147: What if your best friend was dying?
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I had to make peace with the fact that I would never really know, but I think it's much better to try to move forward with your life and just sometimes accept that things are nebulous and there are no clear answers. Welcome to the Permatemp Corporation, a presentation of the audio podcast, This Is Actually Happening. Episode 147, What If Your Best Friend Was Dying?

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And the next, something goes wrong. But with ADT's 24/7 professional monitoring, you still feel safe. Because when every second counts, count on ADT. Visit ADT.com today. I grew up in San Antonio, Texas. I had one full brother and two half brothers.

For the most part, my childhood was completely idyllic. We had this house with a really big backyard and my brother and I used to just run around and play and pretend that we were explorers out in the forest. I was really chatty and outgoing. I've always made friends really easily, but I've also always really liked quiet time and solitude. And I think that comes from my family.

There were things that were difficult subjects that we would talk about, but I sort of never knew when we were permitted to talk about certain things, like my dad's first marriage or what was going on at the time with one of my half-brothers. So I think there was always this feeling that I needed to either keep difficult things to myself or make them funny and make fun of them. And so a lot of things were kept under the rug or left unsaid.

I think it was hard for me to express complex emotions. It's been difficult for me during different phases of my life to express, I guess, my deepest emotions and fears and vulnerabilities. And then when you add into that being in a family that doesn't always talk about people's emotions or trauma, it's

It just makes it kind of complicated and kind of difficult to know how to talk about things and how to process things. And so I think it took me a long time to actually learn how to have a healthy dialogue with a close friend or a boyfriend, for instance. And I even say to some of my friends now that I've sort of created this trick where when you talk to me, I seem incredibly open and vulnerable and I'll tell you just about anything.

But when people try to get really close to me, it's much harder to create, I guess, like an authentic level of intimacy with me. Going into high school, I had a really difficult experience with my friends. I had moved schools in the sixth grade and I fell in with this group that I adored and some of the girls were nice.

starting to get really excited about dating and they were wanting to go to parties here and there and try alcohol. And I was just such a late bloomer that those things really weren't on my mind at that point in time. And so as we entered high school, this chasm erupted and all of a sudden I found that my closest friends didn't really want to be around me anymore. And I just, I wasn't a part of the group anymore.

It did plant this idea in my head that people are unreliable and that girls in particular can be quite complicated and that female friendships are quite complicated as well. Going away to college in North Carolina where I didn't know a single person was a hard pill to swallow even though it was my choice and it was also a challenge that I really wanted for myself.

I made this decision early on that I really wanted to devote my first semester in college to just making these close friendships. And at my university, there was a really massive Greek system. Almost every female student joined a sorority. And at my school, the way it worked was that you went through Rush right after the Christmas break.

Going through Rush was delightful for me because I love talking to new people. I like being interviewed, and it's basically one giant interview. And so I was doing quite well, you might say, and the decision looked like it was really going to be in my hands.

The next morning, I received a call while I was sleeping, and it was someone informing me that unfortunately I had been cross-cut, which meant that I was not invited to join any sorority.

My roommate, who was my best friend, and three of my other closest friends all went on to join the very sorority that I had been hoping to become a member of. And at my university, there were these really strict rules about socializing. So from that point until I joined a sorority over a year later, I was actually not permitted to go to dinner with three or more women from any one sorority. So that meant that I couldn't even go have dinner with anyone

my roommate and my two best friends. And it also meant that I couldn't turn up at most parties until a particular time in the evening. I'm the sort of person who always likes to have a plan. And I

work really hard at achieving my goals and reaching those objectives. And so when something goes totally awry, as it did with this sorority situation, it reminded me that I was completely out of control. And it also felt like a failure.

And so the net effect of all of this was that I felt really excluded, similar to how I felt in the ninth grade when my friends dropped me inexplicably. I felt like here again, I'd been rejected. And here again, I'd been rejected by a group of women. I got really involved with the university student union, but I also met all of these lovely people who were not a part of the Greek system. And that opened up

I was determined to join the exact sorority that I had given my first choice to the previous year.

