Latest news with #Simone
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
You're Estranged From Your Parent, But Your Sibling Isn't. Here's How to Cope.
Reviewed by Samantha Mann If you're a fan of Sirens, then you watched the difficulties and conflicts that can arise when one sibling is estranged from a parent while the other is invested in their well-being. In this pivotal miniseries, sisters Devon and Simone butt heads over the care of and responsibility for their father, Bruce. Simone has no interest in going back to Buffalo to care for her father after her traumatic childhood that often left her neglected, hungry, and dirty. Yet, Devon, who desperately needs help with their ailing father, simply cannot accept the fact that Simone has gone no-contact. This is a scenario that plays out in countless real-life families, not just on-screen. In fact, researchers have found that nearly 55% of people report that parental alienation is common in their family. For many, abuse is at the root. If you're part of a family where you've gone no-contact with a parent and your sibling has not, you may be wondering how to deal with this situation and still maintain a relationship with your sibling. Here, experts offer tips on how to navigate these circumstances without further strain and disappointment. Why Some People Go No-Contact With a Parent According to researchers, estrangement can be a somewhat taboo topic because it's the polar opposite of what society feels a family "should" look like. This stigma leaves many people feeling immensely ashamed—and often too afraid to talk about their experiences. But experts say estrangement is more common than you might expect and not something you should beat yourself up for—especially if you're the one who has decided to go no-contact. 'There is nothing in the rulebook that says you must love someone just because they're family,' says Jeff Temple, PhD, professor, licensed psychologist, and the associate dean for clinical research at the School Behavioral Health Sciences at UTHealth Houston. 'If someone is causing you harm or doing things you disagree with or if you simply don't like the person—you don't have to love them or talk to if they are family.' The reasons for estrangement are often varied and can include everything from differences in personality and religious beliefs to political affiliations, injustices, toxic personalities, and abuse. Estrangement often disproportionally affects LGBTQ+ people; experts say that when comparing estrangement from fathers, members of the LGBTQ+ community are more likely to be in a no-contact relationship than heterosexuals. 'In my experience as a therapist, the underlying issue often involves a child facing some form of abuse, including neglect, physical, emotional, and mental abuse, which can potentially lead to PTSD,' says Minaa B., LMSW, author of Owning Our Struggles. 'Due to these factors, many individuals find it challenging to maintain contact with their abuser, resulting in parental estrangement.' Ways to Reframe Estrangement While it's never easy separating yourself from a parent, experts say it may be the healthiest and smartest thing to do. It is often a last-resort when other attempts at boundary-setting have failed, says Jill Vance, PsyD, a licensed clinical psychologist and the founder of Wellspire Counseling. 'This decision typically follows years of attempting to maintain a relationship that consistently causes emotional pain and/or psychological distress,' says Vance. 'For many, choosing no-contact is an act of self-preservation and a way to protect their mental health and break cycles of routine relational dysfunction. This decision is rarely impulsive and almost always layered with grief, guilt, and complexity.' And while estrangement may sound like a bad word, Temple says it can also be looked at as a form of resilience where you choose your own psychological health over preserving a family relationship that may not deserve preserving. How Estranged Relationships Can Impact Other Family Dynamics It is important to note that estrangement rarely, if ever, occurs in a vacuum, says Temple. Instead, he says it can heavily involve and reshape the family system. 'Other family members may feel pulled into the conflict, feel like they must 'pick sides,' and often take on the role of mediator,' he says. 'All these situations tend to escalate tensions and highlight various family roles, boundary violations, and longstanding issues that have gone unspoken.' When a sibling chooses to become estranged from a parent, it can burden the other siblings with the responsibility of being the primary caretakers of their parents, leading to feelings of resentment, stress, and anger toward the sibling who chose to leave, says Minaa B.—much like was seen in Sirens. 'When estrangement is hard to reconcile, it can feel like a form of betrayal by other family members, impacting their relational dynamics,' she says. 