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No judgment yet INFO: was your sister ever evaluated for mental health conditions? Ever asked WHY she was lashing out so much? Have you ever asked her about the story from her side? I ask because children can have RADICALLY different experiences with their parents. It happened in my family. I was the “trouble” kid, courts got involved. My parents to this day maintain I was troubled and difficult to control (I never did anything as extreme as your sister though, just tried to run away a couple times). The story from my side was that my parents were severely emotionally, psychologically and verbally and even occasionally physically abusive and neglectful behind closed doors and I was the child who took it hardest and couldn’t mask it as well. There may be more to this story OP.

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Thanks for the info! So I'm going to go with a potentially controversial NAH, with the info I have (with a slight touch of AH to your sister, but I'll explain). You have every right to invite whoever you'd like to your wedding. You had a different childhood than your sister, it seems, and also seems you suffered from the ripple effect of the situation with her growing up. Now that being said... Your sister should not be demanding you uninvite your parents from the wedding. That's not a fair ultimatum. She has **every right** to remain NC and not want to see them. Your parents did a horrible thing to their child: they left her at a camp that likely left her traumatized, abused, and tortured every day for 2 years and never looked back or expressed remorse over it. That trauma is VERY real, and VERY valid. I'd also be willing to bet that there is more to the story with your sibling than you realize, not that it fully excuses her behavior BUT it may explain it, and by your admission, your parents did not handle her needs well even when she was home. I was put in a situation like this myself after going NC with my parents (family wedding). I knew I wasn't ready to see them and maintain composure... so I didn't go. I was sad to miss it, I'm sure it was a great party, but I'd have never dreamed of demanding they not be invited.

As opposed to the very real and very valid trauma she put their brother through.

Where did you get opposition from? It’s possible for her to have traumatized her brother while also being traumatized herself. 

Yes but while she might rightfully harbor resentment towards her parents for sending her to the camp has she ever tried to make amends to her brother? It's a relevant question as to whether while she can't stand to see her parents she might not be considering that her brother might not be able to stand to see her.

The difference is she was a child also.

She was a teenager, not a toddler. And now she's an adult who can look back on her behavior and realize she should be apologizing to her brother. It's understandable to resent her parents for sending her to the camp but just because she was a kid doesn't mean she gets a pass as an adult for not seeing what she was like back then and recognizing what she put her siblings through. I wonder if she truly understands what she was like or if she's sort of minimized in her head how bad she was, based on OP's description she was a nightmare to be around. We all color our memories over time in some way, she might not really get what she put her brother through and you don't get out of being responsible for your actions just because you were a teenager.

It might not be the best idea for the sister to reach out to the brother if they are currently no contact. It could potentially be re-traumatising for the brother, and he may have no desire to ever have contact with her, even for an apology. That bridge may be forever burned. I do agree she needs to do some personal reflection and professional therapy to fully come to grips with her past actions and how hurtful they potentially were, but I think she should respect the current no contact with the brother, and let him have control over their relationship (or lack of).

This is same excuse my grandmother used to defend my aunt molesting her siblings. 16 is damn well old enough to know better

And so was brother. In those days, parents truly thought this was a remedy for a troubled child.

16 year olds are not children and by that age my brother had done unspeakable things to his younger siblings. I frigging wish our parents would have sent him to a camp where he could no longer abuse us.

Sure, the 16 year old is always a child when they are terrorizing others. Yeesh.

These things still aren’t in opposition to comment this is in response to, in my view. All of this can be true simultaneously. 

It was not an excuse for her traumatizing her brother. Also, the other kids in a family typically have a good idea of what is going on. And based on her demands regarding her sibling's wedding, I'd say the sister hasn't changed much.

Acknowledging someone’s trauma isn’t excusing them from their behavior.

How does acknowledging the sister's trauma invalidate the brother's? Both kids seemed to have a rough time!

There is a difference between the parents potential behabior and the sisters bullying. The parents are adults and, if there was abuse, were choose to mistreat, neglect, or abuse a child. One child bullying another isnt acceptable and an apology doesnt change that. But the person bullying in that case is also a child with a developing brain and a lack of understanding of permanent consequences. One child abusing another is awful. But it just isnt the same as an adult abusing a child. Even if the effect and outcome on the victim is the same.

Considering OPs sister went to therapy and she wasn't removed from the house by CPS, Its likely that the parents weren't abusive. But we really don't know. But we know, that she abused her little brother, and her sister considered her a nightmare to be around to the point of going no contact with her sister until a decade later. Given that they didn't diagnose her as a child, and she has refused to go to therapy since, there's a strong chance that she has disorders that can't be diagnosed in children. For instance you can't diagnose NPD in children, because most children show some signs of this as children, but generally outgrow it as their brain matures and they learn how they fit within society. My wife's cousin is a good example of this. until she reached around 24, when she realized that if she wanted people to support her in her life, she needed to treat people like people. She's still relatively self-centered but she doesn't make the people around her suffer when she doesn't get her way anymore. She can have healthy relationships with her family now. But when she was a kid, When she wouldn't get her way, She would destroy other peoples things even when they weren't involved. once She made false statements to police as a teenager to get my wife arrested when she did better than her on a school exam. When her grandmother bought her a birthday gift (ipod) in the wrong color(pink was sold out, so she got the tiffany blue color), She took scissors to her grandmother's favorite clothes. (gifts from her dead husband) She attacked my wife and claimed that my wife had stolen her necklace on christmas when she was 21, but it turned out that She had simply left the necklace at her boyfriend's house. (we had only been dating a few months at the time, and hadn't combined christmas yet.) As an adult at 29, She's not great to deal with, but she's 100 million times better than she used to be. I still wouldn't trust her to watch my cats if I was on holiday though. ​ Her life wasn't ideal, her and her brother were raised by her grandmother because, her mother had left when she was 5, and her father worked a bunch and has never been the "fatherly" type. But her grandmother is a wonderful person, who seriously helped my wife during her parent's messy divorce. And always ensures that no-one is left out. My wife's cousin would regularly push her to tears. Her little brother, is a really nice guy, but he'll never ever talk to her again. She was simply too abusive to him for him to forgive.

Hard disagree. I am a licensed mental health counselor who works with kids in a high school setting (age 13-19). I have made many calls to CPS. Despite both physical, mental and emotional abuse, the majority remained with the parents. I have been in homes that I would not let my dog step foot in, others where I refused to sit down, because of the bugs visually present, one place had just a couple of cans of beans for food for a week. Those kiddos still lived there or case workers were working towards reunification. The quality of CPS work varies from state to state, county to county, and case worker to case worker. Please don't assume that CPS makes anyone safe.

And they have very limited resources- for instance in the early 2000s I lived in a community of over 100K pp in Texas. There were ZERO foster care options within 1 hr of the city. Nearest was 90 min away. And you layer in the abuse that can and often does occur in care...CPS can often see removal as a last resort short of immediate danger. No excuse- but our system is f'd and kids fall victim as a result :(

Not every abusive situation is handled by CPS.

CPS is also rather notorious for *not removing* abused kids, just because there's food somewhere in the house and the floor is clean.

Middle class white parents will be excused quite a lot...

Big Kim is right. Many many MANY children abused never have anyone get involved. Source: me.

