'My friend mirrors everything I do, and now she’s copying my medical condition.' MAJOR UPDATE

"My friend mirrors everything I do, and now she’s copying my medical condition."

I feel like I’m losing my mind and just someone to tell me I’m not crazy. My friend—let’s call her Stacy—has always had this strange habit of mimicking me, but recently it’s gone from slightly annoying to deeply unsettling. It’s like she’s trying to become me, and I don’t know how to deal with it anymore.

I (25) F and Stacy (24) F, Stacy is a fun person to be around we’ve been friends for over 5 years now. She comes over and i let her borrow my clothes or give her clothes that I don’t want anymore. I dont really like her style but she lets me borrow her clothes when i want. So I knew she had a tendency to lie. But the lies were harmless—or at least I thought so. We’ve been friends for almost five years now.

Sometimes, it felt like she was just joking or trying to make herself seem more interesting. I ignored it, which in hindsight was a mistake. Over time, though, the lies became more frequent, and I started to notice how often they revolved around me. We were fine and our friendship was good but I started to feel weird about her when my sister messaged me, saying Stacy had been talking behind my back.

She was telling people that I kicked her out of my condo and that I had men constantly coming in and out of my place, making her feel unsafe while she was there. BIG LIE BTW Here’s what actually happened: Stacy had come to my city while I was back in my hometown. She was staying with another friend, but that arrangement fell through.

Without asking, she started bringing all her stuff to my place. She didn’t book a return flight home and didn’t ask if she could stay long-term. My roommate doesn’t like Stacy because she’s messy—she leaves clothes everywhere and doesn’t clean up after herself. The last time she stayed, she overstayed her welcome by a week, and I didn’t know when she planned to leave.

This time, my roommate was coming back the next day, and I knew she wouldn’t want Stacy staying with us. I politely asked Stacy if she could stay somewhere else, explaining the situation. She said it was fine and that she’d stay with another friend. But apparently, she turned around and told that friend all the lies my sister relayed to me. So on to the mirroring…

The copying was done over long periods of time , we’ve been friends for 5 years now , but I only started noticing it about a year ago. So here are some of the instances I felt she was copying me:

• I told her I was going to manage my parents’ business. A week later, she told everyone she was going to manage her parents’ business too. Never happened.

• I said I was moving to the city to finish college. Suddenly, she was telling people she was moving to the same city for college. Never happened.

• I started looking for styling jobs and internships. A week later, she told me she got a styling job—but it never happened.

There were other instances that were small like I got a new phone and she immediately blurts out she’s gonna get a new phone but for free from some guy.

Or like that I got a tattoo from this popular tattoo artist and she will immediately say that tattoo artist messaged her for a tattoo session but she was in the hospital so she couldn’t go…things like that. At first, I brushed it off, thinking maybe she just wanted to feel included. But the pattern of claiming to do what I’m doing—without actually following through—kept happening.

I’ve always been someone who works hard and takes pride in being productive. I get that a little mirroring is normal in friendships, but Stacy’s behavior felt different. She’s someone who doesn’t have much direction in life. She hasn’t finished high school, has no real plans or passions, and doesn’t put effort into learning skills that could lead to a career. I tried to be patient, but things escalated.

She copied my medical condition…

This was the tipping point. And a situation i have never been in and felt SOOO CREEPED OUT ABOUT. About a year ago, I had a partial salpingectomy due to an infection in my fallopian tube. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life.

My tube ruptured, and the infection spread throughout my body, sepsis I believe its called. Luckily, I was already in the hospital, so they removed the tube and started me on antibiotics. Even so, my doctor told me I might struggle to have children in the future. It was traumatic, and the recovery process was long and emotional. A few weeks ago, Stacy went to the hospital.

I messaged her to ask what happened, but she just sent a selfie of herself in a hospital bed. I was busy with finals at school, so I didn’t follow up right away. Two days later, she messaged me again, saying she was exhausted from being in the hospital for four days. I asked what was wrong, and she said she had the same condition I did. I was shocked.

She claimed she had a ruptured cyst in her fallopian tube that became infected, almost went into heart failure, and needed a blood transfusion. She said she was supposed to have surgery, but they didn’t proceed because of her weak condition. I immediately knew she was lying.

If your fallopian tube is infected and ruptured, surgery isn’t optional—it’s mandatory. I’m not a doctor, but after my experience, I did a lot of research, and what she described just didn’t make sense. Now here’s the thing , I told people I had a ruptured cyst cause I didn’t know how else to explain my condition and not get into the gross details. You say cyst and people don’t really ask anymore.