'Some family members might take it as a personal offense, leading to a disruption of the relationship, while others may feel inclined to convince the estranged person to make contact again.' These dynamics also can lead to a sense of imbalance, awkwardness, or even confrontation of challenging relational dynamics that have been long avoided, adds Vance. 'For some, it opens the door to deeper honesty; for others, it can create painful divisions.' Strategies For Maintaining Your Sibling Relationship Maintaining sibling bonds in the context of parent-child estrangement requires intentionality, openness, and respect, says Vance. Here are some strategies for maintaining your relationship and minimizing conflict. Avoid Triangulation One of the most important things to look out for is triangulation, says Vance. 'Triangulation is a psychological and relational dynamic where two people in conflict involve a third person to reduce tension or stabilize the relationship—often at the cost of healthy boundaries and direct communication.' In order to avoid this, Vance says not to use the connected sibling as the go-between for intel about or indirect communication with the parent. 'One effective way to accomplish this is for siblings to set firm boundaries about what topics are off limits for conversation.' While these conversational boundaries may feel challenging or restrictive, Vance says it's essential to respect each other's needs in order to prevent dragging parent-child conflict into the sibling relationship. 'You don't have to agree on the relationship with your parent, but honoring one another's decisions preserves mutual respect.' Find Common Ground According to Vance, it's equally important for the siblings to check in relationally, not just logistically. 'Taking steps to ensure that your bond does not just revolve around managing the estrangement is key.' Also, keep in mind that just because you share a history with your sibling, you don't share perspectives, says Temple. 'You have different histories and experiences. And both your perspectives are valid.' Refrain From Being Judgmental In relationships, people want to feel safe and know that their needs are heard, even if those needs are not understood by other family members, says Minaa B. 'This means that when a person chooses to be estranged from a parent, they want that choice to be respected rather than being pressured to change their mind, guilt-tripped, or made to feel responsible for someone they prefer not to be accountable for,' she says. How to Approach Holidays or Family Gatherings Holidays tend to be an emotionally loaded time for individuals who are estranged from their parent or parents, says Vance. 'This is often a time when estranged parents will attempt to make contact with their children, which may lead to intense feelings of grief, guilt, and anxiety.' Vance recommends that you make a strategic plan about when/how/if you will check email, texts, and even snail mail to avoid being taken off guard with unexpected and undesired contact. Also, if attending family gatherings is out of the question, she suggests considering creating your own rituals. 'Holidays don't have to follow inherited scripts,' says Vance. 'It's OK to build new traditions that reflect your current values and emotional needs.'Overall, knowing how to navigate the holidays when you are estranged from a parent, can be a challenge, says Temple. 'If you involve yourself, the reason you're estranged will likely emerge. If you don't involve yourself, you may feel left out and lonely.' He says some things you can do to soften the blow are: Talk openly beforehand with your sibling about what you're comfortable discussing. Discuss mutual strategies you can use to avoid or pivot away from certain topics if they come up. Choose how you connect. For example, he says you can limit your time or celebrate separately. Set realistic expectations, acknowledge the fact that it won't go perfectly, and plan for it. 'Remember that you are not required to attend family gatherings of any kind,' says Temple. 'If they are too hurtful or no longer work, create new rituals and find meaningful ways to mark occasions that feel safe and authentic.'When to Reach Out for Help If you notice that being estranged from a parent is disrupting your mental health, Minaa B. says it can be helpful to reach out to a therapist who can provide you with tools for managing your trauma, the challenges of estrangement, and all the grief and complex emotions involved in the process. Many people experience family struggles of one kind or another, adds Temple. However, if the estrangement is interfering with your daily functioning, emotional health, or ability to maintain other relationships, he says it's time to reach out to a therapist. Minaa B. adds, "Support groups for people who choose parental estrangement can also serve as an emotionally healing space to grieve, unpack, and process your emotions in a community with others who can relate." Read the original article on Parents Solve the daily Crossword
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley review – teenage mothers and melodrama