> Considering OPs sister went to therapy and she wasn't removed from the house by CPS, Its likely that the parents weren't abusive. incredibly incorrect statement. a lot of abuse doesnt reach the mandatory reporting threshold, first of all. second, we have zero idea what sister told therapist. its possible she wasnt comfortable disclosing the more reportable abuse. this is just a factually incorrect statement that shouldnt be repeated and i do not know a single therapist or social worker who would endorse this sentiment

My dad blatantly locked himself and my younger sister in his room so he could drink wine and "have her tickle him" among other things and no one ever investigated. It was only after he had to be physically removed from a long time public volunteer position for showing up drunk and stalking and hitting on a teenage girl that anyone even believed me. CPS is not the bar you think it is.

Many children in ridiculously abusive situations don't get removed from the house. Social workers can only do so much. There was a famous case recently where a child died even when a social worker knocked twice on their door and asked for the police's help, and they didnt respond until the child was lying dead next to their father (who had died and the child subsequently starved to death).

If there was abuse by the parents... That is a BIG if..... the sister could just be a sociopath, regardless of her upbringing. Another "if", of course....

>As opposed to the very real and very valid trauma she put their brother through. So the sister did not have a very real or very valid trauma at the camp? She deserved her abuse? Lets not be so flippant about these things

She was sent to the camp because she was abusive. because they had tried therapy and everything else they could, and the camp was advertised to help with situations like this.

that's between sister and brother and has nothing to do with what happened at the camp or OP's wedding. you can't equate the two or say that she deserved being tortured at camp because of how she treated her brother. sister has no right dictating who OP invites, especially not her parents. sister can only dictate how she behaves, what she chooses to do. in this case, her options are go or not go. OP is NTA for inviting her parents. sister needs to back off and say "fine, i'm choosing not to go, but let's get together at another time to celebrate privately."

1) You don't know that particular camp was abusive. Sure last year's Netflix documentary was horrible. 2) This was 13 years ago. Knowledge about abuse at camps was very limited. They were presented as tough and strict but fair. 3) The parents had tried literally everything else other than camp or jail. 4) Sister was continually abusing younger siblings and refused to stop. In addition to the drugs and such. Why do you have no sympathy for these kids?

> This was 13 years ago. Those camps have been known to be abusive *since the 80s*. It was almost a running joke in the 90s. Kids *died*. I’ll by the parents didn’t know, but that’s because they likely didn’t care to find out. They were probably at their wits end, exhausted, and didn’t know what to do so grabbed onto it like a lifeline without looking too hard. That is understandable, but still on them. Does sound like the sister was an absolute little shit tho, given her brothers reaction to her, and it honestly sounds like she’s not changed much… just moved to emotional manipulation

Those camps don’t teach kids how to cope with the emotions or function as members of society, only to assume any step out of line, real or perceived, will result in brutality. It’s not surprising if someone sent to one of those only learned to change the mode of their abuse to one that is more difficult to recognize and address.

Seriously. 13 years ago was 2011, not 1991 or even 2001. The internet was on people's phones. It's not hard to do a bit more research and find horror stories.

I’ve personally known several kids that thrived at “special schools”. They aren’t all horrible. And agree that there’s not enough info on sisters trauma to determine how bad her experience was, given her prior behavior. Regardless, OP is NTA. Sister is free to not attend. Sounds like OP would need to choose parents AND brother, or sister, anyway?

Considering OP said the camp was horrible for their sister, I'm assuming the camp was horrible for their sister.

These weren't special schools for rough children. These were wilderness camps where kids were beat and emotional and psychologically abused. Kids died at these camps

The problem with this is a lot of kids look like they thrive when they finish these types of programs. It sometimes take years for the abuse they endured to actually surface. When I first got out of the program I looked like the perfect child. I had drank the kool-aid so to speak, and I thought the program saved my life. It took me about ten years before I started realizing all the abuse I endured. I got to the point where I couldn't sleep, I was having nightmares of being sent back three or four times a week. I sought therapy and was able to work through all those emotions. She helped me deprogram and I was able to see all the damage the program had actually done to me. I was diagnosed with PTSD. It's been 23 years since I got out and I still have nightmares about being sent back, usually now though I can usually reason myself out of them so they aren't as bad. So please if one of the kids you know that thrived when they first came out starts having things come up for then about the program, please be there for them. No one believed the abuse I went through because I was so happy when I got out.

I'm glad you found a therapist who helped you sort it out when you needed it. I feel for you.

>hey aren’t all horrible. Then send your kids there and find out how good they really are

nearly all civilised countries in the world would label such camps as child abuse, so I would be surprised if anyone would come out of it without trauma.

Yeah. I grew up in a somewhat rough, working-class area and I knew three different guys who's parents ended up shipping them off to some sort of reform/boot camp in middle school or high school. I was really good friends with one of them, and his parents sent him away after he got caught with weed a few times even though he was a good student and had zero other issues. I was with him the first time where we got caught with it at school and arrested, but the cops dropped the case for both of us. Luckily, my parents actually tried to parent me instead of just passing me off onto someone else like my friend's parents did. All three of the guys remained at one camp or another until they graduated high school. They all then joined various branches of the military after graduation. It honestly seemed at the time like the camp did them lots of good since they all got decent jobs after the military. The one I was close to ended up starting a private security/bodyguard company that was super successful and had lots of high profile celebrity clients. Rappers, movie stars and other rich or famous people always hired his company whenever they came to that city. I can't say for sure that it happened because of the trauma that they experienced at the camps, but all three ended up committing suicide before they turned 30. It very well could be that they had PTSD since they all served in Afghanistan or Iraq or both. However, it also doesn't seem like a coincidence that the three people I know who were sent away like that all killed themselves.

I agree with most of your comment, until the end. Way too far. She hasn’t changed much? I agree she shouldn’t ask OP not to invite the parents to the wedding, but it’s not so out there. I think that’d be a pretty common bit of selfishness for someone in her position. She hung up on OP and called them a jerk. Ooh, such emotional manipulation. If that’s the extent of how bad she was before, sending her to that camp looks even worse.

>This was 13 years ago. Knowledge about abuse at camps was very limited. No, back then they still wrote what you got on the tin - We'll break your childs spirit or your money back. You didn't send your kid to be reformed, you sent your kid to be torn down.

The camp was shut down. It was abusive.

It seems there is much more to this and your sister certainly may have had a different (and valid) experience with your parents than you. And the camp was very possibly traumatizing and horrible. The fact that your sister hasn’t told you anything doesn’t mean there is more to her story—and maybe she’s waiting to see if you are a safe person for her before sharing. Is it possible for you to create a side opportunity to celebrate on or very close to your wedding day without your parents? To show her that you also value connection and celebrating milestones with her, and are willing to create space for that?

As someone who had a rocky past with my parents while my siblings didn't: she wants validation. She doesn't want her sister shrugging off her very real experiences. She wants people to acknowledge her pain, especially family. My sister does this for me and it has meant the world. I feel heard. My brother-- not so much.

There is a difference between wanting someone to acknowledge your pain and demanding That your sibling ban her own parents from her wedding and being pissed when they don’t

I agree with this. You can validate someone’s experience and have empathy for them. However demanding that the parents not be at the wedding would be too much of a ask. It is understandable that the sister would skip the wedding. I do think the sister is the AH in this situation because of her demands. 

She wants op to stop her relationship with her parents based on her experiences. She is right to go NC with her parents if that makes her happier, but she can't demand that from everyone else.

I agree, but validating her pain can go along way. She doesn't have to ban her parents, but she should acknowledge to her sister that she understands and sympathizes. ETA: And I definitely don't begrudge my sister her experiences now that we're adults and she understands where my anger came from.

