The lie between them

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, March 24th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: friendship and the destruction of deception.

Humans crave connection, but crossing ethical lines to get it can cause long-term problems for everyone involved.

As a note: Out of respect for the privacy of one of the people in this story, WORLD has chosen not to use her real name: we will call her Lucy.

WORLD’s Emma Eicher has the story.

EMMA EICHER: Meghan Walsh really wanted to be one of the cool kids in high school. That desire turned into a friendship with an edgy junior, named Lucy.

MEGHAN WALSH: I knew why I was drawn to her, because I thought she was cool. I had no idea why she was drawn to me, but she always wanted to talk to me, and be near me.

While Walsh was bubbly and friendly, Lucy was quiet and brooding.

WALSH: I was very afraid of her. Afraid of her in a way where you, like, admire her. She had an intense look about her.

Then, Lucy began confiding in 15 year-old Walsh. Heavier things.

WALSH: And that made me feel like she really trusted me, and that kind of enhanced the emotional intimacy of our relationship.

Over time, they shared more personal secrets.

WALSH: She had a really complicated relationship with her mom, she said, like, her mom hates her.

Then one day, Lucy came to a play rehearsal, with a bandage wrapped around her head. She told everyone she slipped and fell, but then gestured for Walsh to follow her into the bathroom.

WALSH: And she told me that she had had brain surgery for brain cancer that she had. Because she has recurrent brain cancer, and she has been dealing with it, but this time, they think it's terminal, so she doesn't know how many more months she has to live. We were just like, sitting on the floor of the bathroom, crying.

Walsh promised to keep Lucy’s secret and spent months comforting Lucy and crying with her.

WALSH: And she seemed like she needed help. I would follow her out of the room, to the notice of my other friends. They were like, Why is Meghan acting weird? Why does she seem so sad?

Walsh’s parents also noticed she had become isolated, pouring all of her time and energy into Lucy. And they were upset when Lucy came over under the influence of drugs.

Walsh felt like she had to defend her. So she told them Lucy’s secret. That only made them more skeptical.

WALSH: I think that they just thought that she seemed off, in a malicious way. They were like, "I think she's lying to you." And we kind of got in a fight about that.

Then, Lucy said the cancer had spread to her heart. And she was scheduled to have open heart surgery. 

Walsh was out of town the day before the surgery was scheduled, so Lucy texted her goodbye, just in case.

WALSH: I remember being at Les Mis in New York City and crying because she was like, "I'm going in tomorrow for the surgery. If I don't wake up, I love you so much."

Walsh did see her again—the next day. At school. Lucy said her mom forced her to attend.

WALSH: And she like, rolled up her shirt in the bathroom, and she showed me, like, an ace bandage wrapped around her chest, and I should have known, but like, I was scared.

Walsh’s dad had had enough, and called Lucy’s mom. He said, "Does Lucy really have cancer?"

WALSH: And then her mom responded like, ‘Oh no, not this again.’

The surgeries, the bandages, the secrets they shared, it was all one big lie. Apparently, Lucy had a history of lying.

WALSH: I was just completely shocked, even though I thought something was weird, I didn't think that she … who lies about having cancer, you know?

Walsh isn’t the only one who’s been duped into believing a friend has a serious illness. Turns out, it’s a documented behavioral issue called factitious disorder.

MICHAEL VITACCO: The factitious disorder is relatively rare, but maybe it's not as rare as we think it is. But certainly with the internet, with social media, we can become more aware of the things that are happening.

Michael Vitacco is a professor at the School of Public Health at Augusta University. In simple terms, factitious disorder is lying about an illness for attention or sympathy.

In Lucy’s case, Vitacco thinks perhaps,

VITACCO: She's looking to get the attention and support of her classmates.

There are many reasons for why someone might fake an illness: Childhood abuse or neglect, or it could overlap with other types of disorders.

Vitacco says Lucy’s specific motivations are unclear.

VITACCO: Certainly there are a significant number of mental health disorders that are associated with deception.

Walsh didn’t understand why Lucy would tell such a devastating lie. But she hoped for the best, and she tried to talk to Lucy after she found out the truth.

WALSH: Her face was bright red, like I had never seen anybody so red, but she wouldn't let me approach her, touch her. I tried to hug her, and she couldn't look at me, but she didn't say anything. She didn't say she was sorry, she didn't try to give any explanation.

The friendship was over. Walsh saw Lucy around school, but things were never the same, and she moved on.

Almost a decade later, that painful memory became sharper when Walsh herself was diagnosed with cancer.

WALSH: I think it made me more retroactively angry, because for the longest time, I just mourned the loss of her, and felt badly that she felt compelled to do that. But then when I had cancer, I was like, how could you lie about this? This is so scary.

That was when Walsh found what she suspected Lucy had really craved: deep, meaningful relationships.

WALSH: I felt so close to the people in my life that were there for me though... maybe I like felt a little bit of what she wanted to feel like, that people were going to be there for you and take care of you.

Walsh is now cancer-free. She wonders if Lucy is still doing this to other people, and what it would take to get her to stop.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Emma Eicher.

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