I went with hundreds of other young women into this auditorium and I was pulled into this sea of red because that was the color that my sorority wore. And it was incredibly exciting despite the fact that I was doing this for the second time. And I just remember later that evening, we were going to have all these activities and we were given red t-shirts and all the rest of it.

And I noticed this girl who I'd never seen before. And she was in my pledge class. And she also looked very different from everyone else. Most of the girls in the sorority I joined were the types who would wear makeup and do their hair. And she just looked really kind of cool and down to earth. I started chatting with her and she told me her name was Margaret. And I told her my name and she seemed incredibly authentic. She was,

acted like someone who was really confident in a way that she didn't need to prove it to you and happy to be different from others. So while every other girl was wearing mascara and had curled her hair and was like trying to look cute for when we went out dancing, Margaret just seemed not to care. And that made her really appealing to me.

Several weeks after receiving our bids, all of the pledges were asked to go on this overnight pledge retreat. I guess it was one of those things intended to make us feel really bonded and get to know one another.

And we had sleeping bags and snacks. And so we sat around and we were having a good time. And all of a sudden, one of these older women came in and she was carrying several candles. And she turned the lights off and she told us that we were going to participate in our very first candle pass. The point was that we were supposed to share candles.

something sensitive or vulnerable about ourselves with the group. And that was going to bond us, I guess. And I didn't feel like I had anything to say, but it made me feel really uncomfortable. And I also just felt that it was really contrived and

What surprised me most, however, was that Margaret actually offered to go first. And so she took the candle and she proceeded to tell all 50 of us that she had been diagnosed with epilepsy the previous year. So during her freshman year.

Initially, it was a medical mystery and she went to see various doctors and none of them knew what was going on. But ultimately, she saw a neurologist who diagnosed her with epilepsy and they were so concerned about her condition, they told her that she shouldn't come back to school to finish out her freshman year. But she said she wasn't going to live her life that way. She was not going to be able to live her life that way.

courageous. She was ready to take this thing head on. And so she didn't listen to the advice of her doctors. And instead, she came back to school. And here we were midway through our sophomore years. It made me like her that much more. It made me want to get to know her. And I also felt sympathy for her situation. And in fact, one of my oldest and closest friends from home

has epilepsy. And at the same time, I have had several chronic health problems. And I was so unaccustomed to people speaking so openly about their vulnerabilities that I found it really refreshing.

As I got to know her, I also discovered that she was an equestrian. She would frequently compete in horse shows on the weekends, but I thought it was really cool that she was managing to do that while being a student and, of course, while dealing with this illness that had obviously been, at least on and off, a major challenge.

The other great thing about Margaret was that she was always up for doing fun things and being really spontaneous. And she was also just really funny and she would help me with my student union activities. So I had to put flyers up all the time and I had to go out and do it at like six in the morning, I think. And she would agree to come do it.

I spent my summer after my sophomore year away and then I actually moved to London to study abroad for a semester. I had an amazing time in London but I was really excited to get back to Wake Forest and I was also incredibly excited to reconnect with Margaret. Soon enough we started hanging out all the time and of course we had a ton of shared friends through the sorority.

Margaret seemed to be in a similar health situation as the previous semester when we hung out. She had seizures at times, and she definitely told me about going to the hospital when her seizures were really extreme, or she would occasionally show me a bruise on her arm and tell me that she had fallen out of bed because of a seizure. But she didn't tell me that she had fallen out of bed because of a seizure.

She always downplayed the severity of it. She would say things like, oh, no, no, it's all cool. Like my medication is in control and I'm not worried about it. And like, I don't want you to be worried about it. Everything's fine. She told me that her parents had a really strange attitude towards her illness. She mentioned that when she was first diagnosed her freshman year, her parents didn't really believe her and they didn't

told her that it was psychosomatic or that they thought she was just experiencing something else and was coming up with an like an elaborate or exaggerated version of what that thing was in her head and whenever i pressed her on that she just said that her relationship with her parents was complicated

One of the things we spent a lot of time talking about that spring semester was spring break. We had this grand plan to go on a really awesome road trip. And so we ultimately decided to do half of the week in Charleston, where Margaret is from, and half of the week in San Antonio, where I'm from.