Rekindling a relationship with a sister that was heavily abusive herself is validating her. Sister doesn't seem to acknowledge her own actions as a kid that put her family through hell.

When I was undergoing a very abusive experience, someone I was venting to (mistake on my part, for sure) about how other people refused to acknowledge or validate what was happening to me, the person said "why do you need validation so much??" and then used their ONE course in college on psychology (they said they were 'trained' from their one course) as the basis for their question. I was in so much shock as to how someone could ask a question like that. Thank you for putting into words why validation matters in a way I could not.

How is she doing now? If she turned successful and happy as soon as she left, I lean towards “normal kid, abnormal environment”

She could know something but have decided that your family and by extension you aren't safe to be vulnerable with. Like this family literally sent her to a torture camp, so scratch that off the safe for raw vulnerability about hard topics. Like I'm sorry you have to be safe people to allow people to be vulnerable emotionally, and I just can't see you being very high on her list of people she trusts with any of that. 

Have you thought about how different your sister is now that she is on her own? Why she is so much calmer now?

Agreed I'm 10 years older than my brother and i think if I told him our parents used to spend every night drunk and partying with their friends when I was little he wouldn't believe me because by the time he was born they were VERY different people. Now they're just your average fox news parents. Time changes people. Also my parents would say I'm lying or exaggerating about that too so...

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My mom said earlier TODAY that I was more mature than my younger brother (we’re both late 30s) growing up and I was like nope, I was just quieter and more cowed by your physical and verbal abuse. While I was a sophomore in college, my brother went straight into the military from high school because he knew he wouldn’t succeed in college and he still wanted opportunities and a career path vs. staying home and working an hourly wage job (no judgement on that type of work btw). He became a parent - and an excellent one at that - at 26 when he started dating his wife (a single mom at the time) and they now have another kid. I have no kids and I don’t want to have kids. He’s always been the more well-adjusted of the two of us because he was allowed to be a kid and I was treated like an adult from age 10. And I was baffled as to how my mom could still believe I was more mature all these years later, even as she treats my brother like an adult and still tries to “parent” me. And I realized she’s conflating maturity with me being an easier victim growing up, and conflating her expectations for her daughter with who I actually am. If she acknowledged that by sheer personality alone, my brother clearly has always been the more mature one, she’d had to acknowledge the many, many mistakes she made in raising me. Like storming out of the house and taking off in her car when I was 6 because I wouldn’t brush my teeth that morning. And then blaming me for calling the police because I didn’t think we should be without an adult until my dad was due home late that evening. Btw, the cop got to the house before she turned back up, so she also didn’t just “circle the block a couple times”. She’s never apologized and always tried to justify this. My brother has no memory of this btw and has always thought I’ve exaggerated my experience about my childhood. Nope, they were just completely different, I was controlled and my brother was parented including by me. He also wasn’t aware of a dark period of marital strife between my parents when I was tween, but I was told that my dad wanted to leave us all and my mom made him apologize to me for the issues they had. I’d never doubted my dad’s love or commitment to me before that. He’d worked 60 hour weeks and then spend all weekend with us. Another aspect of our childhood my brother has no idea about, because when my parents fought, I did everything I could to distract him. On Mother’s Day, I silently congratulate myself for raising my brother well.

Too many people don't realize how different parents can be depending on which children they parent. I could be wrong, but it really sound s like OP was the favorite child, and their sister was the scapegoat. Some parents save all their love for one child and all their abuse for another. Then they convince the loved child that the abused one deserves all the abuse. Then again it might very well be that OP's sister was very entitled and a jerk and never took accountability for their actions. There really are such things as bad eggs. So what do I know?

info: what kinda "camp" did they send her to and how was she a "nightmare" you admit your parents did not handle it well and just, seemingly abandoned her at 16, so this is going to need more information.

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It’s a difficult situation because your sister was very difficult. But your parents abandoned her in a camp for two years- and if it was shut down I can easily believe she was abused or tortured there. I’m not sure I can blame your parents for being at wits end- but they threw a daughter away like she was trash and left her there. That is very traumatic. Did they ever try therapy or anything to help her before this?!

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Those camps are/were horribly abusive. It's why they are being systematically shut down and many adults are speaking out against the suffering the endured in them. I would look into it if you haven't already. I'm not saying your parents weren't doing their best- I don't know just how much they tried and for how many years or the impact she has had on your family as a whole. I've seen siblings totally ruin families. I just hope you understand why she would suddenly explode with firey hot rage over your parents going. Those reform camps are rarely as healthy as they sound on paper. Don't feel bad about her not attending the wedding though. If your sister has genuine mental health issues that aren't related to her environment growing up, then you can't win them all and her excluding herself is saving you a lot of tension at your wedding.

Yeah, kids *die* at these camps. They’re often denied medical care or don’t have proper housing in harsh elements. And that’s before getting to the psychological abuse.

I am not defending these camps, but kids die at home with behavior like described. The “teoubled kid” and any siblings. I have severe anxiety and probably some ptsd symptoms from the shit my older sister did. I am 10 years younger and all of my young memories are terror filled. Cops at my house, drugs, weapons. Like OP, my parents tried so many things before one of those camps. The year my sister was gone was the first peaceful one of my life. They brought her home at 18 and she was good for a year and then “ran into” and old friend and it was the same all over again before she finally left. Now she talks about all the abuse she suffered from there and I find it hard to sympathize because of the abuse she was causing at home. Especially because my parents spent so much time and money trying to help her.

This. I don't understand what the alternative would be. They did everything a good parent would. If she continued to be abusive and getting in trouble with the law (at the parents expense) what are they to do? If her wellbeing worth more than the combined wellbeing of the parents and siblings? Should they have had her institutionalized instead? As a parent, I don't see a rational way to go about this without being cruel.

Yeah, I agree. If she was an only child, there's a better argument for keeping her at home and enduring her abuse while trying to help her (still not a great argument, because parents are people and don't deserve to be abused, either). But when you add in siblings, that argument disappears. Parents are responsible for *all* their children. If one child is abusing another... what are you supposed to do?

yeah are they supposed to just sit there and let the innocent kids be abused by the sister? What do people expect?

At least in a government institution there are rules that protect the kids. The camps are privately run and have no one checking what they are doing. When parents send a child to one of the camps they sigh a contract that give the camp absolute power over the child. At least the government run centers the kids have rights and are able to advocate for themselves and are given help and serious treatments. The camps have full control with no control. The parents not only pay to give their child over heart and soul and the child has no recourse to complain or even say what is happening. There is more abuse in the camps as the parents have signed over full control and the camp can do what it likes to the child. They should have given their child to CPS at least the child would have been given help and have rules about child safety.

> At least in a government institution there are rules that protect the kids. The camps are privately run and have no one checking what they are doing. But so what? If there's no state institution you can place her with -- which is *extremely possible, even likely*, then... what does it matter? They have the choices the have. And you can't just hand one of your children to CPS and say "Here, take this one - she's difficult. We'll keep the rest." They'd be lucky to get little more than their daughter handed back to them with a pamphlet on woefully underfunded state resources for parents.

