What’s the worst thing your sister ever did to you? Did she steal your clothes? Read your diary? Kiss the boy you liked?
My sister… my sister pretended to have my chronic illness for attention. And when she finally got caught, she tried to murder me by destroying my life-saving medication and filming my body as it shut down.
My sister, Jade, is five years older than me. And for as long as I can remember, she has treated my type 1 diabetes like a personal insult. Like I’d gotten a special toy she wasn’t allowed to play with. When I was diagnosed at eight, the attention in our house shifted. Suddenly, it wasn’t all about Jade’s ballet recitals or her perfect grades. It was about my blood sugar, my insulin injections, my doctor’s appointments.
She grew to resent me for it. She’d “accidentally” hide my glucose meter right before dinner. She’d steal the juice boxes from my “low” stash in the pantry. She’d whisper to our parents, “I think she’s just doing this for attention, Mom. Her friends all think she’s so brave.”
When I was 10, she threw away my entire box of insulin pens the night before we left for a family camping trip. I ended up in the ICU for three days in diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). She told our parents she thought it was “just an empty box.” They believed her. They always believed her.
At school, she’d tell everyone I was “faking symptoms” to get special treatment, like being allowed to eat a snack in class if my sugar was low, or getting extensions on tests if I’d been up all night managing a high.
My parents… they told me to be patient. “She’s just jealous, honey. It’s hard for her when you get all the medical attention.” They had no idea how dangerous her “jealousy” was about to become.
THE PERFORMANCE OF A LIFETIME
When Jade was 18, she announced at dinner that she, too, was sick. She’d been feeling “dizzy and shaky” between meals. She’d “borrowed” one of my old glucose meters and dramatically scrolled through the history, claiming some of the wonky, high-and-low blood sugar readings were hers.
My mother, who had spent a decade dismissing my real symptoms, immediately sprang into action. An endocrinologist appointment was made for Jade. My sister started telling all her friends, with a brave, trembling lip, that she was “probably about to be diagnosed with diabetes, just like me.”
The blood tests, of course, came back perfect. Normal A1c, normal fasting glucose. But Jade insisted the doctors had “missed” her “reactive hypoglycemia.” She’d done her research. Within a week, she was demanding the same meal schedule I had. She’d time her “fake lows” to match my real insulin schedule, collapsing in stores, her hands shaking uncontrollably, demanding juice while panicked strangers rushed to help her.
She was a terrifyingly good actress. She had studied me for a decade. She perfected my real symptoms: the specific way my hands trembled, the slight confusion and slurring of speech that came with low blood sugar. She’d time her “episodes” for maximum attention. The worst was at my 16th birthday party. Just as I was about to blow out the candles, she staged a “severe crash,” convulsing on the living room floor until someone (my father) gave her a piece of my cake. The paramedics who were called found her blood sugar to be perfectly normal, but she just claimed their meter was broken.
Our parents spent thousands on specialists who all found nothing wrong. Jade joined online diabetes support groups where she spread dangerous misinformation to actual diabetics. Her new theory? She was having low blood sugars due to “proximity exposure” to my insulin. She demanded we get separate refrigerators. She’d wake our parents up at 3:00 AM, claiming she was “dangerously low,” forcing Mom to stumble downstairs and make her a full breakfast, while I was often alone in my room, silently handling my real 3:00 AM blood sugar issues with a juice box and a prayer. I wasn’t a baby, after all.
The truth finally, blessedly, came out at Thanksgiving. Jade was in the middle of her usual dramatic “low,” shaking and slurring her words, when our cousin, visiting from out of state, looked up from his phone. “That’s weird,” he said. “I just saw her in her bedroom an hour ago eating a huge stash of Halloween candy. Like, a massive bag of Snickers.”
Jade froze. Mid-shake.
Our aunt, a registered nurse, didn’t miss a beat. She grabbed Jade’s (my old) glucose meter and pricked her finger right there at the table. Everyone stared.
“95,” my aunt announced, her voice flat. “Perfectly normal.”
The shaking stopped immediately. The slurring vanished. Jade’s face went white. “I… it was treatment! For an earlier low!” she stammered.
“Okay,” my aunt said, pulling out a new test strip. “Let’s test you again in 10 minutes.” She did. “Still 95. Funny. No diabetic’s blood sugar stays that stable 10 minutes after eating a pound of chocolate.”
