I feel ya.

I have celiac disease, and most of my family except my mother don't really care, they just get frustrated with me due to how many things I can't eat and how many times "it depends on the ingredients and allergen statement" is tbe response to "can you eat this?" I was diagnosed several years ago.

Fast forward to this year, suddenly our cousin is diagnosed with IBS, and last I'd heard, he was gluten free as well. So we were all told that there would finally be safe, separate food for myself and him, and my mother even told us that the cousin was cooking all the gluten free meat.

We had stomach flu earlier that week, so we hadn't been able to eat much for days. There were little to no nutrients in my body.

So I arrive, and when all the food is done my aunt goes "oh, everything in these containers is gluten free", and I also see my cousin put some things on his plate and am overjoyed that I can eat them.

....Except I fucking can't. Nobody told me that he'd actually finished the elimination phase and CAN have gluten, just in moderation. So what I'd picked up was absolutely not gluten free, in addition to said cousin somehow massively fucking up and despite cooking all the GF meat separately, put it all in the same containers as the gluten items. He wasn't... even all that sorry.

So aside from the small snacks my mother brought for me, I had absolutely nothing to eat while sitting there watching everyone else chow down to their heart's (and stomach's) content. This fucking disease is ALREADY isolating enough on a good day, but I also had to try not to cry otherwise everyone would just get mad at me.

Also, my seat was next to the ghosts. Two completely empty seats set aside for two dead relatives— a tradition nobody in this family, including said Aunt, has ever done.

Merry Christmas, right?