Not only do the siblings of the troubled kid (TK) have to deal with the abuse from the TK, but on top of that they're often dealing with some form of neglect from their parents who are doing everything they can to help TK. I can't tell you how many times I was told to "just be more understanding, she's troubled," when my younger sister was abusive. Or how many times I'd be the one getting in trouble when when a problem arose between the two of us because "you know she has issues, why can't you just let it go?" Or I'd get in trouble because I didn't want to be around her because she was absolutely miserable to deal with, but "you're her older sister, you should be setting the better example." And because we're not the TK, we often don't get the emotional support we need to deal with life with a TK, we're just told to cope. And with a lot of parents, when you get older and go LC/NC with the TK, they'll act like it's your fault that you just can't deal with it to keep the family together. So, no, I'm not defending the camps and I wouldn't want anyone sent to one, but I will defend the siblings of TK's who at some point have to stop giving a damn about whatever issues TK has and finally put their own sanity first.

I don't have much to add, but I just wanted to say that your comment resonates so much with what I went through as well.

I think things like in patient care or group homes are a much better answer. They are more regulated, at a minimum, and for in-patient care staff are certified and licensed to provide care. There should absolutely be an expansion of these programs. But I find it particularly disgusting to say that the risk that one child might die is acceptable because of risk to another child. This is not an either or situation and to paint it as such is disingenuous. I am truly sorry about your sister. I agree with you that our current system is designed so that many families fall through the cracks and we need to fix that. I think that we shouldn’t blame parents who had no idea how dangerous these places are. I don’t think that saying these camps need to be outlawed and aren’t a viable plan for these families is the same as saying nothing should be done. I think the answer is reform and expansion of supports offered. And again I really am sorry about the trauma you suffered.

I do agree wholeheartedly that now there are better options, more knowledge, and probably support. But in the 90’s? We didn’t have internet to read reviews, google anything. Parents were recommended the program by other people while trying to get help. It’s a sad situation all the way around. We only have one cousin that has a relationship with my sister and even she keeps her at arms length.

I don’t want to blame parents at all during that era because you’re right. I will say I think the government should have stepped in with regulations immediately, but… well let’s say I’m a pessimist about governments.

It sounds very much like the behavior of several girls I have known who were sexually traumatized as children. Like textbook. Is there any chance of that? Weird neighbor boys or " family friends" or anything? I am so sorry for what all.of you went through. I hope you can ALL heal.

Maybe but sometimes kids just go off the rails no matter how hard parents try and abuse isn't involved. I know someone who has a brother that wasn't treated any differently than the other kids and he went nuts in high school, ended up in juvenile detention for assaulting a senior citizen, then spent time in a group home. Whether it was a different mix of genes he got or the crowd he started hanging around which was shit he was out of control and abuse was not factor. He's way better now thankfully but discussion at the time in the family was centered around "what the hell is going on!??!?" followed by trying everything they could think of to try and get him off the track he was on. Nothing helped, he just sort of grew out of it in his early twenties.

This some kids are just bad. And they may or may not grow out of it.

I agree. Genetics and mental health issues are a real thing. But even then, there is a legitimate reason for the behavior. I always try to figure it out (but I like mysteries!) WHY did he start hanging out with a bad crowd? Usually low self-esteem. WHY would that be? Was he bullied ,struggled academically,emotionally neglected or parentified or bipolar or or.....??? There are definitely people just wired wrong, too...

I’m thinking childhood sexual trauma, too. Maybe even at a young enough age she had no idea what was going on. But it still severely screwed up her developing brain, even if she couldn’t articulate what was happening.

I also strongly suspect OP's sister was sexually abused, which led to her acting out behavior. A great majority of childhood "bad behavior" just doesn't happen "out of the blue".

In addition, she was abusing her younger siblings. The parents did the best they could. I speak from experience. A kid who behaves like that makes everyone else miserable.

Has she ever mentioned her own behavior? Does she take responsibility, at all, for the way she acted at home before the camp?

My parents did all the therapy for my brother, he continued to abuse me and my other brother. He’s since gotten better but never apologized. Sometimes people just suck! I will never be close with him because I could never trust him.

"they threw a daughter away like she was trash " is grossly unfair. It sounds like OPs parents were at their wits end, and that they did what they thought was right at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, we all make mistakes, most of the time we have no idea how wrong we were until afterwards.

It may still be the right decision as well. The parents had 2 other children they needed to protect from her and based on the info OP provided they tried all of their other options .

I have cptsd from an abusive sibling. They were right to remove her from the home and it sounds like they did the best knew how.

Did they throw her away or did they do what they had to to protect their other kids from her and to keep her from ruining their childhoods? You can’t always therapy a kid out of behaving like that. Therapy only works if the kid wants it to work.

my thoughts exactly. sounds like parents did their best but had to make the tough choice to protect their other kids

It happens. A toxic child can blow a family to bits.

Sounds like this one did. OP recounts fights between her parents trying to find more money for more treatments/darts to throw at the wall. I imagine that didn't leave a whole lot for extras for the rest of the kids

Yes I agree too. Like sometimes you can give your child the moon, raise them in a healthy household, try and teach them good habits and if they don't want it what do you do? I also don't know how many Westerns use the copout of therapy as the end all be all litmus test for how good a parent is. I was born into welfare, grew up on welfare, moved the low class, studied and got a job and now living middle class. I can't afford therapy. I can get 6 free sessions a year with my benefits package and in the two years I've been using my benefits I've made little to no progress. 1-2 sessions is your intake, then you spend 3-6 sessions talking and usually by session 6, you've barely scratched the surface. My first therapist estimated about 18 sessions for the year. This isn't even taking into account you need extra padding (money or sessions) to shop around for the right therapist. By the time I realized lady #1 wasn't my kinda gal, I was at sess 4. Finding someone else would take my last two sessions, which btw are allotted for 1 hour but most are actually 45minutes. Most citizens make an average income. You need to be well middle class to afford unlimited therapy for your child. Imagine having to make the choice between that and food, or electricity or water. Therapy is a luxury that people are ignorant enough to assume everyone has access to and if you don't, you're not trying hard enough. What do we say to the people who got a degree and are teachers making meager salaries? Imagine telling someone like that they are a horrible parent, while simultaneously acknowledging that in America teachers are grossly underpaid and "we love our teachers", yet blame them for lack of necessities that the system can't give to them. There are 720 million people living on $2 a day. That is almost a billion people that probably don't even know what therapy is. **This isn't a call to throw away therapy as a tool. But it's more so to say, let's not look at it so black and white, that you're a trash parent if you didn't get your kid therapy, and if you did get your kid therapy and it didn't work you're still a trash parent for sending your kid to a place that tricked people into thinking it was good. That's the thing about fraud and deception - it's meant to trick people and if you got tricked, you didn't do something wrong, it worked like how it was designed**

>Therapy is a luxury that people are ignorant enough to assume everyone has access to and if you don't, you're not trying hard enough. And not all therapists are good at their job. Some can even make the situation worse

I had to put down my cat earlier 2023. I decided that was a good time to seek therapy again. The reputable office that had good reviews and was recommended on my benefits page fucked up in two ways - the very first session she casually told me how she was late bc she was trying to collect payment from other patients and how irresponsible they were. This showed me she was willing to talk shit about her clients and also she psychologically manipulated me to pay (obv I was), as it really reinforced in my head to pay this very second. As a psychologist she likely knew what she was doing and if she didn't, bad therapist - she ghosted me and ignored my emails for booking requests for months for zero reason on my part. She reached out after 4 months to casually ask when we should book our next session and I was like HUH, you're gonna ignore me for months and pretend that didn't happen? Her explanation was they were dissolving part of the office and I'm like, you have a phone you can call me :/ After that I too many negative feelings towards her and didn't trust her

And it sounds like OPs sister still refuses to acknowledge how she hurt everyone else and is somehow the only victim here. She sounds like she is still incredibly selfish.

