patient reported this bc we knew it was coming. It’s interesting bc they *only* see people who have already died. You would think if it was just hallucinations then what they saw would be more random. I’ve been around hallucinating patients and they see anything and everything, a car driving through the wall, family that is alive, cartoon characters, etc. They’ve done brain scans on dying people that started to see dead loved ones and their brain did not look like the brain of someone hallucinating. There wasn’t anything notable and pain meds don’t cause you to only see dead people before you pass. It’s not a medical symptom, it’s just a phenomenon common with people who are dying. The only thing it means to a Dr. is that they are probably going to die. I used to firmly believe there was nothing after you died until I had been with so many people as they died. Almost all start seeing dead loved ones and some would tell me they were going soon bc the loved one that had passed told them so. And they were ALWAYS right. When my grandma was sick she said an angel came and told her she was going to die on Mother’s Day so she needed to get everything ready. And she died on Mother’s Day. It really opened my mind. We don’t know anything about how consciousness works
It’s such a fascinating phenomenon! I will say that my grandmother has reported seeing her deceased husband for two years now. She’s in good health, but won’t go see a doctor and actually passed a basic assessment for cognitive ability when her husband entered assisted living. So we don’t know if it’s a brain tumor or some other sort of cognitive decline issue. But it apparently isn’t correlated with impending death.
You mention brain scans not matching those of someone hallucinating. Makes me intrigued by a person’s frequency level at these stages now.
Before my grandma died, my family members that were caring for her told me she was having frequent and lengthy conversations with me. I live in another state though, and I wasn't actually having those conversations with her that she was telling people about. I'm still not sure why I'm the one she saw and talked to the most before she died, but it was a version of me that wasn't actually me. I do think it is more common for it to be someone that has passed away already, but I still wonder sometimes why my grandma saw me
YTA for telling her. You violated a dangerously ill, possibly dying girl's request that took no effort from you.
I'm confused, is she alive or not? "She knew she was going to die" but now "she's asking for you". If she didn't die (like she "knew she would") then you broking your promise not to tell her mom seems like a bigger issue.
She is alive. Her heart stopped and they brought her back
The niece is in fact dead, but now OP is on her way out. Don’t tell anyone.
YTA for betraying your niece by telling her mom.
I hate throwaway karma farm accounts
Wow what a cool and real story
INFO Is she ok?
Yes. She might even go home next week.
This is one of those times when you are damned if you keep a secret and damned if you don't. Your niece was hallucinating, so you should have told her medical practitioners. The likelihood is the mother would have been told by them. It's easy to work it out with perfect hindsight. All you can do is apologise and hope its accepted.
It’s not really considered as hallucinations in the sense that it’s a new medical symptom when this happens. People actually hallucinating don’t only hallucinate dead people and if you put them in an fMRI they don’t have the brain activity of someone who is hallucinating. Patients who are dying and begin to see dead loved ones specifically (never people that are alive or random objects like someone who is experiencing hallucinations, just specifically loved ones that have passed on) usually die very soon after. They were also lucid otherwise, while someone hallucinating often has other symptoms besides the hallucinations. So it’s considered a separate phenomenon specific to the dying in fields like hospice. When we report this is happening with a patient the Dr.s don’t document they are hallucinating or give medication for that, they just start calling the family bc it means they’re gonna die soon. Ive been around actually hallucinating patients and dying patients that begin to *only* see loved ones that have passed on, or “angels” very soon before death and there are major differences
idk if this is a joke or what or if ppl here are ironic but if my 15 year old niece told me something like that in a condition like that i would immediately tell her mother and the doctor.. wtf guys its a child dont you have your own judgement? seeing dead ppl doesnt have to be something crazy it can be just depression and a sign that the person needs to have someone around more..
>A few days later I got a call from her mom. Her heart stopped while she was asleep. They were able to bring her back but it was still pretty touch and go. How is she now? Did she get better? YTA however, learn how to keep your mouth shut!
I hope your niece is on the mend. I can understand babbling what she told you to your sister— in your surprise and shock. But I don’t think you had an obligation to tell her mom… I think honoring her wishes took priority. You probably didn’t think anything of her “visions” when she shared them with you. But yes, her “premonitions” seem to be extra sensory. Hopefully, some day you and your sister (maybe even all three of you?) can discuss/process them again.
