u/Better_Bid_8931

last year, in June, a friend of mine from Germany was coming to my country to visit for a couple months. I was excited because we'd never met in person before.

when she arrived in my country, we just happened to be heading to the same three day church event. it was all so much fun until the last night of the event, when I saw her walk out of the service while looking a little ill. I followed her out to ask if she was okay, and she proceeded to tell me she was about to pass out.

this freaked me out a little bit seeing that we're both minors and I tend to act like a chicken with its head cut off internally when something medically is going wrong.

I didn't show that outwardly though, and found a spot where I could sit with her until it passed. I asked if I could get her something like water or food, but she declined. as someone who passes out relatively often, I thought that was strange. she proceeded to "pass out" on my shoulder five time in a row. as this was happening, i texted an older friend of mine asking what I should do.

she said "she passed out FIVE TIMES?" and I said yeah that's supposedly what happened. she texted me back telling me to tell her parents. I didn't because my German friend, I'll call her Gina, told me not to. after that "episode" I helped her get up and walked with her because she was walking very wobbly.

that event ended, and frankly I was glad that I didn't have to be with her for a little bit because as im sure you can imagine, it was EXHAUSTING.

fast forward to the Wednesday before the Fourth of July, and she came to my churchs midweek. she pulled me aside after church and told me that she had a small brain tumor. I yelled "WHAT???" and asked how she knew.

she had gone to a church camp the week before and supposedly one of her friends moms dropped her off at the ER and she got scanned there. she also told me to not tell anyone. this raised a million red flags in my mind. at this point in her trip, her parents had gone home to Germany, leaving her alone in the states.

I also knew the mom of the friend she was talking about and knew she would never just leave a girl at the ER to "figure it out."

for a little context, my dad almost died from a brain tumor when I was very young. so I do not take these issues lightly, nor would anyone else I hope.

we both ended up going to the same Fourth of July party, where I ended up telling her guardian in the states what was going on, and he told me to "not trust a word." and that she's "known for lying about things like this." I felt BETRAYED. part of me knew it wasn't true the entire time but I wanted to believe the best about her.

she saw me talking to her guardian and pulled me aside AGAIN to ask if I told him. I answered honestly and said "yeah. i'm a minor and I can't live with myself knowing you could die and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it." she was visibly upset by this, but frankly I didn't care.

she came back to me a little later after she had calmed down a little, and told me the doctors called her and told her that the "small tumor" was actually a little tiny air bubble on her brain. what she didn't know that I knew was that a small air bubble on the brain would cause your face to drag and your words to slur. almost like a small stroke. it's also extremely unsafe to fly on a plane when you have a bubble on the brain. it could explode due to pressure which would kill her QUICKLY if it was real. But I kept my peace and just didn't say anything.

fast forward to the next week. we went to a youth camp together where I had a lot of other friends and responsibilities. (i.e. singing, working a coffee shop, and just having fun either the other people I knew would be there.) I made time to hang out with her but I guess it wasn't enough.

one night I was with two of my friends on this long boardwalk thing where Gina was at the same time, alone. I was talking with my two friends when all of a sudden she fell out of her chair and "passed out."

the mom of one of my friends just happened to be the camp nurse, so I asked if I could call his mom on his phone. I called her and asked what to do, and she told me "this is PROBABLY a cry for help mentally, but if this is really some medical emergency, you need to get salt water and something with natural sugars"

I then proceeded to BOOK IT around the very large campsite trying to find the things. it was late at night so many people weren't awake. I had finally found some organic gummies and water and ran back to them. she had woken up and was sitting up in front of the bench where I told her to drink the water and the gummies. I helped her back to the dorm and went to bed.

the next day during the day service, another friend called me out of service to talk.

she informed me that gina had been telling all my friends that I was ignoring her because I knew that two of her siblings had died in a car crash, and that because it was the anniversary of that day, I was avoiding her because of it. (WHAT???)