Truth is it was a really bad infection that only escalated because of my IUD, the infection grew in my fallopian tube and got so big they thought it was a cyst at first, hence why I decided to just call it a cyst. And I did mention to her that it’s a good thing I was in the hospital cause if all that happened and I got sepsis it could cause heart failure.

I feel like she only mirrored what i said except tried to make her condition seem worse. Nothing she said made any sense. She was in the hospital, but the reason why she was there sounds like it's all made up. Even on a group call while she was still in the hospital, she was listing medications to herself, almost as if she was trying to convince us it was real.

She also later told a story about how she “jumped on the hospital bed” when her brother came to visit. Who does that after a life-threatening emergency?

At this point, I felt insane. Cause Who lies about something like this?

Am I crazy? Is she copying me? Is she really a bad friend? Am I imagining all of it? Reading into it too much? Is it bad if I don’t want to be friends with her anymore? She’s my friend and I want to help her but it’s hard to approach her if all she does is lie.

I want to distance myself from her, but we have mutual friends, and I know she’ll spread more lies about me if I pull away. Has anyone else dealt with a friend like this? How do you create distance without creating unnecessary drama?

Edit: I want to add that a few hours ago she just posted in her story a screenshot of a course list of subjects that is the same as the course im taking right now. She has never shown interest in my course so this is really weird.. i wonder if she’s just messing with me at this point.

The internet had a lot to say in response.

distracted_x wrote:

Holy cow that was a wild ride. I don't know if its just me but that was such a crazy story. OP have you ever seen the movie Single White Female? That girl is stalker level obsessed with you. And suffering some kind of mental illness or personality disorder.

Not only are you NOT crazy but you may not even realize the full weight of it because you're giving her so much grace, and may not even be taking it as serious as you should. Do your other friends notice this behavior? How can it not be obvious to everyone if there are so many blatant examples? This is truly so bizarre.

OP responded:

I haven’t talked to our mutual friends about the medical condition cause they are all from our hometown and I’m really busy with school. I did mention the other things though. And they were kind of like “oh yea, she did say that right after you did”. But because she moved to a different city (not the city im in) they dont see her often either.

I HAVENT SEEN THAT MOVIE. BUT THIS DOES GIVE ME CREEPY VIBES LIKE A HORROR MOVIE. I’m trying to be careful with my moves. Funny thing is she just recently posted a story on instagram , a screenshot of a course syllabus which is the same course I’m taking!

So I am so freaked out. I plan to work out of the country, she doesn’t know that yet so i just need to be able to manage her until i GTFO of here.

Particular-Try5584 wrote:

I’ve dealt with friends like this… people who just sort of clone vampire you.

The best way to deal with them is two fold:

Information diet. Stop sharing your information out there for them to leech off, and stop giving them things to use. Don’t be in their face about it, just stop putting it out there. They’ll notice, and ask, and you just shrug and say “oh, my online presence was getting messy so I am cleaning it up for a bit, just being mindful before college/a new job/my brother’s wedding/whatever excuse.”

Slow ghost. Plan to talk to them about half as often. Then less. Then less. When you do talk to them get them to talk allllll about themselves, and other people. So they get their attention ego stroked, and they focus away from you. After about four months they move on to other people to vampire. Don’t let them back in.

[deleted] wrote:

Instead of info diet, give her info joy with all incorrect info! Trick her into making a fool of herself if she continues with this madness :) Get creative!

OP responded:

I like the comment that says pretend I’m going to therapy I might try that. IF I do run into her, but I will be avoiding her for now.

Blightedbody wrote:

She has a personality disorder and is missing a basic sense of identity. Commonly that's a lifelong struggle. And an anxiety disorder. Her lying is a compulsion. I don't think you'll pierce the problem with confrontation or "evidence." With the medical story, it's branching into a Factitious disorder.

Be careful she doesn't go full Glenn Close Fatal Attraction or Talented Mr. Ripley on you as this gets outed or if you attempt to breakaway. It's unclear the level of desperation that could set in.

Missbhavin58 wrote:

There's a term for this 'mirroring.' Not sure but I think it's a mental health problem. She really needs professional help and support although good luck on getting her to agree. Sounds creepy AF. I seriously wouldn't stand being in her company anymore. Good luck.

Two months later, OP jumped on with a major update.