About three or four weeks before spring break, the other two girls dropped out of the trip. And so it ended up just being Margaret and me. She and I went on the trip. We arrived at this absolutely stunning house where her parents lived.

And I just, I felt like something was sort of strange from the get-go. Her dad was really unfriendly, despite seeming like a very gregarious type. Her mom was kind of cold, but she sort of seemed reserved. And so I didn't take it personally, but I just tried my best to overlook it and have a good time.

She talked about how she had these really hot guy friends who were there and she had all these like fun single friends who were there. And so we had these grand plans of going out every night and, you know, meeting hot guys and just having an absolute blast. But then when it came down to it, every time we left the house and went to do something, it was just the two of us. And this guy she had talked about for months, who was her on and off boyfriend, she

was never included in anything that we did. And I do remember feeling that it was all a bit strange and also feeling frustrated about the fact that we spent pretty much the entire four days alone, just the two of us.

We went to San Antonio and stayed at my parents' house. And in my childhood bedroom, there were two twin beds. And they were fairly close together. So I was in one and Margaret slept in the other. And when we woke up one morning, she told me that she'd had a seizure the night before. And I was absolutely shocked. My sense was that if she'd had a seizure two feet away from me in the middle of the night, it would have probably woken me up.

But she kept insisting that everything was fine and she didn't want me worrying. She was always putting on a really brave face and she didn't want anyone pitying her or making a fuss over her. And so we carried on and I just remember having a really great time. She did this really subtle thing where she acted like she didn't want her illness to be front and center and she didn't want to be pitied and she didn't want people paying her attention because of it.

nevertheless became a huge part of our friendship. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was also suffering from depression that turned out to be chronic. I know that when I was with Margaret and when she was opening up about her condition, it gave me permission, I should say, to think more about the difficult things that I had experienced and was experiencing.

Partly because of my family history and the fact that we never talked very openly about difficult things. I really admired Margaret for her vulnerability and courage and her ability to just be very honest and frank about things. I felt like she was the closest friend I'd ever had.

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That spring semester, I found out that I was going to be the student union president my senior year. And pretty much overnight, I became incredibly busy. I was sometimes working 16 hours a day if there was an event. And without meaning to, I guess I let my friendships fall to the wayside to an extent.

Margaret began telling me that her health had taken a turn for the worse. Whereas she had previously been only having seizures intermittently, she began telling me that she was having a seizure almost every night.

She told me that many nights she drove herself to the hospital, which always really perplexed me because it seemed like a very dangerous thing to do. And I couldn't understand why she would put herself at risk in that way. But when I would ask her, she would kind of shrug it off and say that she had everything under control. She did say that occasionally her seizures were starting to put pressure on her organs and on her heart.

specifically, and I didn't really understand how that worked or what that meant, but things were escalating very, very quickly. And I was incredibly worried about her and cognizant of the fact that she needed me. She had other friends. She had her roommate, Sarah, but I felt like I was the one she was relying on.

There was one particular weekend where I went to the University of Georgia to visit my cousin, and Margaret was scheduled to compete in a horse show. And on Sunday, I either called or texted Margaret just to ask her how the horse show went. And she sent back this really cryptic message saying that she wanted to see me that evening and talk to me. That evening at around 7 or 8 p.m., Margaret came over to my apartment.

She told me that she was dying. She said that she spent the weekend in a hospital where she was seen by doctors and at one point her heart stopped and they had to revive her. And they later told her that she probably only had three to six months to live.

I felt devastated. My best friend was telling me that she probably wasn't going to live for more than five or six months. She was so young. We were both, I guess, 20 or 21 at this point in time. And through it all, she had this amazing resilience. She told me that she wasn't afraid to die. She said that she felt like she'd had a lot of really

incredible experiences in her life and that she didn't feel that this was unfair. She wanted to basically keep living her life and keep sucking the marrow out of it for as long as she could.

