I am completely emotionally drained and I don’t know what to do. My friend is going through a very tough time in her life right now. She’s split with her boyfriend and moved back in with her mum and her young son. Her mum is verbally abusive more often than not. My friend has no income except the little he sends her until she goes down to the welfare office, and then he asks to borrow money from her. My friend has bipolar disorder and is not on medication but has a fortnightly appt with a psychologist. She said she doesn’t need to be on medication as she is keeping her appts. She’s got next to no money so I’ve been lending her money even though I know she’ll prob never repay me.
All she has done for the last 2 months is continuously try to push me away “for my own good” and lash out at me in the expectations and I will block her and move on. She has said goodbye to me, told me she’s done with me and blocked me twice now this past week. Then unblocked me and told me I’d proved her right and she did the right thing. She’s now discovered Facebook has a 48 hour blocking rule and told me I have 48 hours left. It’s a viscous cycle of “I’m done, leave me alone and I’m going now”, so I stop replying and come back to a “you proved me right” because I stopped replying. She said she was wants to end things for my benefit because she’s not good enough or worthy of me. Regardless how many times I tell her that is not true. Because she’s constantly pushing me away I feel like I’m always being tested and if my response isn’t the right one it’s used a as a gotcha moment. She asks me why I keep bothering with her and I tell her I love her, she responds telling me to get a mental health check. It’s the same conversation daily for 2 months.
We have been best friends for 17 years and it has never been like this before but I’m at my wits ends. Nothing I say to reassure her works. She doesn’t trust me or believe a word I say. It’s constant. I wake up to in the morning to her messages and I have to stay awake, despite the time difference (I’m 2 and a half hours ahead of her and work a lot of morning shifts. I’m exhausted) till she has gone to sleep otherwise she thinks I’m ignoring her. She told me to be honest with her and don’t treat her like I’m walking on eggshells but anytime I try to say anything about how any of this is making me feel, I get told I’m making it all about myself.
I don’t want to abandon her, that is the absolute last thing I want to do but I can’t keep doing this. It’s every day, all day, me reassuring her and her just lashing out in an attempt to push me away. I don’t know what to do anymore. She tells me she is pushing me away because deep down it is what I want and what I need, even though it tell her otherwise. I’m tempted to tell her I need some space but if I do she’ll say she was right all along that I don’t care and haven’t been honest, but she makes it so very hard to be honest when she constantly twists my words around or puts words in my mouth when I try to tell her how I feel.
I did confide in one friend tonight because at work tonight my phone kept going off and I had to answer it or she’d flip out at me. She said I should just block her and move on, that she’s being manipulative. But I don’t think she’s being manipulative? Is she?