To preface this story my brother(21) suffers from extreme social anxiety and depression but refuses to anything about it(ex medication) My mom tends to cater to him to keep it at bay(exactly what she did today) but has started putting her foot down in certain instances.

A few days ago my mom had mentioned that a family friend invited our family and my sisters fiancé to a college basketball game her son was playing in. A bunch of my brothers friends were going and their families.

Today I was bridesmaids dress shopping with my sister and her bridesmaids. We went to brunch afterwards. At brunch my sister asked if I was going and when I said yes she told me to check with my mom as she needed to put me in for a ticket. Then said if I was going I could go out for a drink with her and some friends and then her fiancé would pick us up to go to the game.

That same moment my mom texts me asking if I’m going. I say yes and she proceeded to tell me how my brothers flipping out having anxiety over me coming because all his friends will be there. She then tells me she feels terrible about telling me.

I basically told her I wouldn’t go then even though I wanted to. I know exactly how he gets and he’d ruin the night for her over this, just because I was there.

I figured she’d just go to bat for me and tell him to suck it up because I was coming. Instead she was like “I can’t believe I have to do this” basically alluding to the fact that she told me he was freaking out so I wouldn’t come(I knew immediately when she said he was freaking out that it was so I would skip going)

Basically my whole family is there besides me because he didn’t want me coming. After brunch I had to awkwardly tell my sister as we were leaving to go to the other bar that I was taking an Uber home. I couldn’t really explain why because everyone was with us.