As soon as Margaret left that evening, I broke down. I was crying so hard I couldn't even speak sentences, and yet I insisted on calling my parents, trying to explain to my parents what had just happened, but it was hard to get words out over the sobs and the exasperation that I felt. It dawned on me that I had no real experience with death.

I had never lost someone who was such a close, intricate part of my life. And I felt this pressure to to be her source of comfort and to sort of guide her because I was one of the only people who knew that she was this sick. And that put a lot of pressure on me. And I really didn't know how to respond to it.

The following day, I was sitting in my car and it was pouring rain and my parents called me and I assumed they were calling to check on me. But my dad said that he wanted to talk to me and he had something to say. It was quite rare actually that they would both be on the line at the same time.

My dad said to me, we don't really know how to say this to you, but we think that Margaret is exaggerating, if not lying, about her condition.

I was bowled over. It was as if someone was speaking to me in a foreign language. I couldn't process it. It was foreign to me to imagine that Margaret would lie to me, but it was also unimaginable that anyone would tell a story like that and that it would be untrue. I was completely resistant to what my parents were telling me.

I asked them to explain what they meant, and they said that they had had doubts for a period of time about some of the things that she had said to me. My mom mentioned that the fact that she had a driver's license and drove was a total red flag.

The fact that Margaret was this competitive equestrian, which would require that you're in really good health and that you're really fit. And yet she was claiming that she was spending nights in the hospital and not sleeping and having frequent seizures. He said that that just didn't add up to him.

They then revealed to me that when she had come to San Antonio with me over spring break, that my mom had actually gone into her suitcase while we were out doing something one day to see if she had any anti-seizure medication. It was very unlike my mom to do something like this. She's not meddlesome, but she went through her stuff and she told me on the phone that day that she didn't find anything. I said something like,

Okay, if this is true, if you're correct that she's exaggerating or lying to me, what is her motive? Why would she do this to me? And my dad said it very simply. He said, she's in love with you.

That was perhaps even more shocking than what they had already said to me. She had never made any kind of moves on me. She'd never tried to touch me or kiss me. I guess what my dad may have meant was that she was in love with me in some other way, like some way that's not appropriate in a friendship, but it's not sexually motivated. Although he did later tell me that he thought that she was probably gay and that she

She was unable or I guess unwilling to accept that. And so she was using this story about having poor health to draw people in and to create a form of intimacy with them. I was completely resistant to the idea that Margaret was lying to me about her health. In fact, I was resistant to the idea that she'd ever lied to me about anything. One of the first things I noticed about her and one of my favorite things

qualities of hers was that she was sincere and she was honest. And so what my parents had said to me just seemed unfathomable. Several weeks after my conversation with them, I decided to approach her roommate, Sarah, and I figured that we could compare notes and maybe that would resolve everything or maybe it would open Pandora's box. But either way, I knew I had to do it. My biggest fear during this period of time was actually that

Margaret was in fact dying and that I was going to abandon her during her time of need and that I would live the rest of my life regretting ever having doubted her. I happened to have a class with Sarah and

I asked her what she knew of Margaret's condition. And she sort of smiled and just very casually said, Margaret told me that she's in a really healthy phase. She hasn't had a seizure in months. And yeah, and things are just generally going really well. And that just astonished me because as she said that, I knew that Margaret was lying to me and clearly actually lying probably to both of us.

I just immediately went on to tell Sarah what Margaret had told me. I told her specifically about that horse show that she had to miss and Sarah then said, "Oh, interesting," because Margaret told me she competed in that horse show and that everything went really well. I said, "I have an idea. Why don't we try to track down information about the show? Then we know that what she's telling you is probably true and what she's telling me is a lie."

We found a time when we knew Margaret would be in class and I went over to their dorm room and we rifled through Margaret's desk and found a leaflet about the horse show. And so I decided to phone the number on the back of it. And I pretended to be a local journalist. And I said that I wanted to write a story about the recent show. And would they be able to share with me who the winners were? And sure enough,

Margaret had either placed in the top three or won practically every category. Sarah and I decided to also do a little bit more digging. We didn't find any medication. We did find, it was a bit strange, so Margaret would sometimes say that when she'd had to go to the hospital, that when she would leave, if they thought she was going to be back frequently that week, they would leave a stint in her arm.