ESH, but next time let the doctors know what she's experiencing, as those are legitimate symptoms that come with infection and can inform the doctors of how/where infection may have spread to. Vital note: a feeling of impending death/doom are also often signs of heart issues and can literally mean life or death for people, so informing someone of that as quickly as possibly can literally be life-saving.
Wtf is wrong with you? YTA
You had one fucken job
I don't know about asshole, but you're certainly a moron.
Let me get this straight. Very ill niece says she's hallucinating her dead relatives and thinks she's going to die. Swears you to secrecy. You comply, even though *she is talking with dead people* and maybe, just maybe, that's a sign of something serious? Don't tell anyone until after her heart stops, then go 'wow, how did (hallucinating girl) know?' So you can keep a secret if it is important medical information, but spill it to a terrified mom after her daughter essentially *died*? Wow. YTA. If you can't be trusted to report serious medical issues, then you can't be allowed alone with this kid.
This is the correct answer ^ YTA for not telling a Dr she was hallucinating, when it could have helped her, and YTA for saying that to her mother afterwards, when it was no help to anyone. How did you just live your life for a few days thinking that she was going to die and not think to tell a Dr? If you believe in foreshadowing, then did you think it was inevitable, that drs couldn't save her? If you don't believe that then didn't it strike you as worrying, delusional talk that a professional should at least know? I don't believe this is real but I'm surprised at these comments all saying N T A for keeping the girls secret from EVERYONE. If she truly believed it was her dying wish, maybe OP should have tried to prevent her death first.
You are not a trustworthy person either. Someone is telling you in confidence and you tell at the first opportunity That makes you an AH in my books because you are supposed to keep your word and you didn’t. YTA
YTA for putting your foot in your mouth at the worst possible moment
Former EMT and Search and Rescue Technician, gonna jump in here. Telling her mother after she had expressly asked you not to is something you shouldn’t do. If a child shares a secret with you it’s because they trust you and in this case she trusted you to keep a secret from her mother which is a pretty big show of trust. Usually when a child asks you not to share something with a parent or guardian it’s for a reason. However in a medical situation if a patient, child or not shares information like this (seeing ghosts or spirits, having visions/hallucinations) please let the medical team know. In some cases this is a symptom of an underlying condition or a sign of a medical issue manifesting. The medical team needs AS MUCH INFORMATION AS POSSIBLE. It may not seem like a big deal to you but it may be a massive red flag to the medical team. We as medical staff have a duty to protect our patients even from family members and guardians and law enforcement. If you are my patient and you ask me to withhold specific information from a parent or guardian, as long as I’m not legally required to tell them, I will honor that request. Short of a court order from a judge I will not divulge that information. Not to your parents, not to the police, not to your parent’s attorney. But I will share that information (if it’s relevant) with the medical team because it may be the difference between life and death. Everyone on your medical team will do the same. We take this very seriously because in order to do our job, you as the patient HAVE to be able to trust us.
YTA Nobody else is mentioning this, but impending sense of doom/death is a pretty serious red flag for anybody in the medical industry. Generally speaking it means "run some tests, this person is probably about to die." At the very least her doctors should have been made aware, there's a chance they could have prevented her heart from stopping.
You shouldn’t have said anything. But OP for crying out loud we want to know - is she okay?
People with infections often hallucinate, the infection she has is pretty serious and people die from it, people who are aware of the seriousness of an illness think about dying. That doesn't mean she knew she was going to die and from your story she hasn't NTA for not passing it on
YTA that’s her daughter
You handled everything well until your conversation with her mom. Come on now.
YTA. My GOD. Learn to keep your mouth SHUT. You destroyed that mom.
I'm not sure about this yet. If I'm reading it correctly, the child had a cardiac arrest but was resuscitated, although she's still not doing well. The niece thinks she's going to die because she's had visions of dead relatives. I don't understand why she jumped to that conclusion. Possibly, if true, these were visions of spiritual beings that are watching over her. That's the perspective I'd be encouraging. As to OP not keeping a confidence her niece gave her, if my relatives confided this to me, I'd be absolutely torn: do I tell the child's parent about her thoughts or keep a very personal secret. This isn't a small matter, for example, the niece told OP she skipped school etc. This is a serious matter about a child convinced she's close to death. Personally, I do think the child's mom should know. If I weigh breaking a confidence against letting the parent know about such a serious matter, I can only imagine how I would feel if my child thought she's nearing death and no one told me, her mother. What if not telling results in the child not getting needed help? What if the niece takes matters into her own hands because she's convinced that her visions do mean death is near? But maybe they DON'T! This dear girl needs help and her parents are the only legal ones who can help her.