Writers sometimes talk of giving birth to their books, but probably very few are also working as doulas. It's an experience that clearly informs Leila Mottley's new novel, The Girls Who Grew Big, in which the struggles of pregnancy and motherhood loom large. Mottley's work as a doula comes in addition to writing a bestselling debut novel, Nightcrawling, and featuring on Oprah's Book Club; she was also youth poet laureate of Oakland, California, in 2018. But not much seems beyond the reach of the youngest ever writer to be longlisted for the Booker prize, back in 2022. The pity is that her considerable energy hasn't translated into a more satisfying second book. The Girls Who Grew Big tells the story of a gang of teenage mothers and the impromptu community they form in the humid disarray and general dysfunction of Padua, a fictional small town in the Florida panhandle. Led by their de facto leader, Simone, the Girls are a scrappy, ostracised handful of outsiders, variously rejected by their families and harshly judged by locals. Down on their luck and often abandoned by the adults in their lives, they resourcefully become a collective, based in the back of Simone's truck. At 20, Simone is the eldest, the mother of five-year-old twins Lion and Luck. When she finds herself unhappily pregnant again, she turns to the Girls for help. Among them is 17-year-old Emory, whose white family are appalled by her black boyfriend. She comes to the Girls when struggling to breastfeed her baby boy, Kai, and finds practical advice, sisterhood and support. Then new girl Adela washes up in town: a champion swimmer with college ambitions, exiled from her former life by an unplanned pregnancy and sent to stay with her grandmother for nine months. Emory is immediately infatuated, and soon the Girls find their community disrupted. Those are the bones of the book, and there's clearly something potent here: the raw lives of teenage mothers, the fierce bonds forged in adversity, the alarmingly unequal access to good-quality maternity care in contemporary America. And yet The Girls Who Grew Big ultimately lands awkwardly, emerging as a mawkish paean to motherhood. This is a well-meant novel about decent things – sisterhood and solidarity – but its sentiment is never more sophisticated than this, and the writing too often sinks into the syrupy. Nightcrawling, Mottley's novel about an impoverished teenage sex worker in Oakland who ends up at the centre of a police corruption case, was a startling debut: miraculously lucid, politically pointed and tenderly wrought. But in The Girls Who Grew Big, when Mottley reaches for gritty realism, she often gives us something that feels gratuitous instead. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion The novel opens, for instance, with Simone chewing through not one but two umbilical cords as she gives birth to twins in the back of her boyfriend's truck. It's certainly striking, but it also reads like an unnecessary provocation. Simone reasons that her teeth are preferable to her boyfriend's dirty pocket knife, 'crusted in dried brown blood, shed fur from some long-dead animal, and Lord knows how many fishes' yellowed intestines', as Mottley seems intent on challenging the reader from the first. Later, calling in a favour, Simone reminds Emory that she 'sucked on her nipple just last week to get a clogged duct to flow again'. Birth is messy and women's bodies are unruly: Mottley insists we confront this. Her prose relishes the blood and milk, straight talk sometimes curdling into something more callow and needlessly graphic. Setting the novel in Florida allows Mottley dramatic licence and she makes the most of it. She has a hurricane hit Padua, and the Girls flee from it in their wildly veering vehicle. A storm fells a tree, which inconveniently closes the local Planned Parenthood clinic. An alligator turns up at Emory's high school like a bad omen. An orca beaches itself as if summoned by the novel's own need for symbolism and the Girls duly scramble to save it. Drama is Mottley's preferred mode, and the set pieces – a cat fight between Adela and Simone; a tense reveal between Adela and her new boyfriend – feel melodramatic rather than real. But the Mottley of Nightcrawling is here too, writing with poetic clarity in fleeting moments. She is excellent at capturing the mysterious quality of this neglected patch of Florida: its close, salty air, its turquoise waters and its white sands. She is believable on passion. When Emory gazes at Adela, she feels 'a crazed swirl at the bowl of [her] body', and she longs 'to know everything about her, even when she only gave me fractions'. But too often The Girls Who Grew Big feels overly ambitious, a virtuous rhapsody, determined to say something transcendent about young motherhood but stuck peddling folksy wisdom instead. The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley is published by Fig Tree (£16.99). To support the Guardian buy a copy at Delivery charges may apply.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley review – teenage mothers and melodrama