In her desk drawer, we found these little sort of like pieces of plastic that were the exact same shape as a stent, and we found bandages. And so it was clear to us that Margaret wasn't just lying. She was actually going so far as to feign injuries on her body so that her condition would look more legitimate. That day made me feel almost the surge of anxiety

energy. I was building a case and I was going to be able to present it and hopefully get clarity and move on. At the same time, I still worried that Margaret might have been sick and that maybe she was in some kind of situation where some of the things she was saying were true and some weren't, or maybe she had some kind of severe mental illness. And I was also frankly just freaked out

About a week later, we had an appointment with this therapist, just the two of us. And the first thing he said was that he couldn't diagnose Margaret without actually seeing her, which was disappointing, but made sense. He did say, however, that because she was talking about death, he was concerned that she was either suicidal or potentially going to harm one of us or someone else.

That really changed my entire perception of things. I started to notice there were things that I had found charming previously that suddenly weren't so charming. Margaret would often happen upon my car and leave me like these funny little notes under my windshield wipers. Sometimes she would even leave me little silly little gifts.

When we were still friends, I thought that that was really sweet and cool and like it original and it made me really like her. But suddenly I began thinking, how does she know where my car is all the time? Is she driving around aimlessly and just like happening upon it? Or is she driving around looking for it? Is the fact that she's making these gestures endearing or is it actually kind of abnormal?

So I was still feeling really overwhelmed and sad and anxious, but now I was also getting scared. And so at that point, I told my two roommates what was going on because I didn't want them to just let her into our apartment. And I also started insisting that we lock all of the doors and windows all the time.

There was one particular evening when I had gone to study at the library and I came out at around 1.30 a.m. and I walked towards the small parking lot where my car was. And when I rounded the bend, I saw that Margaret was standing at my car. I was so terrified, I actually turned around and took off running. I hid in some bushes for five or ten minutes. I genuinely felt terrified.

scared for myself and for my person. I felt first and foremost that Margaret had been stalking me. She was seeking me out. She was spending minutes, if not hours a day, trying to figure out where I was. And I knew after that evening that the time had come for me to actually confront Margaret because despite all of this, I still wanted to give her a chance.

One of the reasons I still believe there was a chance that Margaret had epilepsy was that Sarah and apparently other people had witnessed her having seizures.

That was so at odds with my new belief that her story was untrue, but it left just enough room for doubt. And it was part of the reason why I was desperate to confront her and finally try to get some answers to what was going on. We met at this restaurant and I told Margaret that I had doubts about some of the things she had told me to do with her health and

As soon as I mentioned these doubts, she looked down at the ground. I told her that I knew that she had competed in the horse show and that I had evidence. And I asked her why she had lied to me. She wasn't able to make eye contact with me and she didn't look up from the ground, but I kept pushing her to answer me. And she finally lifted her head and she mumbled, well, I did both.

And I said, that's impossible. How could you have been in a hospital on your deathbed, as you tell it, and then competing in a horse show? And she carried on with this middle ground story. She said that she did lie about being in the hospital the entire time, but that she found the strength to compete in the show during the day, and then she would go check herself back into the hospital at night again.

I didn't believe that for a second. And so I mentioned to Margaret something the counselor had said to Sarah and me. If she was willing to sign some kind of release form, I could speak to her doctor directly or I could go with her to one of her upcoming appointments. To my great surprise, she responded, that would be fine.

I was really, really confused. I had gone into the lunch that day thinking that she was making everything up and that she was going to admit it and that that would be the end of our friendship. But instead, she was drawing things out and she was nurturing that small doubt I had that maybe she wasn't lying.

When I followed up with Margaret later to see when I could go to her appointment, she kept saying, oh, I don't know when my next appointment is. So I responded, this was all over email, and I asked if she would just...

sign a release form and let me speak to her doctor directly. At that point, her tone shifted. She, for the first time, tried to turn the tables on me. She said that if I were a true friend, I would believe her and I would stand by her and I wouldn't question the authenticity of her story.

