My Cousin Abandoned Me Because I Have Seizures
Hi. I'm a long time lurker on Reddit, but have never had something personal to want to share until now.
I (20M) have been having seizures since last year. I never had seizures or any seizure disorder until January of last year. My first seizure occurred while I was at college and since then I have had seizures at least once a month. Throughout the rest of the semester my friends and cousin (20F) who goes to college with me. We will call my cousin 'Lila'. Going into the next year, my mom, Lila, and I all talked about how Lila and I should get an apartment on campus together and live together to help make sure I am safe and have someone around who I am already comfortable with.
My cousin agreed to help, and said she would live with me next year to make sure I will be okay. We got an apartment on campus but had to wait a month during the first part of the fall semester, so we were in a dormitory with both of us having a single dorm room. Originally, apart from what we agreed to when living together was keeping our doors cracked at night so Lila could hear if I had a seizure. She never left her door open, mainly because her boyfriend was basically living in her dorm room and wanted to move into the apartment with us despite already having his own dorm room in a separate dormitory on campus.
During the first week of classes, I had a seizure in one of my classes. Lila was called since she was originally my emergency contact and arrived shortly after. She was a lot of help, but mainly because she was the most familiar face that was around that time. Everything was okay, I got back safely to the dorm after the ER.
But as the weeks went by during the semester, there had been times I couldn't get through class or the day because I felt too disoriented and wasn't sure if I was going to have a seizure or not. She would always text back saying she was willing to pick me up, but never actually came around to pick me up. My college campus is not big and is very walk-able, but with how I feel some days, it becomes difficult and makes me anxious to walk around campus all day if I'm not 100% on how I am feeling.
Lila and I moved into the apartment after a month, and that is when things began to go downhill. Lila kept insisting that we have to keep all our things separate because "we don't know when one of us leave and we shouldn't mix our stuff together". It always bothered me that she wanted to keep everything separate even the stuff we shared. We even had two microwaves in the kitchen because Lila said it was 'hers' and she 'didn't want to use mine.' Okay?? It felt unusual but I just went with it.
A couple more weeks, and I have another seizure while I was hanging out with my friends, but they were able to immediately help since they have also been around since our first year at college. They called Lila and she was able to come bring me home but almost seemed annoyed.
Because Lila's boyfriend was staying at the apartment, they were always in her bedroom. I asked if she could keep her door cracked when we at least went to bed, knowing at the time I would have seizures throughout the night. I always kept my door open, but hers was always closed. It began to be frustrating, especially because we began talking and hanging out less since we moved into the apartment. I understand it is because she was with her boyfriend all the time, but they never even sat in the living room always in her bedroom.
One night, I was up late just watching YouTube in my room, and I began to hear a lot of yelling coming from her room. This wasn't the first time I have heard them arguing, but it was a lot more aggressive this time and I could hear both Lila and her boyfriend yelling at each other to take their hands off of or let go of the other. I tried to just keep myself out of it, mainly because I was becoming scared. A few more minutes go by and I hear my cousin yell "Don't point your knife at me I'm not letting you leave." It was at this moment I couldn't handle it anymore and yelled at them that "it doesn't matter who is in the wrong, just let your boyfriend go". I hear everything go quiet, and I knock on the door. The door opens and Lila's boyfriend is standing by her bed with a pocket knife in his hand. My cousin just smiled at me as she opened the door and claims everything is fine and I should just go back to my room. I told her I'm not going to be unless this was sorted out. She just closed the door and I went back to my room. The next morning I ran into both of them as I left the apartment, and they were completely fine.
A couple days go by and I had another seizure and ended up going home for that weekend. I talked with my mom about how everything at college has been going especially with my cousin. Lila and I had a conversation with my mom present to talk about what happened. Lila expressed how she wanted our relationship to be more “roommate like”, and she only wanted to be there for emergencies only.
A week or so goes by after all of that, and one day I get up in the morning, and Lila said she was moving out by the end of the day. I had no idea this was happening. I looked at her confused, apparently one of her friends needed a roommate so she was moving in with her. I was panicking, and confused and frustrated. It felt like I was being let down because she suddenly changed her mind without even trying to talk about it.
So she moved her stuff out of her bedroom, and I needed a roommate because of my health. My friend, Ken, was my suitemate last year and has been my close friend ever since and has been there for me almost every seizure episode. We get stuff in the now empty room set up, and go get food. We go back, and his stuff was moved out of the room. Confused and frustrated, Ken messaged Lila mentioning how he didn’t want her to be moving his stuff now that she moved out. She was pissed. She messaged me telling me I needed to get my friends together, and that she will never talk to me again until I realized I was in the wrong. I just messaged her”okay”. And that was that.
Since then, I have not talked to her, even at family gatherings we don’t acknowledge each other. We broke off our relationship in October 2025, and it is now May2026.
So a hard learned lesson, sometimes family members can’t always be there for you, but never give a full explanation or closure.
Anyway this is extremely long so if you made it this far congratulations. And thank you for taking the time to read.
TLDR: My cousin moved out and stopped talking to me after agreeing to be helping me live on college campus to be my emergency contact.