Writers sometimes talk of giving birth to their books, but probably very few are also working as doulas. It's an experience that clearly informs Leila Mottley's new novel, The Girls Who Grew Big, in which the struggles of pregnancy and motherhood loom large. Mottley's work as a doula comes in addition to writing a bestselling debut novel, Nightcrawling, and featuring on Oprah's Book Club; she was also youth poet laureate of Oakland, California, in 2018. But not much seems beyond the reach of the youngest ever writer to be longlisted for the Booker prize, back in 2022. The pity is that her considerable energy hasn't translated into a more satisfying second book. The Girls Who Grew Big tells the story of a gang of teenage mothers and the impromptu community they form in the humid disarray and general dysfunction of Padua, a fictional small town in the Florida panhandle. Led by their de facto leader, Simone, the Girls are a scrappy, ostracised handful of outsiders, variously rejected by their families and harshly judged by locals. Down on their luck and often abandoned by the adults in their lives, they resourcefully become a collective, based in the back of Simone's truck. At 20, Simone is the eldest, the mother of five-year-old twins Lion and Luck. When she finds herself unhappily pregnant again, she turns to the Girls for help. Among them is 17-year-old Emory, whose white family are appalled by her black boyfriend. She comes to the Girls when struggling to breastfeed her baby boy, Kai, and finds practical advice, sisterhood and support. Then new girl Adela washes up in town: a champion swimmer with college ambitions, exiled from her former life by an unplanned pregnancy and sent to stay with her grandmother for nine months. Emory is immediately infatuated, and soon the Girls find their community disrupted. Those are the bones of the book, and there's clearly something potent here: the raw lives of teenage mothers, the fierce bonds forged in adversity, the alarmingly unequal access to good-quality maternity care in contemporary America. And yet The Girls Who Grew Big ultimately lands awkwardly, emerging as a mawkish paean to motherhood. This is a well-meant novel about decent things – sisterhood and solidarity – but its sentiment is never more sophisticated than this, and the writing too often sinks into the syrupy. Nightcrawling, Mottley's novel about an impoverished teenage sex worker in Oakland who ends up at the centre of a police corruption case, was a startling debut: miraculously lucid, politically pointed and tenderly wrought. But in The Girls Who Grew Big, when Mottley reaches for gritty realism, she often gives us something that feels gratuitous instead. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion The novel opens, for instance, with Simone chewing through not one but two umbilical cords as she gives birth to twins in the back of her boyfriend's truck. It's certainly striking, but it also reads like an unnecessary provocation. Simone reasons that her teeth are preferable to her boyfriend's dirty pocket knife, 'crusted in dried brown blood, shed fur from some long-dead animal, and Lord knows how many fishes' yellowed intestines', as Mottley seems intent on challenging the reader from the first. Later, calling in a favour, Simone reminds Emory that she 'sucked on her nipple just last week to get a clogged duct to flow again'. Birth is messy and women's bodies are unruly: Mottley insists we confront this. Her prose relishes the blood and milk, straight talk sometimes curdling into something more callow and needlessly graphic. Setting the novel in Florida allows Mottley dramatic licence and she makes the most of it. She has a hurricane hit Padua, and the Girls flee from it in their wildly veering vehicle. A storm fells a tree, which inconveniently closes the local Planned Parenthood clinic. An alligator turns up at Emory's high school like a bad omen. An orca beaches itself as if summoned by the novel's own need for symbolism and the Girls duly scramble to save it. Drama is Mottley's preferred mode, and the set pieces – a cat fight between Adela and Simone; a tense reveal between Adela and her new boyfriend – feel melodramatic rather than real. But the Mottley of Nightcrawling is here too, writing with poetic clarity in fleeting moments. She is excellent at capturing the mysterious quality of this neglected patch of Florida: its close, salty air, its turquoise waters and its white sands. She is believable on passion. When Emory gazes at Adela, she feels 'a crazed swirl at the bowl of [her] body', and she longs 'to know everything about her, even when she only gave me fractions'. But too often The Girls Who Grew Big feels overly ambitious, a virtuous rhapsody, determined to say something transcendent about young motherhood but stuck peddling folksy wisdom instead. The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley is published by Fig Tree (£16.99). To support the Guardian buy a copy at Delivery charges may apply.