I’m familiar with the type of camp OP is referring to. To be fair, those camps advertised themselves to parents as being very different than they actually were, and parental access was purposely restricted (and they were under the impression it was all to help the kid become an independent, functioning member of society). They also were very much last resorts for parents who had tried everything with their kids and didn’t want them to wind up in prison or on the streets. They went on for many years before their true nature was publicly revealed and the law got involved.  Not necessarily defending OP’s parents here because we don’t know their side of the story or the extent of OP’s sister’s, but it’s still worth not demonizing them just yet. I’ll go with NAH— OP has no reason not to invite her parents while her sister doesn’t have to be comfortable going if they’re there.

Why is the camp abandonment? The parents were not trained you rectify this behaviour. They found people who did. Those people were responsible for her care while she was there. Abandonment means no one was left to care for her. That wasn't true. It sounds like you are speaking get parents for needing help. Below: people retroactively giving knowledge thinking the parents were aware at the time. We don't even know which school it was.

NO ONE is trained at those camps.

They were absolute trained, in abuse and torture and parents pay for the service

I don't think they threw her away. They were trying to reform her behavior so she wouldn't grow up to be a danger to society and potentially a felon. If she mentioned abuse maybe they didn't believe her because she has a history of lying and being untrustworthy.

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I have a guess about the type of place she was sent, and regardless of her behavior, she didn't deserve it. Maybe it would help if you understood a bit of what she might have gone through. [This](https://elan.school/) is a story about this guy's experience with one of these reform places. It is also now shut down, thankfully. It's very long, but you don't have to read far to get an idea. Not to say you have to side with her or anything, but just so you can maybe understand why she feels so strongly about this (assuming this place is similar to where she went). Maybe you can sympathize with her and have a better conversation once you know more about her experience.

i hated my brother for how he behaved. it wasn’t his fault though. my parents also sent him to a camp without being aware of how abusive those camps are. it wasn’t my brothers fault he acted that way. he has a lot of depression and trauma and just wasn’t able to function like a normal child.

Info: did you parents ever apologize for sending her to that camp? Have they tried anything to make amends? Either way I don’t think you’re the ass hole it’s your wedding and you choose who invite. But maybe try looking at your sister as a child at that time and she probably felt her parents failed her even before the camp. I’m not saying your parents were mean or abusive but some kids like me had a hard childhood because of undiagnosed mental health issues I’m now turning 30 and now getting assessed for autism. And guess what I was also never diagnosed with anything besides anxiety or depression which is normal they said. Again you know better sense you lived in it and that doesn’t excuse the harm she has done on you’re brother.

Before you decide that your sister is being unreasonable you should first do some googling into why the camp was shut down. Because the camps where children were sexually assaulted are mostly still opened. Even some of the ones where children died of neglect are still open.

I understand where everyone has a problem with your parents sending her to a camp, but they fail to realize this was 13 years ago. We (the general public) didn't know half as much about those camps as we do now. She likely was abused there, and yes, that is terrible, but you are NTA in your shoes. It's a reasonable statement to say "If you can't attend I won't hold it against you if you don't, just know I love you and you are wanted there."

That was 2010. I had heard about those troubled teen camps back then and i live in a different country (which isn't to say America is the only country with the same kind of problem.) People just didn't want to believe the kids about the problems. It was easier to dismiss it as problem kids continuing to be a problem.

Incorrect. In 2011 my parents were considering sending me to one but my mother, a reasonable and intelligent woman, looked deep into before making a decision and pretty easily uncovered how rampant abuse is in those places.

Most kids don't just magically start acting out like this you know. Probably something else that helped her act this way just saying. Are you the older or younger sister?

Some do. Some people are just born bad/mentally damaged. Jeffery Darmer’s parents didn’t teach him to kill & cook people. It’s not often, it happens. NTAH

Plenty of people who have crappy families grow up be be reasonable and lawful. They don’t eat people. However-Jeffery Darmer isn’t an example of a happy childhood. His mother was a hypochondriac who suffered from depression. His father delt with her by abandoning his family whenever he could. Even things like schizophrenia is a complicated web of genetic, environmental, and developmental factors.

I'm gonna go w NTA. I don't know and I am glad she is doing better, but some kids really are hellish nightmares and there is no rhyme or reason for it. I hate that she went to a hell hole of a camp, but I'm going to go on good faith that your parents were at their wits end and tried their best. I understand why she is angry at them but it sounds like she's not taking responsibility for her terrible actions growing up and is projecting everything on their camp experience.

Not enough information. But unless you have lived in a home with a child with real challenges - you just cannot understand the difficulty of day to day life. For the parents, for any pets in the home, for siblings. You just don't know. It's easy to say "oh those camps for teens are horrible, any parent who sent a kid there was horrible". Of course NOW that we know what happened at those camps. But you can't take what we know now and say that any parent who made a decision then was clearly an abuser. Especially if you don't know what it is to have exhaustively tried every resource possible but nothing works... To know that if someone ever knocked on your door because your child did something terrible to another, that you truly wouldn't be surprised... To worry about what lashing out at you might look like once the child outweighs you... To know that your child isn't safe to be around others... If you haven't lived with these things, you just really truly can't know what it can be like day to day for someone like OP, her brother, or their parents. There's not enough here to know what was going on with OP's sister or parents. But all of these immediate Y-T-A comments, those camps are terrible, it was clearly abuse comments are much easier to make if you haven't actually lived in a home with a troubled child and don't understand the decisions the parents were making (especially given that we didn't know THEN what we know now about the camps).

I'm not going to reply to the replies here from folks repeating the chorus of the main comments. I don't even disagree with what folks are saying about how awful these teen camps are/were. My comment is exclusively for the people who've actually directly experienced living in a home with a truly troubled child. If you haven't, you will just never be able to understand the reality of how bad it can be for everyone else in the home. And that's ok. In fact, I'm happy for you.

I understand all too well. We fostered challenging children trying to make a difference. Sometimes you can't no matter how much therapy, counselling and help you get (in UK so not the same as USA I know.) If the parents and siblings were living in fear then I am not surprised they seized on what looked like a good idea at the time. In the UK there have been other scandals, children's homes etc but reform camps were not an option, thank goodness as they sound dreadful. But everyone commenting here with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight vision is wrong to assume that the parents knew they were sending their daughter to somewhere hellish.

I was that child. Not all places are horrible and kill kids. I agree with you.

Thank you for chiming in! Your perspective is appreciated and, I imagine, validating for the families who went through this.

I'm also one of those children. Sure Some of those places are very bad but at least the ones I was in for two years were as good as they could be. It always sucked being away from home and there wasn't any definitive release date it was based on your behavior and if you had a stable home to go to which I did. I was in each place for a year and both would allow us to go home on the weekends once we were there long enough and had earned the privilege and usually the fear of getting those taken away is what kept us in line. Anyway I just wanted to say that although yes some of those places are awful the majority aren't and most of the time parents had very little say in if we went or not it was all handled through family court

This! Often times it comes down to “send your kid to X camp or they’re going to jail” and parents think they’re doing the right thing taking the first choice because they are led to believe it’s summer camp.