That night, our parents finally went through her room. They found her diary. It was all in there. She’d been faking for over a year, meticulously researching every aspect of diabetes to make her performance more convincing. They confronted her. They told her she had 30 days to find somewhere else to live.
She screamed. She cried. She said they were “choosing their defective child over their healthy one.” But for once, her manipulation didn’t work. They were done.
THE POINT OF NO RETURN
But Jade wasn’t done.
The next morning, I woke up to my insulin pump beeping. EMPTY RESERVOIR. Impossible. I’d just changed it the night before. I ran to the (shared) fridge. All my backup insulin pens… gone. My emergency glucagon kit… gone. I sprinted to my bedroom, to the hidden supply of vials I kept in a shoebox under my bed… gone.
I found Jade in the kitchen, standing by the sink. She was holding my entire supply of life-saving medication. All of it. Vials, pens, everything.
“If I can’t have diabetes,” she said, her voice chillingly calm, “then neither can you.”
She’d already flushed half of it down the sink. Thousands of dollars of insulin, just gone. The rest, a handful of vials, she held over the open garbage disposal.
I had maybe six hours before my blood sugar would skyrocket. Without insulin, I’d go into diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). My blood would turn acidic. I’d start vomiting, my organs would fail, I’d fall into a coma, and I’d die.
It was the Friday after Thanksgiving. Black Friday. The pharmacy was closed for the holiday weekend and wouldn’t reopen for three days. The nearest 24/7 hospital was two hours away. My parents, trying to find some normalcy, had gone Black Friday shopping at dawn and weren’t answering their phones.
I was alone. And she knew it.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Jade said, her finger hovering over the disposal switch. “You’re going to tell Mom and Dad that you coached me. That you taught me how to fake this whole time because you wanted someone to ‘share the attention’ with. You’ll admit you helped me fake all those episodes. Or… I destroy the rest of this insulin, and you get to experience what a real diabetic emergency feels like.”
My blood sugar was already rising. I could feel the first symptoms. The sickeningly sweet, metallic taste in my mouth. The overpowering thirst. The slight, oily nausea that would soon become violent vomiting.
She smiled, a cold, knowing smile. She saw me doing the math, calculating how long I had. “Choose quickly,” she said, tilting the vials toward the drain. “Your blood sugar’s already climbing. You’re sweating already. What’s that? 400? 500? How long till your organs shut down?”
I stared at the vials. My life. Right there in her hand. The disposal hummed beneath them.
“Jade, please…” I started, my throat already dry.
“Wrong answer.” She dropped one full vial into the disposal and flipped the switch. The grinding noise of the glass and plastic was the most terrifying sound I’ve ever heard.
I lunged, but she held up the remaining vials like a weapon. “That’s one down. You’ve got maybe four hours now, instead of six. Want to try again?”
My hands were shaking, not from a low, but from adrenaline and the toxic rush of high glucose. I backed away, my mind racing. Landline? Living room. Cell phone? Upstairs, charging. Even if I got to one, who would I call? Cops? Paramedics? They’d take 30 minutes. She’d destroy everything, and it would be her word against mine.
“I can see you calculating,” Jade said, moving to block the kitchen doorway. “There’s no way out. Just tell them what I want you to say, and I’ll give you back your insulin. Simple trade.”
I glanced at the small kitchen window over the sink. It was a long drop. Jade saw my eyes move. She grabbed a large kitchen knife from the block and set it on the counter between us.
“Don’t even think about it,” she said, her voice still light. “I’m not going to stab you or anything dramatic. But I will use this to puncture every single one of these vials if you try to leave this room.”
THE TORMENT
The nausea was getting stronger. The metallic taste of ketones was thick in my mouth. My body was already breaking down fat for energy, poisoning my blood in the process.
“You know what the funny part is?” Jade continued, setting the knife within easy reach. “I actually learned so much about diabetes from watching you. I know exactly what’s happening to your body right now. Your cells are starving. Your liver is dumping more sugar to try and ‘help,’ but it’s just making it worse.”
She was right. I was probably pushing 300 by now. The thirst was unbearable. I needed water, but I couldn’t move.