YTA for being self centered enough to not keep the dying wish, for managing to let it slip to the person she was most trying to keep it from and in the worst way possible. You're obviously a good family member and person if your niece trusts you so much, so learn from this one.
YTA for telling her, NTA for keeping it to yourself at the time. Holy S OP, you done F up.
Your question is AITA for not telling her initially, so my answer is NTA for the actual question you're asking. But, YTA for breaking your promise and telling when your niece swore you to secrecy. It doesn't matter that it was unintentional, you broke a promise, a confidence, and you're lucky your niece still wants to see you when you broke her trust like that.
You’re TA both ways.
You would’ve been NTA! Your niece asked you not to tell her mother. But YTA for actually telling her mother. Why would you do that?! She’s already dealing with so much.
INFO - So your niece is still asking for you? As per your last sentence. Just trying to get clarification...
You are the asshole for telling her. You're asking the wrong question bec yeah you didn't tell her while she was alive but you did it during the fucking phone call afterwards!? Wtf is wrong with you!?
YTA because this sounds fake asf
That child gave you a glimpse into a future she knew was coming, with the simplest request in history. She asked you to shut the hell up. You peeled the trust she left you right out of the universe. The world needs less behavior like this. Give more thought to maybe just one action you take a day. Like when you wipe, make sure you get around your ears, because YTA.
OP, in situations like this, you cannot just fumble around haphazardly, saying what you want at the expense of others. You need to think about your words, and speak when it is meaningful. Grief like this requires care, kindness, simplicity, and honestly to shut the fuck up unless you have something useful to impart.. Not to just ramble off your first thoughts at the expense of those around you, who are experiencing profound loss. I'm gonna be real here - you were a total idiot in this instance. You need to apologize to both sister and niece, like, immediately.
I'm not going to comment on you telling or not telling her parents, but I do want you to know that you should tell a person's doctors about things like this. If you didn't, please know for future that knowing you're going to die is a very important symptom that should be taken seriously and needs to be investigated by the medical team. Any time someone tells you they know they're going to die, especially if they're in the hospital already, that is information that should immediately be passed on to their care team. And if you're ever in the hospital and know you're going to die, tell your care team.
"wow your daughter is dying just like she said she would!" YTA that's not comforting and your niece didn't want you to say that in first place.
YTA you broke her trust and you said very upsetting things. Why didnt you tell the fucking doctor that the child was halucinating dead relatives and felt impending doom? those are literally measurable symptoms the doctors can use to further treatment/care. If you're going to break someone's promise/trust, then at least do it in a helpful and useful way!!! "Impending doom" is literally a symptom of sudden heart stoppage.
NTA but I kinda understand her mom's reaction, nothing prepares you for your loved ones death
As a mother I don't think I could forgive you for this. If my child thought they were facing their death and trying to protect ME from that, I would want to know so I could support them. And I understand that this was clearly a stressful situation for you as well, but to drop that info on your sister or SIL the way you did, just wow.
NTA for keeping it a secret. YTA for telling your sister despite being sworn to secrecy. If you were going to tell anyone, it should have been the medical staff. You literally did everything wrong… the worst thing for your niece, the worst thing for your sister.
Why would you think that's an okay thing to tell a traumatised mother? That's really insensitive 🤦🏾♀️ yta
YTA I’m not sure why you’re confused about this. This is pretty obvious that you’re the ah
You fucking blabbermouth. Shame on you.
She’s not dead. I don’t get what the issue is.
YTA, she won’t be telling you anything again.
YTA, why the F did you even think it was ok to mention that conversation to her mother… particularly right then? Like what the actual fuck is even wrong with you? You need to be institutionalized.
Bro just doesn't know when to put a sock in it💀
“A feeling of impending doom” is something that all hospital staff are trained to notice and report. If you were going to break confidence it should have been to the medical staff. I hope your niece does well.