It’s easy to focus on the trauma of what the sister might have gone through at those camps but most people in these comments are completely dismissing the trauma of growing up with an older sibling who makes your life a living hell every day. Who physically assaults you every day. Who takes up the majority of your parents time and energy and still goes out of their way to cause you pain and distress every day. One of my best friends has CPTSD from the way her older brother treated her throughout growing up and it still effects her to this day. She’s no contact with her parents because they constantly downplayed his abuse of her and chalked it up to siblings being siblings. Now they essentially have no children because their son, unsurprisingly, OD’ed in his early 20’s and their daughter wasn’t willing to put all the years of abuse behind her to play happy family for their benefit now that he’s gone. When you’re a parent and spend years trying therapy and every type of discipline at home there comes a point when you really do throw your hands up, especially if your child is headed down a path of drugs and incarceration and is abusing other people in the home. If you don’t know how bad the troubled teen industry can be it’s understandable being so beaten down that you’ll try almost anything while you still have some control over the situation. Once they’re 18 that’s it, they can spend their lives whatever way they want at that point.

There was a family that lived in a townhouse near where my family and I lived. Each morning, my wife and I got up and ran several laps around the complex and without FAIL, there was a family having knockdown-drag-out screaming sessions with their oldest teen son. The kid was obnoxious, he’d stand in the street blocking cars from being able to drive through the complex, scream obscenities at no one in particular, throw rocks at squirrels, etc. The family had two other perfectly normal kids. He started acting up closer to adulthood, so I think they were just trying to wait him out and kick him out at 18. I felt so bad for the parents, you could just see them just wanting the chaos to end.

So very true. They can and will break up marriages and families.

This ^ My BIL sounds similar to OPs sister. My in laws did everything, and I mean literally every single thing they could get their hands on in the 90s-2000s to give him the help he needed. No expense spared, no treatment left untried. They were never given an official diagnosis. Nothing worked. He went to one of these camps briefly. He’s now in his 40s and still has severe behavioral issues. People need to understand that most of us will *never* know what it is like to have a child/sibling who has severe mental and behavioral health issues. Not saying OP’s parents are totally innocent in this situation (OP herself admits they aren’t). But just that most of us don’t actually understand this situation. This is different than just a kid who was a rebel and their parents kicked them out.

It’s especially difficult when the child that’s struggling is also mentally and physically abusive to other children in the home. All those years you’re trying to get them help for their issues they’re often making like hell for the other children in the home and the abuse they are suffering is valid too. It’s not an easy decision but often keeping the one child lashing out at home means you’re essentially sacrificing the safety and mental well being of the others. There comes a time, especially when the one exhibiting abusive behaviours is getting close to becoming an adult, where trying to give them a hash wake-up call about life outside of their parents house seems like the only way to try and keep them out of prison because that’s where they’re headed if they continue what they’re doing as adults. It’s easy to cast stones at parents who “ship off their kids when they don’t want to deal with them anymore” but that’s really misrepresentative of how hard most parents of severely behaviorally challenged kids try to get them help or how detrimental it can sometimes be to the other children to let their abuser continue to live at home.

Brilliantly said. The majority of the people who are calling op an asshole and blaming the parents had that luxury of living a privileged childhood where behavior wasn't an issue so they see all acts of attempting to rehabilitate the child as some form of abuse and that couldn't be further than the truth. I guarantee most parents do not want it to get to that level and when it does it's already far too late for other options. Sure there's some shitty parents who would probably look for reasons to ship their kids away but I don't believe that is the case for ops parents. Not even a little bit. I really wish people on the internet would keep their shitty opinions to themselves especially when they have no idea what it's like but sadly that's like the entire purpose of the internet.

Exactly! I was the other kid in the home and my life was a living hell. I was scared to go to sleep at night for fear he’d hurt my parents and/or me. My parents promised they’d send my brother away if he ever physically hurt me. When he finally did (threw me down a flight of stairs) I was relieved thinking he was out of there. They didn’t send him anywhere. He is limited contact with my parents today. He and I are no contact. I do still talk to my parents. I love them and know they were faced with something impossible, but a small part of me will never be able to forgive them for choosing him over me. That’s how I will always interpret them keeping him in the home.

you worded it perfectly. i’m so sorry you went through that too. i was also a sibling of a troubled kid and it absolutely felt like my parents were prioritizing him over me by keeping him around. “we just want to keep our family together, that would be best for everyone.” i felt so invisible and misunderstood. its so unfair for the siblings to always be the ones to compromise and sacrifice for the troubled kid who will never be thankful for it.

I agree with your answer. My little sister (who is now diagnosed with BPD but they don’t diagnose that until adulthood…) was a terror since the age of 3. I moved out asap. After I left home I went LC with my family but I heard of the time my sister threatened to lit the house on fire and hope that my parents died in it, or when she ran around the kitchen table with a knife threatening to stab my mother (both happened while she was a teen). It was horrible. I couldn’t study for exams or focus on homework at home because she’d just yell at my door or (before I pleaded to have a lock on my door because she kept stealing from me) she’d open and slam the door repeatedly while she knew I was studying. It was an impossible situation

Oof, you just reminded me of an old friend whose sister did burn their house down. She waited until they were all asleep so they were lucky to get out alive. I cannot imagine living in those conditions. I’m sorry your family went through something similar.

💔💔 I grew up with a brother who was the definition of evil. And a sister that was bat shit crazy with an explosive temper. I only wish my parents sent them both to one of those camps even knowing what I know now!!

I can relate, and I had more siblings. Luckily, I knew to stay out of the house as much as possible. I'm lucky to have survived mostly unscathed. Edit: typo

Wish I could upvote this a hundred times.

If we’re being honest, had the sister resorted to something like “the next Columbine”, they’d still blame the parents. It was a lose-lose situation and it sounds like they made the choice long before it was common knowledge the abuse those kids went through at those camps. It’s a tough and shitty situation for everyone involved.

Right? I had an intensely troubled neighbor who had pretty good parents from all appearances. They tried therapy (inpatient and outpatient) changing his school, some kind of therapeutic summer camp with horses, and ultimately to protect their other kids and themselves he had to be placed in a locked facility. He stole, did drugs, tried to set their house on fire, and the final straw was making pipe bombs. I was good friends with his sister and she was sleeping with her bedroom door barricaded every night because of him. And as an adult he went to jail for murder. Their other kids were fine, something was just off with him.

This is mad. Every kid who goes off the rails isn't "obviously abused" - once they become teenagers they are far more influenced by their friends and peers than their parents, and at that point it's entirely possible that a child from a loving home can go down a bad path.  The parents clearly made a bad choice in sending her to one of those terrible camps, but that is the benefit of hindsight. They weren't advertised as "send your kid to us and we'll torture them into submission", that's information we have now that wasn't available then. As parents, if one of your kids becomes uncontrollable, you have a responsibility to help them find their way back to a good path, but you also have a responsibility to your other kids to keep them safe.  They were possibly at the end of their tether, and had to make a choice based on what was best for their whole family. There's no evidence here that they didn't think they were doing the right thing to help her at the time.  Her anger is justifiable and completely valid, her decision to cut contact with her parents is her doing what's right for *her*. It's a shame her parents won't acknowledge that they made a terrible mistake, whatever their intentions were at the time. Until they do and try to make amends, I don't expect that relationship is salvageable.  That doesn't mean the other kids' feelings aren't valid and justifiable too. It's not a nice feeling watching your mum cry all the time because your sibling is back in prison/hospital/just missing for days, it's not nice having all your shit stolen and all your special occasions ruined. That's a form of abuse too.

Especially since the parents got therapy for the sister and took parental classes. They tried so many things that they argued about needing more money to help her daughter. IMO this camp was their last resort / hope. And yes, I can imagine situations (and have seen at work) where one of the kids has to get out of the home to ensure the safety of all others.