“In about an hour,” she said conversationally, “you’ll start vomiting. Then comes the confusion, the weakness. Your breathing will get rapid and shallow as your body tries to compensate for the acid. I’ve seen you in DKA before. Remember when I threw away your insulin before that trip?”
The memory—the ICU, the pain, my parents’ worried faces—made me angry enough to focus.
“That nearly killed you,” she mused. “But it didn’t. Mom and Dad rushed you to the hospital, held your hand for days. And where was I? Shipped off to Aunt Carol’s like I was the problem.” She gripped the vials. “This time, they’ll have to choose. Their precious, defective sick child… or their healthy one who just wanted to be seen.”
I pressed my palms against the counter, trying to steady myself. The room felt too warm, my skin dry and flushed.
“What happens when I’m in a coma?” I managed to ask, my voice rasping. “When they find me unconscious, you think they’ll believe I coached you, after you’ve literally murdered me?”
“You’re being so dramatic.” She smiled. “You won’t die. You’ll just get sick enough… that when I ‘find’ you and ‘save’ you with this insulin, you’ll be so grateful, you’ll say whatever I want. I’ve thought this through. I’ll be the hero. Finally, I’ll be the one taking care of you.”
My vision was starting to blur. I needed to act. But Jade had positioned herself perfectly. Disposal behind her, knife beside her. She was watching my every move.
“You want some water?” she mocked, seeing me swallow. “Your mouth must be so dry by now. That’s what, 350? 400? How high does your meter even read?”
I tried to remember if I had any other hidden stashes. An old pen in a jacket? A vial in my school bag? No, she’d been thorough. She’d been planning this since Thanksgiving.
“You know what I hated most?” she continued, her voice dropping into a venomous whisper. “The way everyone always asked about you first. ‘How’s Chloe’s blood sugar?’ ‘Does she need anything?’ Like I didn’t exist unless it was in relation to your disease!”
The room tilted. I gripped the counter harder.
“And the special meals, the carb counting, the constant checking! Everything revolved around you. While I just had to be grateful I was healthy.” She laughed bitterly. “Do you know how invisible that makes you feel? To watch your parents panic over every number on your meter, while my straight A’s meant nothing?”
“But it was all fake,” I managed to say.
“So what?! The attention was real! The concern was real! For once, I mattered as much as you!” She held up the last few vials. “And now I’m going to matter more. Because when you tell them you helped me, they’ll realize you’re not their perfect sick child. You’re just as manipulative as I am.”
My legs were shaking. I needed to sit. Don’t show weakness.
“The thing is,” she said, almost bragging, “I got really good at faking lows. The shaking, the confusion… I practiced in the mirror for hours. But you know what I could never, ever fake?” She gestured at me. “This. The way your skin gets that weird dry flush. The fruity, nail-polish-remover smell on your breath. The way you keep swallowing because your mouth is so dry. That’s real DKA. And it’s what’s going to kill you if you don’t agree to my terms.”
My heart was racing, trying to pump the thickening, acidic blood. I had to get that insulin. But if I agreed… she’d own me. Every real low, every high, every time I felt sick, my parents would look at me and wonder. Is she faking this? Is this another one of their ‘games’? She wouldn’t just be taking my life; she’d be taking my truth.
“Tik-tok,” Jade said. “How high can you go? 500? 600? I’ve seen your meter ‘ERROR’ at 600 before. Remember? You were so sick you couldn’t even stand.”
The memory made me sway. I was sweating now. A cold, clammy sweat. Not a good sign. “You’re sweating,” she observed, her voice bright with clinical interest. “That’s new. Must be the adrenaline mixing with the hyperglycemia. Your body doesn’t know whether to panic or shut down.”
She was right. I was trapped.
THE LONGEST HOUR
“I’ll make it easy. Just nod,” Jade said. “Nod yes, and I’ll hand over one vial. Enough to get you through. Otherwise…” She moved her hand toward the disposal.
I thought about it. My life, or my reputation? What a stupid, simple question. But I knew it wouldn’t end there. She’d hold this over me forever.
“You’re running out of time,” she said, her voice losing its edge, replaced by a strange, glassy-eyed focus. “I can see it. You’re getting that look. How long before you can’t even understand me?”