The Irish Sun
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
I was tired of having flat hair – but get insane volume with a £7.99 spray that you can pick up from Boots
MANY people would love to have big, voluminous hair, but it can be hard to achieve if your locks are naturally flat on top. However, one woman claims that a £7.99 spray from Boots has been a game-changer. Advertisement 3 Iona said she was fed up with having flat hair Credit: TikTok/@sparklesandskin 3 She said a £7.99 spray from Boots gives her hair a huge boost Credit: TikTok/@sparklesandskin Iona, who posts under She shared: 'This spray is magic if you have no natural volume at the root like me, and your hair is always flat. 'My hair is always flat at the root, whether I'm wearing it straight or curly.' She shared how she saturates the whole crown of her head, where her roots are usually flat. Advertisement More on Boots The beauty lover added: 'Then I dry it like normal, and I'll show you the after.' After blowdrying her hair, she showed her roots with more height and thickness than usual. She continued: 'Look how much volume it's given me. 'It's the John Frieda Volume Lift Root Boosting Spray, and it's only £7.99. Seriously a must-have if you have flat hair.' Advertisement Most read in Fabulous Exclusive Exclusive You can pick up the spray online and in stores, and it is 'designed to protect against heat, boost hair and thicken strands for natural-looking volume.' The Boots website states: 'Towel dry and spray Luxurious Volume Blow-Dry Lotion onto hair, concentrating on roots, ensuring that undersection and surface are fully covered. My hair's so thin you can see my scalp but miracle £8 buy fixes it in seconds 'Blow-dry hair as usual. 'For great body and lift, blow-dry hair upside down.' Advertisement Hundreds of people have liked Iona's post, with many saying they love it too. 3 Many people also raved about the John Frieda Volume Lift Root Booster spray Credit: Supplied One wrote: 'saaaame girlie !! Thought this was just me.' Another added: 'Love this for u.' The high street is also jam-packed with hundreds of products that promise to give your hair that oomph - but do any of them actually work? Advertisement Desperate to give my thinning and How to make your hair look thicker Fake thicker hair with these bulk-up tips from Trichologist Simone Thomas. 1. Try dry shampoo 'It doesn't just make your hair look cleaner but thicker too,' says Simone. 'It leaves behind an invisible residue that makes your hair smoother, thicker and easier to style.' 2. Switch your parting 'Flipping it over to the opposite side of where it usually sits will give an instant volume boost,' she says. 3. Go for Balayage 'It adds dimension, resulting in fuller looking hair,' explains Simone. 'Leave the roots dark and the ends lighter and your hair will look thicker at the top.' Remember to nourish the hair with a weekly hair mask to fight off colour damage.
Daily Mirror
12-07-2025
- Daily Mirror
'Laos shots killed my pal and I almost died too - we had no clue what was wrong'
Bethany Clarke, 27, and her best friend Simone White, 28, met in Laos, Southeast Asia, for the trip of a lifetime, but after consuming vodka shots that are thought to have been tainted with methanol, it ended in tragedy It was meant to be a fun-packed couple of weeks travelling through Southeast Asia for Bethany Clarke and her best friend Simone White. Enjoying free shots of vodka at their hostel, the pair couldn't wait to find out what their adventure would bring. Sadly, it ended in tragedy after the pair were poisoned by what they believe was methanol. Bethany, who was 27 at the time and lived in Brisbane, Australia, and Simone, who had turned 28 just a week before the trip and lived in London, Greenwich, met in Laos as a halfway point for a holiday together. They had been best friends since the first year of primary school, and after amending their plans to include two Southeast Asia countries, they were excited to explore Laos before heading to Cambodia. During the first few days of their trip in November 2024, they spent time in Vang Vieng, a small town on the Nam Song River in Laos, which had once been a notorious party destination for backpackers. In between activities, like tubing down the river, they stayed two nights at the Nana Backpackers Hostel after being impressed by its numerous "positive reviews". READ MORE: Dad heard 'loud bang' in Canary Islands hotel, then saw little girl impaled on glass At the hostel, they met one of their friends from home who had also been travelling, and on their second night, the three friends took advantage of the hostel's happy hour, offering free vodka and whiskey shots from 8pm to 10pm. That night, Bethany and Simone drank vodka with a mixer, like Sprite, but Bethany recalled it tasting "quite weak". "I remember thinking 'that's unusually weak', but I didn't think anything of it. I just thought it's happy hour, the chances are they're wanting to cut costs, so they're probably putting water in it," Bethany exclusively told the Mirror."I hadn't heard about methanol poisoning and about how organised crime rings would add methanol in, to cut costs." Looking back, Bethany recalled that the whiskey was "black" and that her friend didn't like it, but again, didn't think much of it. When the happy hour ended, Bethany went to bed feeling tired, while Simone and their friend went across the road to an Irish bar for some more drinks. "I just remember thinking I'm unusually tired, and I do get tired after drinking, but that was quite extreme. I don't know whether it was the methanol already kicking in, or whether it was