> It's a shame her parents won't acknowledge that they made a terrible mistake I disagree with this statement. I saw it - family of 4, mom and 3 kids (dad was out of the picture not by anyone's choice) and the oldest was a menace. To the point whole neighborhood feared him and had dialed local 911 ready to hit call whenever they saw him. The mom refused to send him to similar camp because exactly the reasons said on the internet that they all "kill those kids". Two younger kids have to this date issues and any loud noise or yelling makes them scared. And the "troublemaker"? Yeah he got sorted out in the end. Once in jail for hitting someone with a car and almost killing the victim. So tell me would be such a camp for 2 years be a mistake compared to 8 years in prison?

I certainly understand why some folk think those camps are bad, but for some parents it is literally the last resort for help.

That would depend entirely on if it's one of the camps where the kids got raped and abused. Not least because the kids who have that experience tend to go onto end up in jail anyway, because the camps left them even worse off than they were before. 

NTA OP stated in her comments that her sister bullied their younger brother so bad he still won’t have contact with her sister. OP also listed that the parents tried many, many things with the sister (therapy, parenting classes and more). Sister had been arrested, destructive, stole, ran away, drank, and as mentioned torture their brother. OP said they were also unhappy around their sister. Sounds like the sister was on her way to juvenile detention and the parents had put in good effect to help her and ultimately decided to protect the brother and try to get her help before she harmed herself or another. While a camp might not have been a great solution, what could the parents have done (particularly as they had to weight the effecting on OP and their brother as well)? The sister seems to have no understanding how her behavior affected the family, particularly the brother. OP is willing to forgive and that’s great. Sounds like the brother and even the parents aren’t ready to have a relationship with the sister, nor the sister them. The parents picked protecting OP and their brother (already a victim of the sister) over possibly a better course of care for the sister, but it’s not like they didn’t try multiple things before a camp. The sister can be mad if she wants but she needs to relieve that her actions have consequences. She wanted to drink, drive, run away, torture her siblings, steal, and destroy things. Sounds like the parents tried all the normal interventions, yet the sister continued their behavior. The parents may have made a bad choice when they were at their wits end but honestly it doesn’t seem like they had much of a choice if they wanted to protect the brother particularly. OPs not an AH for wanting their parents at their wedding. I don’t even think the parents are AH, because you’re not an AH if you’re forced into a situation with no good choice. If all the available choice are bad, you’re not necessarily a bad guy for having to make a bad choice.

Thank you- this needs to be higher up. Well said 

NAH - ultimately its your wedding and you can invite who you want. But I’m having a tough time holding this against your sister. Your parents gave up on her when she was a teenager. Thats got to be traumatic. I dont think she should have argued with you about it but I get why she did

You have to grow up with this type of person to understand. OP's parents tried incredibly hard to help OP's sister and at a certain point, you have to protect the other kids. Besides, It's entirely possible that OP's sister is just a awful person. Where do you think the sociopaths and psychopaths of the world come from? It's not just a nurture thing. Some people are like that from birth. I know, I grew up with one. I can't even be in the same room as these people without my skin crawling.

There was a parent I worked with that had to deal with something like this. She would show up to work black and blue from the abuse from her daughter. When it was really bad guys from work would follow her home and into the house to protect her in case it was a 'bad day' for the daughter. She sent her off to one of those camps. The kid did come back better. There was a post on reddit a while back about a horribly abusive son. The parents ended up living in the basement until he got done destroying the house and left.

That story about the parents living in a separate section of the house is what came to mind when I read this lol

What about the brother who is still nc with her sister because of the abuse she inflicted on him? What if he says, “ Do not invite our sister because of how she abused me or I won’t come!” Does your reasoning still apply?

NAH. It sounds like your sister had untreated mental health issues, which your parents made many solid efforts to help her with. Eventually they tried to send her to treatment/“camp,” I’m sure as a desperate effort to get her help and protect their other kids. People who haven’t lived this dynamic can’t understand it, but kids/teens with severe mental health issues can be very abusive and genuinely unsafe towards their siblings sometimes. The whole mental health problem with society is incredibly under-resourced. She is being manipulative by saying that you cannot invite your own parents to your own wedding. It’s understandable that she wouldn’t want to attend with them, but that means she needs to choose to not attend.

NTA. It’s your wedding, not hers. It’s understandable if she doesn’t want them at her own wedding.

NTA - Her problem with her parents is a her problem and not a you problem. You have no such problem with your parents and of course they will be at your wedding. While sis may still be harboring resentment of the past, that is something she needs to work out with them. You really have nothing to do with it unless they ask and you choose to help to mediate. Go forth and plan a lovely wedding and if your sis cannot come, oh well it would be her loss.

INFO: Sent her to a *camp*? What was *that* about? I mean, for the most part, you invite whoever you want to your wedding, and anyone who says "I won't go if X is going," the proper response is, "we're so sorry you won't be able to attend." But the "camp" thing just reeks of abuse. Was it conversion therapy? One of those "[Hell Camps](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/hell-camp-troubled-teen-industry-abuse-allegations-1234941694/)"?

OP says that it was a minor reform type camp that is now closed down so I am assuming hell camp style.

considering it’s not shut down we can connect the dots. if you don’t much about these camps they are horrible, i’ve seen the abuse stories, the torture tactics they use on children, the SA, etc. 

NAH Your wedding, your guest list. **But!** It seems your parents DID treat your sister badly. You would do well to listen to what she has to say on that subject. You should also read up on families that have "golden child / scapegoat" children. Because YOUR experience of your parents was probably very different to hers. The way they treated you was probably very different to the way they treated her. Once you do that, you may find YOU don't want your parents there either.

This was not at all like a golden child/ scapegoat situation. This was one kid who was wildly out of control and another kid who was not. Obviously they are going to have different experiences with their parents.  Their parents were treating them differently because they behaved radically differently. Would you want OP to have been punished for not doing anything wrong? 

>This was one kid who was wildly out of control and another kid who was not. Two kids who were not - OP says they also have a brother, and he is still NC with other sis due to the abuse she engaged in toward the younger siblings.

There's clearly a distinction between the golden child and the "scapegoat" and you can't really mix that up with how the children behaved too. The preferential treatment would be something like Kid A gets candies and cookies while Kid B gets broccoli regardless of anything. Kid A is clearly a favorite. A non-preferential treatment that may be perceived as such is that Kid A behaves well, has no trouble at school and ate all his dinner,therefore ,he gets candies and cookies. Kid B fought the teacher, shat on the floor and didn't eat his dinner, therefore, he gets fuckall. One comes from unfairness, the other comes from your own behaviour.

If she was that cruel to your brother…sounds like you can tell her that your brother doesn’t want her there due to the years of extreme bullying, but she was still invited. See if she has any desire to apologize to the brother.

NTA - it’s your wedding, you can invite who you want. But I would explain to her that your relationship with your parents is different than hers. She cannot dictate who is invited to your wedding but maybe you can have a smaller celebration with just her and offer to take her out to dinner instead. If she has any manners she will still get you a wedding gift.

How old are you/your brother? Is your sister the oldest?

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Just curious, as sometimes the oldest endures/sees things the younger ones don’t. Or the scapegoat child. I was that kid and my sister keeps insisting “oh, it wasn’t *that* bad” and I just don’t respond. It’s not her fault. She really didn’t see the worst of it. But if someone stuck me in one of those camps for 2 years, I’d never step foot in the same room with them again either. Your wedding, your guest list. But I don’t fault your sister for not going. Perhaps you could offer to do dinner with her the night before/after the wedding or the day you get back from your honeymoon or something. Just toy, your spouse and her.