The kitchen clock showed 8:47 AM. My parents wouldn’t be home for hours. My blood sugar was well over 400. The metallic taste was so strong I felt like I’d been chewing on pennies. I glanced at the clock. She saw it. Smiled wider.
“What happens when I’m in a coma?” I slurred.
“You’re being dramatic. You won’t die. You’ll just get sick enough…”
Her monologue repeated. She was trying to convince herself as much as me. I looked at the knife, then at her, then at the vials. Lunging was off the table. My muscles were weak, shaky.
I made a decision. I nodded. A single, jerky movement.
Jade’s eyes lit up with triumph. She set down the water glass she’d been holding (she’d been drinking in front of me, the cruelty was endless) and picked up a vial. Then she laughed and put it back down.
“A nod’s not enough. I want to hear you practice the story. Every detail. How you taught me. How we planned it.”
My vision swam. The effort to stand was monumental. I needed to speak, but my throat was too dry. Jade sighed, slid the glass of water across the counter. I grabbed it, gulping it down. The relief lasted seconds.
She pulled out her phone. Started recording. “Now,” she commanded. “Tell the story.”
I tried. I stammered through her fictional narrative. My words were slurred. The brain fog was thick. Simple sentences were complex puzzles.
“Ugh, you’re not even convincing!” she snapped, lowering the phone. “This is useless!”
The nausea hit. I doubled over, dry-heaving into the sink. Nothing but bile. Jade stepped back in disgust but kept filming, narrating my symptoms to the camera like a twisted scientist. “Subject is now… retching. Skin is pale, clammy…”
When it stopped, I slumped to the floor, my back against the cabinets. The cool tile felt good.
“We need you more… functional,” she muttered, pacing. She was losing her window. If I passed out before confessing, her leverage was gone.
She grabbed a notepad, wrote out the confession. “Here. Copy this. In your handwriting.” She thrust the pen at me. My hand shook so badly I couldn’t grip it. It clattered to the floor.
My vision tunneled. Dark spots danced. Jade slapped my face, lightly. “Focus!”
She was losing me. She knew it. She made a desperate choice. She drew up a tiny, tiny amount of insulin in a syringe. “Just enough to clear your head,” she said. “Not to save you. Just to make you coherent enough to confess.”
The needle approached my arm. I tried to pull away but had no strength.
Just then, a sound. A car door slamming outside.
Jade froze. Rushed to the window. Peered through the blinds. “Damn it.” It was our elderly neighbor, Mrs. Bufort, getting her morning paper. Jade watched, vibrating with panic, until Mrs. Bufort went back inside. The interruption rattled her.
She turned back to me. I was slumped further, my breathing more labored. Kussmaul breathing. My body’s desperate, last-ditch effort to expel the acid.
She held the syringe, hesitating. Giving me any insulin was a loss of control. Instead, she knelt, holding the vials. “We’ll do this simple. I’ll ask questions. You just nod yes.”
She repositioned her phone, started recording again. “Did you help me fake diabetes?” A weak nod. “Did you teach me the symptoms?” Another nod. But my movements were small, uncertain. Useless as a confession.
A new sound. The doorbell.
We both startled. Jade’s eyes went wide with panic. A delivery truck. The driver stood at our door, package in hand. Jade had to answer. She hid the vials, pointed the knife at me—stay quiet—and walked to the front door.
I heard her voice, artificially cheerful. The driver needing a signature. The door closing. Her footsteps, fast, agitated.
She found me trying to crawl toward the living room. I’d made it maybe three feet. She grabbed my ankle, dragged me back across the tile. The movement sent a wave of white-hot pain through my head. Her anger was palpable. Her perfect plan was crumbling.
She pulled out all the remaining vials, lining them up on the counter. “This one,” she hissed, “is for the birthday party you ruined. This one, for the vacation that became all about you. This one, for every time Mom checked on your blood sugar instead of asking about my day!”
She flipped on the disposal. Held a vial over it.
“Last chance,” she said. “Nod. Now. Or I flush it all.”
But as she spoke, the doorbell rang again. A persistent, steady ringing.
“Who NOW?” she screamed. It was Mrs. Bufort, back, her voice calling through the door. “Girls? Is everything alright? I saw the delivery driver, and he said you looked… pale, Jade. I brought some of my Thanksgiving pie.”
Jade froze. Mrs. Bufort was kind, observant, and very persistent. She wouldn’t leave.
