When my childhood best friend chose crystals over CAT scans

I've known Sarah since we were kids in pigtails trading friendship bracelets. She was always the one reading her horoscope at breakfast and knocking on wood, but it was harmless quirky stuff. Now? I barely recognize the woman sitting across from me, rubbing essential oils on her temples while insisting her chronic headaches are caused by a curse from her former coworker.

I'm a practical person. I believe in science, medicine, and common sense. But I've always tried to respect other people's beliefs, as long as they don't cross into dangerous territory. For years, Sarah and I had zero problems. She had her superstitions, I had my logic, and we met in the middle over coffee and conversation.

I got used to the contradictions in her house. A robot vacuum humming across the floor while a broom stood bristles-up in the corner "for good luck." A small dish of milk and cookies left out for "household spirits" – which I privately thought was just an invitation for ants and mice, but hey, her house, her rules. My own grandmother believed in stuff like that too, and she was sharp as a tack until the day she died.

I figured Sarah would follow that same path. Superstitions and common sense can coexist, right? Wrong.

Over the years, she dove deeper and deeper into what I can only call magical thinking. I tried to see it as just an unusual hobby. Some people collect stamps, Sarah collected folklore and remedies. When she got into herbalism, I actually helped her. I do believe plants can have medicinal properties – my grandmother treated colds with herbs and home remedies, and it worked. So I went along on her foraging trips, even when we had to harvest at specific moon phases or cut certain plants with wooden knives instead of metal.

It felt like a weird game. I could play along.

But then it stopped being a game.

Sarah stopped trusting doctors entirely. Every ailment now had some plant-based solution or ritual cure. Look, I get it – natural remedies can help with minor stuff. My grandmother swore by them for colds and headaches. But here's the difference: when Grandma's home treatments didn't work, she called the doctor without hesitation. She took her prescriptions, got her shots, did what medical professionals told her to do. Because we don't live in the Middle Ages.

Sarah refuses to see a doctor. For anything.

She's had persistent headaches for two months now. Two months. I've begged her to get checked out, to at least rule out something serious. What if it's a tumor? What if it's something treatable that's getting worse while she wastes time?

"It's not a tumor," she told me last week, waving off my concern. "Someone's put the evil eye on me, I just need to figure out who. I'll do a cleansing ritual at the new moon and it'll clear up."

Then she quit her job. Just walked out. She'd "divined" that a coworker there had cursed her, and that's why she felt sick. When I asked how she knew this, she looked at me like I was the crazy one for not understanding basic spiritual warfare.

Now she's job hunting, but it's not going well. One place didn't call her back. Another she refused to return to because she saw a black cat on the way to the second interview. She's finding omens in everything.

Last week I was at her place when a bird landed on her windowsill. Just a regular sparrow, probably hoping for crumbs. Sarah practically had a panic attack.

"Birds keep coming to my window," she said, her face pale. "They never used to. Someone's put a death curse on me, I know it."

I felt like I'd fallen into a bad TV drama. I tried explaining that her neighbors probably feed the birds, and seeds or crumbs are blowing onto her sill. Totally normal. But she just shook her head, eyes wide and fearful.

"No, this is different. This is dark magic."

I'm genuinely worried about her. Those headaches could be anything – high blood pressure, a migraine disorder, a brain tumor, an aneurysm. Every day she delays seeing a doctor is another day something potentially serious goes untreated. But what can I do? She's a grown woman. I can't drag her to the ER. I can't force her to get a CAT scan.

I've tried reasoning with her, but she insists she's right and I'm just "spiritually blind." She thinks I'm the one who doesn't understand reality.

I feel stuck. I can't abandon my friend – we've known each other for over thirty years. But I also can't help someone who won't help themselves. I lie awake at night wondering if I'll get a call that she's collapsed, that whatever's causing those headaches finally got too serious to ignore.

How do you help someone who thinks medical intervention is less trustworthy than moon water and sage smoke? How do you convince someone to save their own life when they're convinced the answers are in tarot cards instead of MRI machines?

I don't have the answers. All I know is I'm watching my best friend slip away into a world of magical thinking while refusing the real-world help that might actually save her life.

And I have no idea what to do about it.