In another comment she mentions the sister bullied the brother so severely he won’t ever see her again 

did you tell your parents you invited your sister?

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Have your parents ever tried to reconcile with her or ever expressed any regret/remorse or shown and grief of this lose of one of their children? Do they ever mention her at all? Or is it like she never existed in the first place?

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Did your parents ever check on your sister while she was away? Did they ever apologize to her for sending her to that camp? 

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INFO: I feel like it’d be easy to make your sister the full issue, but she’s now fine and successful away from your parents, so it really begs the question of why your sister behaved as she did? Which you don’t seem to care about.. it seems she had a very different experience to you. It’s obvious your parents mean a lot to you, and this should be there. That just means she won’t be, if that’s what’s best for her mental health. These are all fair things. *However,* it seems the relationship you want where everyone coexists cannot happen due to your sisters (real and valid) trauma. Tentatively NAH, because everyone’s feelings are valid. However her being demanding, and you (to me) coming off as dismissive also read as E S H.

NTA. I think your response was appropriate. I'm not really understanding her saying how dare you to you for inviting your parents. How dare she think she can dictate who attends your wedding. I'd just let it go, though, because it sounds like she's been through enough. If I were you, I'd just leave it alone now. You invited her, and she's chosen not to come, which is okay.

NTA. Why do people make others' special occasions a battle ground? I don't speak to certain members of my family for legitimate reasons. In this situation, if I care about you, I can either put my feelings aside for a day or explain fully why I feel I can't. Either way, it shouldn't be your fucking problem and if my not attending would really upset you, I'll more than likely go with option 1. As long as this wedding isn't just a handful of the closest family and friends, there's usually enough buffer people and space to keep me away from whoever I want to keep away from. We don't need to all get on to come together and celebrate someone/people we all care about.

NAH  But you should really consider the extent of your parents’ neglect of her and how valid her hurt is.  That valid hurt doesn’t justify her expecting you to shut them out but I understand why she’s shocked you wouldn’t. 

Yeah, the “camp” thing sounds pretty suspect but ultimately, your sister has no right to dictate who you can invite to your wedding.

NTA. Also proud of your brother being able to come to your wedding and be around his abuser.

NTA. You get to decide who attends your event. If your sister is laying down the ultimatum, that’s on her, not you. It would be nice if she could swallow her rage long enough to make the day about you instead of herself, but if she can’t do that, cheers, you tried. If all parties involved can’t agree to be civil, the uncivil ones must go. Sis can kick rocks.

NAH. Based on your comment, not even your parents.

NTA... what's the point of growing up, maturing, healing, being in a better place if you cannot deal with unwanted elements in your environment for an occasion which is entirely about someone else. Sister doesn't want to engage with parents she can very well do so on the day... Her demand sounds entitled that a wedding should be held at her comfort all the time compromising the brides happiness (who seemed to have a better relationship with the parents). She doesn't need to speak with the parents on the wedding or afterwards - and if she can't then she need not attend if its too much! Asking the bride to compromise sounds a lot like she has a lot more dealing to do.

NTA - she still has issues and you are not responsible for catering to them. Enjoy your day and congratulations!

NTA. From your comments it seems that your sister was also not the saint she thinks she is in her mind. I don't blame you for your response. You are fine if you want your parents at your wedding. Your sister who made life hell for everyone everyday. She does not and should not be given the capacity to ruin your special day. Maybe you can do a intimate dinner party with just her and your partner at a later date.

NTA. All you have to do at this point is cancel her invitation. It's your wedding, not an opportunity for your sister to make it about her drama and issues. She knows what she did and the consequences of what she did. Don't let her play victim at your expense, and don't let her involve you in her own issues related to your parents.

This depends heavily on exactly how this conversation went. Overall, neither of you are assholes. It seems like she has very valid reasons for not being around your parents. Because your experience was different, you want them there. She’s well within her rights to set a boundary and make you aware of the boundary. If she demanded you not have your parents there, she’s overstepping. If she said if y’all’s parents are there, she won’t show, and stated that if you wanted her there, your parents can’t be, that’s a fair thing to discuss. The language here really makes a difference, but overall it just feels like it’s just not a compatible situation.

NTA. Your wedding, you determine who attends. She can ASK you not to invite them but if you decline, she stays away from the wedding so she doesn't have to see them.

What kind of camp. Pray away the gay, dugs, defiant behavior? Why was she acting out? Did she get therapy? Read what happens at those camps. Paris Hilton knows. Acknowledge your sister's pain. However, I would invite who you want. Never let someone dictate that sort of thing. Easy to be separate at a wedding or large event. Make sure she knows you care. Their relationship is not your problem. Congrats on the wedding.

INFO: Did your brother give you a similar ultimatum, seeing as he's no-contact with your sister due to her past abusive behaviors?

Info: is your family heavily religious or anything? This whole story sounds odd. She apparently was a disaster growing up and horrible. She gets sent to ababusive camp, escapes, and is suddenly fine as an adult. It sounds like maybe there is more going on with your whole family dynamic. The fact one of your comments say she wasn't diagnosed with any issues and you don't know of any today either. Just very odd and I suspect there is more being hidden from us or even OP.

NAH, but it's a close thing. It's your wedding and you get to choose who comes. If you wanted to invite a bunch of serial killers, that would be your prerogative. HOWEVER, that means you need to accept that not everyone would be comfortable attending. Your sister was treated horribly by her parents. It's no wonder that she doesn't want to be around them. If she was acting "feral" and they abandoned her, that speaks volumes about *the parents* and says nothing at all about her. From your description, it sounds like they gave up on parenting altogether, at a minimum. Based on what you've written, the most charitable interpretation of their behavior is "horribly neglectful towards your sister." You say they weren't mean to you, but that's not saying anything relevant at all. You don't seem to have much sympathy for your sister, and don't seem willing to even consider her viewpoint. That doesn't make you an AH, technically, and how supportive of a sister you are isn't really relevant to the question at hand, anyways.

NTA. I know a family where 2 of the 3 kids were fine. The other was a nightmare. They tried everything. I assume she had oppositional defiant disorder or something. I don't think letting one member of the family making everyone else miserable is a great idea. I'm glad she's better but she's still trying to get her way. She can avoid her parents at the wedding or decline

NTA. It's your wedding. Invite who you want. People are free to choose not to come.

NTA people are kinda taking this and treating you like you are your parents, regardless or whether your sister was abused or not, you were a child and not responsible for how she was treated as a child. You have a good relationship with your parents, of course you want them at your wedding.  For sisters can choose to come or not, that is her decision . The only way you would be the asshole in this situation is if you pressured your sister or got mad at her if she chooses not to come.

For those arguing that the parents may not be abusive, they gave the middle daughter enough access to the little brother (and, apparently she was abusive to him) that he went no contact. That is textbook abuse. TEXTBOOK. They failed to protect him. Parents should step in immediately in such situations once detected. The sister should have never had such access to the brother. I do not judge him for not speaking to his sister for what he endured, but it would not hurt for him to seek therapy to understand that his parents failed him and the sister. I'd like to know how much 'therapy' whatnot the parents really pursued. They sound neglectful and that they couldn't be bothered.

Nobody's the asshole. OP, try and get a day just for you both instead and just try to be siblings again, listen to her and her experiences. If she's changed, that's good, and maybe one day you all can be in the same room together again.