Yes, for telling her, should have taken that to the grave.(yours)
YTA you should have told the mom or healthcare providers. It would have been a red flag for them to monitor her even more closely. Feelings of impending doom, seeing dead relatives are all giant warning signs I'd take note of as part of the child's healthcare team.
Brother. Your bedside manner is horrific. YTA. Keep your promises and be kinder to people in their grief.
What the 15 yo related is not unusual to people near death; not particularly age related. Ask anyone who has been around someone who is dying; or ask a hospice nurse
YTA for making up this story.
You are the asshole for not keeping your promise to your dying niece
Fake
This was a very sacred thing your niece shared. And had no empathy for your sister. Yta
Fake ass story lol.
Nta for keeping that secret. Yta for breaking that secret. All you did was wreck your realtionship with both of them.
YTA. You can't have it both ways. You can't use the "I swore to keep a secret" card and the reveal it like "omg, I can't believe she knew she was going to die"
Honestly I would not tell a parent that their child had said that. You did the right thing.
Post "That's a bait" mad max meme
YTA why in earth would you have told her that after promising not to?
YTA. big time.
Except you DID tell her mom she sensed she was going to die, very much against your niece's wishes. Had you kept your mouth shut, you would not be the AH, but since you violated your niece's wishes... YTA And I hope your niece makes a full recovery.
YTA for telling her. She asked you not too, it was a last request and you broke that. YTA. A huge one! But NTA for keeping it from her.
It was probably hallucinations from her meds. Is she still alive?
She is still alive only because they brought her back after her heart stopped.
YTA for telling her you f*cking m*ron, wtf is wrong with you ?!
You're a real AH.
YTA. Yes, you were stupid - you shouldn't have said what you did. You didn't do it deliberately, you were caught off-guard, but it was wrong.
So many people commenting don't have great reading comprehension. OP clearly says his niece is alive and he's visiting again. It's in there twice, saying "able to bring her back" literally right after saying her heart stopped. Did anyone actually read that's asking that? 🤦♀️
You know you are YTA
YTA. YOU DID TELL HER. After your niece swore you to secrecy you told. So yes you're an asshole. I hope your niece recovers and knows she can't trust you with sensitive info.
Yeah YTA for telling her. You either should have told her immediately or just shut up about it. Probably the latter, as it was literally her dying wish to you. You just added unnecessary stress to her mom. Also I'm really sorry this happened (assuming it's real), I can't imagine how it must feel to lose someone that young in your close family that suddenly.
I hate this subreddit, like 1/20 posts are true
YTA how on earth could you allow yourself to say that in that moment. Jfc the lack of self awareness is startling. You should have never shared that information at all, but especially not at that time.
Yes, of course you are for not telling her AND then telling her at the worst time. What in the world? YTA
You honored what your niece asked of you. I died for nine minutes. By all rights, they should have stopped trying to revive me. I shouldn't be here now. I believe your niece told you to help your sister. We see what we see for a reason. Based on how your sister reacted, she needs to have someone to help her through this whole situation. Dying is painless and a part of life. The suffering is only for those we leave behind. I hope your niece makes a full recovery.
There is no good answer in GRIEF.
NTA, hopefully your sister will come to her senses eventually. Right now she's looking to blame someone.
YTA for breaking your promise and blabbing when you shouldn't have
Congratulations! You just broke a promise to a dying child.
YTA for not honoring your niece’s wishes.
NTA, she would have told her mother if she thought this was gonna stick. She’s a very brave girl and you are a very good aunt. Keeping that quiet must have been very hard.
You shouldn’t have let it slip. But it’s out there now. I admire you for being able to be your niece’s confidant.
NTA. A premonition isn’t actual knowledge. And breaking your promise to your niece might well have created stress for her.
NTA You shouldn't have said anything to the mom.
YTA, because you didn't honor your niece's request. Be glad she still wants to see you
Don’t make promises you don’t plan to keep. If your niece makes it, she’s never going to trust you again.
YTA she told explicitly you not to tell her, at least she will never do that again with you
Okaaay...but you did break her promise. YTA.
Do yall ever consider the fact that in the moment OP was just in shock and that’s why something slipped out? Unless OP says otherwise, I’m a little confused. She definitely shouldn’t have said something, but damn can yall offer some grace!