So my (24m) roommate (23f) [also currently transitioning mtf], struggles with mental health.
And my other roommate (23f) and I have to constantly take care of her.
We’ve been roommates for 7 months and close friends for over a year.
To clarify; she is our friend, and we care for her and want her to be happy and healthy. But it’s taking a toll on our mental health.
When we ask her to do her chores, she does them, but leaves them half undone.
The other day, she had a breakdown, and we had to sit and be yelled at for hours, trying to make sense of their triggers, and trying to help them get out of the depressive spiral they’ve been in.
We don’t know what to do- we both work 2 jobs, clean much more than our fair share, and when we have a day off, it always seems to get taken by drama.
We really care for her, and want to see her get better, but we are losing our ability to function ourselves.
It’s getting hard to sleep, to clean up after them, and to relax in our house, not knowing when we’ll have to deal with a meltdown.
Our current plan is to ask them to move out in a few months, but how do we keep our mental health without harming theirs?
Tl;dr: My roommate drains my energy, and I need help to deal with it until I ask them to move out.
1 comment
Do you tell the problematic roommate about the half-done chores issue? What was the yelling about, like was it directed at you all?
To preserve your mental health, set boundaries. It’s understood that they may be experiencing a difficult lifepath (of which I cannot fathom from my own experience) but you can only help so much. Are they able to seek professional counseling, maybe there’s even free group therapy for their situation? Maybe they need help finding it, and that could be your last overextended effort.