And as much as that hurt, I was so focused at this point on just trying to find the truth that I didn't dwell on my emotions. I simply responded calmly and said that I needed to speak to her doctor or visit her doctor or else I wasn't going to be able to carry on being her friend because the trust that was a huge part of our friendship had been lost.

She alternated between accusing me of being a bad friend and insisting that I trust her and saying that the timing wasn't right and if she could just give her more time. I ultimately realized that there was no way for us to be friends. I wrote Margaret an email and I just very calmly explained to her that I was very, very sorry and that I hoped that

everything with her health would be okay, but that we could no longer be friends because I didn't trust her. And I wished her well, but I asked her to refrain from contacting me. I sent the email and I went off on this trip and I tried my best to put this whole experience out of my mind briefly, knowing obviously that it would take much longer for me to process it. And also knowing that what Margaret might do next was completely unpredictable.

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It was pouring rain and I had to rush to my car after class. And I ran to my car and I noticed that there was something under one of the windshield wipers. That just sent chills up my spine. And I opened it up and sure enough, it was a note from Margaret. Along with a check, she owed me money from our trip to San Antonio. The note said...

that she was very sorry she had wanted to reveal her true self to me but that every time she revealed one layer of herself it meant having to reveal the next layer and that that deepest layer was the hardest for her to share with people that was very cryptic i don't know if maybe it referred to her sexuality um i don't think i will ever know she also said

Not all things are as they seem, especially between parents and children. She was hinting, I suppose, at the fact that there must have been some kind of trauma with her parents. I have no idea whether there was any truth in it.

Margaret also emailed me probably three or four times during that summer and during the next year. She would beg me to give her another chance. She would say that she could finally explain herself. I think she even offered to take me to a doctor's appointment, but I knew that none of those things were going to be adequate.

I just lost my best friend. I felt really nervous and scared about what might happen. And when senior year began, I had tons of people asking me why Margaret and I weren't hanging out anymore. And I had to grapple with how to respond to that in a way that was true to myself, but that also wasn't unnecessarily hurtful to someone who I genuinely believe is hurting. I don't think that Margaret is

is an evil person. I don't think that she manipulated people because she wanted to. I think she's very sick mentally. And in a way that made it harder because I couldn't just be angry with her. I actually did continue to feel really sorry for Margaret. And there was always that part of me that really wanted to help her and be there for her. But I knew that it was unhealthy and I knew that I had to find a way to just move forward.

I didn't tell very many people what had happened between us. However, there were several situations, like with the two girls that were our little sisters in the sorority, where I was genuinely very worried about them remaining roped into this false narrative. They didn't feel like they could hear what I was saying to them. It's not that they thought I was lying.

I think they were just too young and too confused and shocked by what I had to say to even process it. It felt really unfair. She was the one who had done this terrible thing, and yet she was able to maintain friendships with certain people. And yet by telling them the truth and by trying to warn them and help them and look out for them, I was punished enough.

by the fact that they couldn't really be around me anymore because it meant that they would have to accept the difficult truth that I had shared with them and they simply weren't ready. It was only years later after they had graduated from Wake Forest that they both reached back out to me to say they were sorry that they hadn't, I guess, heeded my warning and, you know, they unfortunately had to learn the lesson the hard way just as I did.

I was able to speak to other people, of course, like Sarah, like our little sisters in the sorority. But we all had different stories, and that made it even worse. There were several people who had witnessed Margaret having a seizure. There were people who heard that she had a heart condition instead of epilepsy. I was always very confused about her sexuality.

There was a rumor going around that she had come out of the closet and that she was dating this girl from the class below ours and that they were really happy. And on some level, I was happy to hear that because I thought perhaps that her sexuality was what had created all of this discomfort for her.

I later discovered that that was not a romantic relationship and that Margaret was merely telling people that or giving them that impression. The way I know is because 14 years later,

After this entire series of events happened to me, I received a Facebook message from the girl who I was just referring to, who was, I guess, Margaret's next victim after me. According to this girl, they had always just had a platonic friendship. The curious part of my brain wanted to get together and ask hundreds of questions. And I knew that if I did, I might get some clarity.

