I apologize in advance. English is not my native language and I’m on mobile.
Lately my friend of two years Jessica (21f) has been going through some pretty rough times due to anxiety. In January she needed some space from our friendgroup because of that, and texted a few of them, that she needs the space bc she feels uncomfortable in the friendgroup due to her personal problems, which is totally valid! Me and our mutual friend Mike (21m) were the only ones she kept in contact with.
After about a month or so she felt a lot more stable. But when she reached out via chat to the people in our friendgroup she distanced herself from, they were not that welcoming. One of them was going through a rough patch herself, so she also wanted alone time and spend most of her time at her parents place. The other one was hurt by a previous argument they had before they distanced so she wasn’t in the mood to spend time with her either. After that both sides did not try anything to resolve this.
For the last few month I have been Jessica’s main support system. She can’t get over the fallout with the two friends, won’t try anything to resolve it and has just been sulking for months. Im trying my best to support her; listen to her vent, giving advice and hugging her.
But now this has been going on for a few months and I’m starting to feel more like a therapist than a friend. Whenever we meet I can talk about my stuff for like 15 minutes before it’s about her issues, that haven’t changed in the last 3-4 months.
She always tells me that she’s there for me but I often catch her staring at her phone while I’m talking and quickly changing the topic as soon as I’m done. That really bothers me because the last month was pretty tough for me too ( I have diagnosed severe depression and ptsd so even tho I have medication I still get depressive episodes).
Recently I had a small birthday party with like 15 friends. She was in a bad mood that day bc the two others were there as well.
For the most part of the evening she ignored everybody, chatted with her online friends for two hours and than she cried bc she felt like nobody noticed her and that she’s been replaced by other friends. So I ended up comforting her for 3 hours on my birthday.
I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t happy that I spend my birthday evening comforting her about something we have talked about over and over for months. I’m really tired of reassuring her about the same things and that she never takes my advice on actually getting help or talking to those two friends.
I need some time for myself to recharge and work on my own issues. So I texted her exactly that.
She told me that she is sorry for thinking she could talk to me about her problems, that we would talk about my stuff all the time and she would already always cut herself short and that it’s not cool that I did this over text.
Now I feel like I left her in a time of need.
2 comments
NTA I had a friend like this and she was exhausting. I can’t say what’s up with “Jessica”, but in my case, my friend didn’t behave this way because she was a bad person; she just had a lot of mental health issues that I couldn’t fix for her and what support I was able to offer never seemed to be enough. Some people are so trapped inside of their own minds, it might be difficult for them to understand that everyone else’s lives don’t revolve around them and their mental health.
you did nothing wrong. you were very patient and supportive to your friend. from what you shared, i think your friend is not trying to help herself and for these people you can only do so much. communicate where you’re at and how you feel and if she disregards your feelings you deserve a better friend.