this friends dad had called the pastor of gina's church in Germany because he was a fellow missionary and wanted to give his condolences. the pastor informed my friends dad that he had no idea what he was talking about and said that Gina only had one brother who was perfectly healthy.

this was my breaking point. I texted Gina "we need to talk." after church that night, I told her I knew about everything and how it was a lie, including the siblings, the brain tumor, and her passing out episodes. I told her "I welcomed you into MY country, MY church, and MY friend group, and you turn around and spread crap about me to the people I've known 10x as long as i've known you. what makes you think I wouldn't find out? that's not how it works over here. I don't want to talk to you for a while." and walked away. I heard her crying behind me but I was LIVID and didn't feel like sympathizing.

was I overreacting?

Basically, we went to my SIL’s (my older brother’s wife’s) college graduation party, which was very small. Like just fam and friends.

her family is made up of a lot of people I respect VERY much.

Before we left our house though, I had eaten like a whole bag of drizzilicious (fave snack. Do recommend) and an ice cream sandwich which left me feeling pretty nauseated.

So we got there and there was food like any normal party.

I didn’t want to be straight up disrespectful by not getting anything at all so I got some lemonade and sat back down.

But my older sister said something like “(my name) are you not getting food?” And I told her I had eaten before we left and she squinted at me and said “yeah? what did you have?” I was a little flustered and said drizzilicious, and my dad cut me off saying:

“you’re telling me you filled up on rice cakes??” Mind you this is in front of EVERYONE. SIL's father, mother, aunt, best friend - EVERYBODY.

for context, i'm in recovery for a deadly eating disorder, which both my sister and dad knew.

after all that settled down, I kept catching glances from the other people there and ultimately I feel SO embarrassed. And now I’m worried that all these people I look up to think I’m an insecure liar. I wish they could have kept that conversation till we had gotten home so I wouldn’t have to lay-out what I’d eaten on Sunday in front of everybody.

my sister does things like that all the time, and a lot of the time I feel humiliated because it’s always in front of her friends. She’s never really made an effort to talk about it privately with me, so I feel like I’m the butt of a really insensitive joke.

AIO by feeling like this?

I have recently found that I've been unknowingly holding something against my grandma.

Backstory: around five years ago, my mom had started having some major health complications, which led to a month long hospital stay. This was obviously a huge change for my family, seeing that there are 6 kids in my fam including me. My dad had to be at the hospital with her very often for obvious reasons which left no one to watch us kids. so my grandma traveled across the country to watch all of us.

At firs it was a lot of fun but slowly all of us kids started to get sick of it.

with my mom being in the hospital, and there being a very high chance she would pass away, I was WRECKED. And this all taking place during covid, I had no one to really talk to about it because we were all in quarantine.

So my first response was to eat my feelings, which caused me to gain probably 10-15 pounds. My grandma has always been one to count calories, steps, obsessed with losing weight, and exercise. Inherently, none of those are really bad things, but she would shove that lifestyle down anyone and everyone's throats.

but I remember one very specific conversation that scarred me. (basically the reason I'm writing this.)

I was getting myself some lunch which consisted of one large bowl of leftover chicken and noodles. as I was scooping it into my bowl,I remember her walking into the kitchen and saying

"(my name), you need to burn the calories off from breakfast before you get some lunch." And she proceeded to make me run laps in the backyard until she thought it was sufficient.

many other incidents like that happened during her one month stay, i.e. telling me to "slow down" and just making remarks about how I was overweight.

since then, I've developed anorexia, and have lost around 65 pounds. now when I see her she says things about how im "too thin" and how I "need to eat a burger" or something.

And I can't help but think every time about the comments she would make to me and my siblings as kids. almost in a "you're the one that caused this" way.

I promise I would never ever say that to her, and I hate that it even comes to mind.

But ultimately, those comments have drawn me to want to lose as much weight as I did.

Almost done to make her proud in a way, but I see the bad results of this and subconsciously blame it on her. I feel so bad for even writing this and I feel like a horrible human. Please don't hate on me, just be honest. AIO by feeling this way still?