But I also realized that it was not healthy for me to go back into this part of my life. By this time, I was well aware that I have depression. By reliving this experience with Margaret, I was just going to set myself back. I had to make peace with the fact that I would never really know what plagues her, and I will never know. And that haunts me to an extent, but...

I think it's much better to try to move forward with your life and just sometimes accept that things are nebulous and there are no clear answers. I was traumatized by what happened with Margaret. And for at least several months after I ended our friendship, I was on autopilot, I guess, forever.

It was a positive thing that I had the LSAT that summer because I was studying all the time. I was also doing the summer course. I really didn't have any spare time to dwell on what had happened. I think I tried to just put it out of mind as much as possible and focus on other relationships and focus on my goals for the future.

I also struggled to understand how I could have ever gotten myself into the situation I was in with Margaret. I had misjudged Margaret completely. If you had asked me when I first met her the three qualities I would use to describe her, I would have said,

Honest, genuine, and confident. And if you had asked me at the end of this ordeal, I would have said troubled, lost, and dishonest. Ever since these events, it's been really, really hard for me to properly bond with someone because

I can talk about things openly. I can make new friends very easily. But there are very few people I actually trust. And I suppose a lot of it stems from what happened with Margaret. I tried to live my life in a completely self sort of sustaining, independent way. I really didn't want to have to rely on anyone, not friends, not my family, not boyfriends. And of course, that doesn't work.

I did eventually form some really close friendships again, and I got into my first serious romantic relationship about three years after the end of my friendship with Margaret. Unfortunately, this guy turned out to be very manipulative himself. But when that relationship ended, I went into a very dark place and a very dark place in terms of my depression and anxiety.

I guess I was able to see the world in a more nuanced way and able to understand the complexities of people and of life. I don't think, however, I've really gotten much better in terms of genuinely trusting people. I would like to say that over the course of all of these years, I've learned how to open up to people in a really authentic way.

But I still really struggle. I've still not, you know, gotten married or had a really long-term serious romantic relationship. And I have to assume some of that stems from the fact that this experience with Margaret just really kind of screwed me up. My hope is that over the course of time, I will have more distance from this event and my understanding of people will continue to be more forgiving.

It was through therapy that I realized that people are really complicated and life is really complicated. You may not ever be able to trust people in the absolute sense. People are fallible. People are complicated. But in order to get close to people, you have to at least give them a shot. And I think that there's a very fine balance between keeping your guard up and allowing people to actually trust

see who you are, see what your vulnerabilities are and vice versa. And dealing with depression actually forced me to kind of open up to people with my own mental health issues because I now feel this sense of camaraderie and feel like this thing that was maybe a secret doesn't need to be a secret anymore. I do think that what happened to me

was unfair in that I had given so much to my friend and in return I was lied to and manipulated. I felt for a time like I was his victim or I was cursed and that these sorts of things only seemed to happen to me. But of course that isn't true. The world unfortunately isn't fair and people are really perplexed and complicated and have a lot of their own

struggles that inform who they are. And I think that Margaret is actually a very interesting example because although she did something and I think continues to do this very thing that's really hurtful and, quote, unfair, on some level I still feel affection for her and I still worry about her and hope that she's okay. One of my

or fantasies is that Margaret would stop manipulating people. But I know from mutual friends and contacts that she has carried on manipulating women specifically using various health problems as sort of the glue, I guess you might say, or the trap.

Whatever is motivating her is beyond her control. And at this point, you know, the focus for me is just is moving forward in my own life and relationships. Today's episode featured Millie Kerr. You can find out more about Millie at MillieKerr.com. That's M-I-L-L-I-E-K-E-R-R dot com. This Is Actually Happening is brought to you by me, Whit Misseldein.

If you love what we do, you can join the community on our official Instagram page at ActuallyHappening. You can also rate and review the show on iTunes, which helps tremendously to boost visibility to a larger community of listeners. Thank you for listening. Until next time, stay tuned. ♪

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