Hello everyone, I wanted to thank all the people who had taken the time to read my last post. I'm really grateful for all the advice and for helping reassure me that I wasn’t crazy. I had reached out to a lot of my friends during the holidays and told them about what i concerns i have with Stacy.

I don't know where to start so I’ll try to organize my thoughts as much as I can. But honestly, it’s a lot worse than I thought it was…I have not ran into her at all when I went back to my hometown. Thank god. When i knew she was back in town i avoided going out at all. Barely replied to her texts.

And obviously told my friends. Who were very supportive by the way. That I did not want to be where she was. Luckily we all took a trip out of town that she was recently uninvited to. Due to her having a lot of issues with the people going. Thankful for that cause i really did not want to see her. When me and my friend, we’ll call him Ryan, took a trip to a different town nearby.

We reached out to one of our friends that lived there. We’ll call her “Dani”. Now Dani was reaaaally close with Stacy, as in they would hang out almost everyday. Everyone knew them to be BFFS and well now they are no longer friends. Stacy told me about the falling out situation, and so i wanted to hear Dani’s side and when i tell you it was a whole different story.

Stacy made Dani look crazy, insecure, over emotional and inconsiderate. I was shocked at how different the two stories were. Dani started opening up on how Stacy borrowed money from her for her rent. Kept treating her horribly and pushing her around. I told Dani how I didn’t know she was that much of a bitch?? I have never seen that side of her at all.

Dani replied with “That’s because she’s OBSESSED with you, you dont even know” and that sent chills all over my body. She went on to say how every single time she would be with Stacy she would talk about ME! From my hobbies to the issues I have in my life, including dating and very personal things. Stacy would want to dress like me and do whatever it was i was doing.

She would buy the same accessories as me, shoes as me. Tell everybody about me. Talk about how me and her are really close. Anytime I would dye my hair she would want the same colors. It made me feel so uncomfortable hearing all of this knowing i thought this girl was my friend. BUT at the same time she would apparently belittle me. Anytime someone would give me a compliment and I wasn't there.

She would tell people I smell bad and I have bad hygiene and that I slept with a lot of guys. She would tell people that i get all of my “connections” from her. When at the same time she was telling Dani that she was only friends with me because she can get connections from me?? The contradictions??

And Dani added that Stacy does. Not. SHOWER. She doesn’t even own her own soap shampoo or conditioner. I realized then where the comments of ME having bad hygiene came from. All of the insults she gives other people really are just reflections on how she is, SHE sleeps around. SHE has bad hygiene. SHE gets her connections from me. SHE is insecure.

These are the insults she would tell people about other people, and honestly now I see the pattern that its all just her really mirroring insecurities about herself and projecting them to other people. I couldn’t say I was shocked but I definitely was hurt and had chills. And when I asked Dani how long this had been going on for. She replied with “since the first time she met Stacy” which was FOUR YEARS AGO.

I can’t believe I was friends with Stacy for so long! And I never noticed how sick this person was. She would end up not paying her rent because she would spend all her money buying the same things i had or coming to my city to ‘visit’ me. Also I kind of figured out her “medical condition” she claimed was the same as mine.

Was...and STI/STD. Because her frequent guy that she was seeing also went to the hospital and she kind of let it slip to one of our friends that it was because of her “infection.” I am not shaming her at all, I never cared how she wanted to live her life but I always tried to remind her to ‘wrap it up’ especially if she wanted to see guys like that.

Well hope someone tries to remind her about that now cause she will not be hearing it from me or hearing from me anymore. AT ALL. I feel drained by all of the information i have been getting about her. I guess now that I have seen for myself what she really is. I can hear what other people are saying more clearly. Me and all of my close friends agree that we have all learned from meeting Stacy.

I have been too nice and too generous with people that I allowed myself to be used by someone who I thought was my friend. I mean she is a flat out narcissist and I kind of knew it from the moment I met her but I let it slide. So now I'm more skeptical with people I meet. I honestly hope I never have to see her again.

The comments kept coming.

marimomakkoli wrote:

I thought you said in your first post that you’ve been friends with Stacy for “over five years” 🧐

OP responded:

I have! I met Stacy in 2018 but we only got close like around like 2020. But Dani only met her 4 years ago. So im not sure how long this has been going and I didn’t notice

Accomplished-Emu-591 wrote:

Hopefully you know the difference between friend and stalker, now.

Careless-Image-885 wrote:

Block her on everything. Don't allow her to "visit" you. Close that chapter of your life and move on.