jet lag. Looking back, it was probably the methanol". She explained that being asleep could have "masked" some of her symptoms. According to the UK Health Security Agency, the substance can cause "convulsions, blindness, nervous system damage, coma and death." The next morning, Bethany said she felt "weak and not very well coordinated". She added: "My brain wasn't really able to problem-solve or think very clearly. I had no hunger whatsoever, which, again, is quite unusual if you're hungover, but I just had no interest in food at all." Putting it down to being hungover, Bethany and Simone "forced themselves to eat something" and went out for their booked tour to the Blue Lagoon in the morning, before a kayaking experience in the afternoon. However, during the day out, Bethany said that they didn't have "any sensible conversation" but instead were just talking about how they were feeling, "it was like having the brain of a five-year-old, it was really, really strange." She also recalled Simone being sick off the kayak, which she said was "unusual". Later that day, they caught a bus to their next destination in Vientiane, but halfway through, Simone was sick and Bethany fainted and hit her head. "We didn't have any conversations with anyone around us, and nobody seemed concerned," Bethany said. Showing no signs of improvement, they went to a public hospital after being dropped off by the bus. Still unaware of the severity of the situation, Simone and Bethany were checked over and were told that it could be "food poisoning". "We had different diets, so that didn't make sense," Bethany shared. "They put an IV in me, which I reluctantly agreed to, and eventually Simone came into the room, still walking and talking. I gave her some electrolytes once she got a bed, but she threw them up immediately. "I checked her heart rate, and it wasn't bad. And given that she had eaten something, I wasn't too worried - at that point she had eaten more than me, so I thought maybe I was worse as I had fainted. We also thought that, as she had chosen to come in this last minute, she was presumably feeling a little bit better, but turns out the opposite was true." She continued: "Less than two hours later, she went into respiratory distress and was gasping for air. Simone wasn't able to talk anymore or look at me, her eyes were glazed, looking in a different direction." Simone was moved to the ICU part of the hospital before their friend suggested going to a private hospital for further care. They arrived at the private Kasemrad International Hospital in Vientiane, around 27 hours after they consumed their drinks at the hostel. Tragically, Simone's condition deteriorated, and she needed emergency brain surgery before being placed on life support. Simone's mum flew in from Kent to be with her daughter, and was given the heartbreaking ultimatum on whether to keep her on life support. Bethany said that doctors had to explain to Sue how to switch off her daughter's life support, and she was told she'd have to do it herself, due to religious reasons. Sue made the heart-wrenching decision to take the tube out of her daughter's mouth and turn off her life support. The 28-year-old died on 21 November 2024, just nine days after drinking the shots at Nana Backpackers Hostel in Vang Vieng. An inquest into her death earlier this year confirmed that Simone tragically died from a bleed on the brain. Simone is one of six tourists to have died from suspected methanol poisoning in Laos. The hostel closed, but now appears to be rebranded as Vang Vieng Central Backpacker Hostel. According to Tripadvisor, it is planning to reopen and is taking bookings from August this year. Bethany recovered, but has been left with the devastating heartache of losing her best friend. Now, she has launched the Simone White Methanol Awareness campaign to help raise awareness and prevent this from happening to anyone ever again. She has called for the government to do more to help travellers understand the dangers of drinking alcohol abroad, including putting up warning posters in airports. In addition, Bethany set up a petition for the dangers of methanol poisoning to be taught in schools across the UK. Bethany shared with us: "Since the poisoning, I've found out more information about Vang Vieng in general, because it does seem to have a history of very loose safety regulations. There were no documented cases of methanol poisoning in Laos when we were there, so how were we meant to know? It's frustrating that these cases go undocumented because no one really understands the true extent of what's actually going on." Worryingly, Bethany claims that "so many" of the hostel's reviews had been deleted, which she found out just days after the alleged poisoning happened. She claimed: "On reviews, people were saying that people were being poisoned and to stop serving these drinks, but they'd come back immediately, saying this is slander and all that. Then, less than a day later, the review would be gone from Google." This led Bethany to actively share warnings and messages on social media, while they were still in hospital, about the Vang Vieng hostel in a bid to warn others about the serious risk of the drinks. "I'm so glad I did that at the time, you don't know how many more people could have gone, it's so scary," she added. Describing her best friend, Bethany shared: "She was a very caring person, she had great listening ears and if I had any problems, she would help me out. She was an organiser, and she had a very busy social schedule and so many friends. She was my best friend, and I probably won't ever meet anyone like that again."
