I have a very close friend of mine who often gives me advice that I don’t want to hear. Sometimes it’s good advice such as financial advice but sometimes I just feel like whenever I have any conversation with her she makes it into a lecture or pretty harsh. I’ll usually say you make a valid point but this is how I personally see this and she will get mad and say no I’m right and if you can’t see that then you can leave. Most of the negative stuff is about my depression whenever I try to speak on my struggles of dealing with depression she will step into the conversation and say you are only depressed because you choose to be why are you depressed I would say I don’t know I don’t know why I feel depressed I just sometimes will go into a episode and she will say but why? Because if you can’t find the reason then you aren’t depressed. Then it goes to a back and forth of me trying to figure out how to get her to understand how my depression works but it never goes through to her. She’s pretty sensitive so idk how to just tell her I feel like you constantly just criticize everything I do or say and It makes me really uncomfortable especially when I never do it to her only if she asks me for my opinion there are other things like how I eat, how me and my bf view our relationship and she happens to be with us in a conversation, about what type of career I want etc etc and I’m sure she means it with good intentions she’s just being more harsh but I never asked for the advice in the first place especially when I’m just trying to vent or even just mentioning my struggles like a simple “I have depression and adhd so there are times when life gets really hard but I try as best as I can handle” idk maybe I’m just really overthinking this whole thing but yeah what’s your advice?
2 comments
a) tell her that unless you ask specifically, you don’t want to hear advice, no matter how well-intended it is, because it makes you feel bad.
b) don’t vent to her.
I’m speaking only for myself here, but I cannot deal with people who need to vent about same issues over and over and over. I’m not saying you’re doing that, but if you are by any chance, it may be helpful to know that it can be very draining on some people to hear recaps of same problems. In those moments advice is usually given as means to “please, FFS, do something about this, because I can’t listen to your woes anymore”.
Tbh I had a friend that would constantly tell me they were depressed, make zero effort to help themselves and expect me to be at their beck and call in order to comfort them. I was empathetic at first, but it became tiresome to have to listen to ‘I’m depressed.’ ‘Well are you doing anything to try and understand or help yourself?’ ‘I dunno.’ ‘Sigh. Ok.’
Maybe she’s just burnt out. She’s not a medical professional. It can be really tiring.