So I have been friends with this girl, I'm gonna call her R, for about a year now. Me and her are in a friend group of about 5 (including the two of us). I'd say out of everyone else in the group, she's closest with me. She's been a really good friend up until about the last few months.

Just to preface this, all of us are in middle school, and none of us are all that popular. In fact, most of us are considered some of the "weird kids" of the grade.

Anyway, R is really fun to hang out with. She's funny and very engaged in the same interests i have (e: horror games, anime, etc.) but recently she's sort-of been different. She started hanging out with a different crowd sometimes this year, which i really don't mind, I don't own her or anything, but the group has some people you wouldn't want to hang out with.

Specifically two main people that are the closest we have to "bullies" in the grade, I guess. They don't have a problem with me but they're often rude and talk a lot behind even their own friends' backs.

Ever since she started hanging out with them, she's been acting differently to the group. Just today in our gc somebody made a joke or something and her response was "Omg you guys are so stupid" and then followed up with "but i guess its my fault i chose to be friends with you, so maybe I'm the stupid one in the end 😝😝"

Anyway, it came off to everyone as seriously off-putting. And this isn't the first time she's made weird comments like that in the last couple of months. Sometime late march, she told me with a straight face "Every time i look at you it reminds me to clip my nails and shave between my eyebrows." at first i just kind-of shook it off like a "haha, you're totally joking" but then she repeated it again on april first and i got upset.

I was more mad that she would say that to her best friend than anything else; im not insecure about anything she said but i found it really rude and out of character for her. I confronted her about it that night and she tried to say that it was an april fools joke, which ticked me off.

1, If it was an April fools joke she would have said it was right after,

2, She originally said it DAYS before April fools,

and 3, what type of april fools joke is that? "oh yeah you're ugly. just kidding april fools."

When i called her out on how that CLEARLY was an excuse she sort-of brushed it off and then not even a minute later said "sorry tho it's because of PTSD from my past friend she made me rlly mean, i'm still trying to recover from it". I don't know it just kinda made me more upset in the first place, it felt like she wasn't being genuine and was instead trying to change the subject to herself.

You should know that i'm not very confrontational, according to most of my friends they haven't seen me angry before, and i'd like to say im pretty forgiving. So I let that text slide and just said ok fine, and left it at that.

She's vented to me about this past friend before and i was nice about it, and thought i'd always be nice about it, but she keeps bringing it up and every time she does it feels less like a real story and more like an excuse. According to her, this friend was from her past school and "made her mean" and she has PTSD from it. (i know it sounds redundant because i basically already said this but that's literally all she's told me.)

But i found this odd because often times people don't just change others on a whim like that. often in those types of situations the victim is manipulated into things but once they are away from the manipulator they generally go to how they were. Not only that, but R transferred to this school in 4th grade. So the person that manipulated her and "changed" her whole personality was a 3rd grader, which i find very hard to believe.

R has actually had a history of being very attached to a certain friend for around a year and then dropping them and switching to another. I'm friends with a lot of the people she's done that to and according to ALL of them (5 people, all girls) she had a crush on them at the time.

I KNOW this is happening with me as well because just about a month ago she confessed she had a crush on me. I turned her down but i know for a fact that she still has a crush on me, because she's told a friend i'll call J, and it made J feel sort-of uncomfortable how she talked about it so she forwarded that to me.

In fact with her "crushes" she's borderline obsessive over them. She will follow each almost like a dog and one of her crushes, E, she apparently "stalked" during recess in lower school. According to J, E's best friend, R was watching E behind something during recess. When J caught her and asked what she was doing, she said something along the lines of "Isn't it just so cute how she talks to herself like that?"

I don't believe she's done anything of the sort to me, but she has said things in front of me to test my reactions, i guess? I don't know, just about a week ago she kept saying how she's never seen me mad before, and she wanted to know what it was like. I shrugged it off as a joke but then she actually started to try to make me mad (and admitted to it).

Basically she would steal my stuff (most often my earbuds, but sometimes other electronics or personal items) and hide it. Sometimes she asked people to help her do it, but i guess i got sick of it about a week ago when she convinced another friend of mine, S, to do it with her.

She'd taken my computer, Ipad, and earbuds (which i need for school) and told S she was going to go hide them in my locker (which was halfway across campus from where I was at the time.) S was like "haha ok i guess?" and did it with her but when they came back and I asked where my stuff was, she immediately told me. I got mad and stormed out of the room, and according to S the moment that i left R started giggling and was excited that i got mad. R apologized for that later that night with some further help and encouragement to do so by J, and i forgave her.

Even after i forgave her though, she distanced herself and didnt even interact with me, even though i'd already told her it was ok over text. She seemed almost eager to hang out with her new group instead of our own. According to one of her friends, She was only in our current group because of me, and that she hated everyone else (minus J).

In fact, she'd tried to merge groups, and get me and J to sit with her at lunch with the new group, knowing full well that everyone else in our current group wouldn't sit there because they'd gotten bullied or talked about by members of her new group.

S, that friend that eventually helped R hide my stuff earlier, was someone that R had a crush on last year. R, S, and another friend were all a group together, but the moment R met me she dropped that group to hang out with me. According to the third friend in that group, A, she'd hated me at first for it, but got over it once the two of us became friends. (i do feel bad about that, i didn't know that she'd dropped all of her time with her other friends just to hang out with me)

That isn't the first time she'd done that either, according to J, R, E, and J were all in a group together in lower school, but then in 5th grade, during lunch R completely flipped her feelings about both of them, saying she hated them both and then left them alone crying to go sit with someone else.

So, with all of that, you may think, oh, so the only trauma she says she has is from that "past friend"? no, she actually almost had like a phase, where she was obsessed with telling everyone in our current group that her parents were abusive. In the gc, i had said that i might actually get my parents to call the police, but then she responded with "NO I DON'T WANNA SEE MORE MARKS PLEASE" i got worried and I pressed her on that later and she said that she had never actually been hit at all.

Once someone in the group made a joke like "omg that is so abusive of you" or something, being satire, and R called out very loudly, "Just like my parents!!" and when nobody responded she repeated it again. i honestly feel like that was for attention, and i don't believe someone actually being abused would joke about something like that, or find it funny at all. (there are exceptions, but still.)

When I asked her furthermore on how her parents were abusive she didn't really come up with anything other than the fact that they limit her screen time very often. Which yeah, i mean that sucks, but that's not abusive. If anything her parents just seem strict, but nothing like that. Then again, i could totally be wrong and I feel sort-of rude for not believing her. I've never told her that though.

She's also lied about some "ptsd" that she got from S, (who is very sweet by the way,) where apparently S said she would grape her in a game or something. (again, which is VERY out of character for S. i'd asked her about it and S got very upset that R would say that about her, but didn't talk to R about it as far as i know.)

ANYWAY that is about all i believe. I know this is really long but thank you if you read all of it. AITAH for not believing R?