“Tell her we’re fine!” Jade hissed at me. “Get rid of her!”
“I… I can’t,” I moaned. The insulin was starting to work, just a little, clearing the fog, but my body was too weak.
“Mrs. Bufort! We’re fine!” Jade yelled at the door. “Just sleeping in!”
“Well, dear, I’m just a bit worried,” Mrs. Bufort’s voice came back, closer. “I know your parents are out, and with Chloe’s condition… I think I’ll just use the spare key to check.”
Our parents had given her a key for emergencies. This was it. Jade’s face went white. She knew the game was over. She looked at the vials, at me, at the knife.
“If I’m going down,” she whispered, “you’re coming with me.”
She grabbed the last vials and lunged for the disposal. But the insulin, that tiny dose, had given me just enough. As she turned, I wasn’t crawling. I was standing. I’d used the counter to pull myself up. I grabbed the first thing I could reach—the heavy, wet cast-iron skillet Mom had left soaking.
I swung it. Not at her, but at her phone, still recording on the counter. It shattered, screen spiderwebbing.
“NO!” she shrieked, momentarily distracted.
It was all I needed. I grabbed the kitchen knife. Not to use, but to hold. “GET BACK!” I screamed, my voice raw.
She stared at the knife, then at me. Her “victim” was armed. Her “proof” was shattered. And in the hallway, we both heard the sound of a key in the lock.
Jade made her choice. She threw the remaining vials, not into the sink, but at the wall. They smashed, glass and precious insulin spraying everywhere. “If I can’t win, neither of us do!” she screamed, and bolted for the back door, just as Mrs. Bufort entered the front.
“Oh, dear Lord!” Mrs. Bufort gasped, taking in the scene: me, swaying, holding a knife, surrounded by broken glass and the overwhelming, sweet smell of insulin. The kitchen looked like a warzone.
“She… she destroyed it,” I whispered, sliding down the cabinet, the last of my strength gone. The knife clattered to the floor. “All of it…”
“It’s okay, child,” Mrs. Bufort said, already dialing 911. “Help is coming. I’ve got you.”
But as I looked at the floor, I saw it. The syringe. The one Jade had prepared with that tiny, life-clearing dose. It had rolled under the counter. During the chaos with Mrs. Bufort at the door, I’d grabbed it. Hidden it. I’d already injected it, right into my thigh, just as the sirens grew louder. Jade hadn’t destroyed everything. She’d left me just enough to survive.
THE AFTERMATH AND THE VERDICT
Paramedics found me on the kitchen floor, conscious but in severe DKA, surrounded by glass. They found Jade hiding in the neighbor’s shed, hysterical, claiming I had attacked her.
It didn’t work. The evidence was too overwhelming. Mrs. Bufort’s testimony. The shattered vials. The knife. The state of my body. And the final, beautiful nail in her coffin: her phone. The SIM card was destroyed, but the memory card was intact. The police recovered her videos. The ones of her taunting me. The one where she narrated my symptoms. The one where I, barely conscious, was forced to “confess.”
My parents arrived at the hospital to find me in the ICU and their eldest daughter in police custody. Their denial finally, violently, shattered. They saw the footage. They heard my testimony, and Mrs. Bufort’s. My aunt, the nurse, flew in and took no prisoners, dressing them down in the hospital hallway for their years of willful, catastrophic neglect.
It’s been nine days. This morning, I was released from the hospital. My dad installed a biometric safe in my room for my new, triple-stocked supply of insulin. My mom is a shell, quiet, finally listening, and enrolled in intensive family therapy.
And Jade? I heard she was crying in court this morning. They read the charges out loud: felony destruction of property (over $3,000 of insulin), reckless endangerment, false imprisonment, and assault. Her lawyer tried to argue “sibling rivalry.” The judge, after watching the video of me seizing while Jade monologued, set her bail at an amount my parents couldn’t (or wouldn’t) pay. She’s being held for full psychiatric evaluation.
The detective told me my family home is a crime scene. I’m staying with Mrs. Bufort for now. Her house is quiet, and she makes tea I actually like. I don’t know what happens next. I don’t know if my family will ever be “normal” again, or if I even want them to be. But I’m alive. And for the first time, everyone knows I’m not faking it.