I actually posted this on Reddit for advice back in December 2020. I got one piece of advice that set my mind more at peace. Sadly my post disappeared for some reason when I was looking for it today, but I had saved a draft here and thought I'd post it for record purposes.
-
My friend and I have been close for around 7-8 years. Around 6 months ago, her boyfriend of 6-7 years broke up with her and obviously this hit her hard. Her other friends and I have been trying to comfort her and listen to her talk about struggling over the breakup and also her financial issues. She seemed to be doing better after the 1-2 months, then her financial issues cropped up again, triggered extreme stress in her and she basically had a breakdown. This brought back all her negative feelings about the breakup as well as an existential crisis. I think she was feeling angry about life in general and unintentionally lashed out at me when I was trying to comfort her. We talked it out after she calmed down, but I've still continued to worry about whether my words would just upset her rather than help her.
I've been suggesting that she should speak with a therapist about her feelings, which she finally agreed to do after she realised she has been putting a lot of emotional pressure on me and her other friends. It's now been 3 months since she started seeing a therapist. I feel like she's not been the same since the breakdown and we don't talk as much as we used to anymore. We used to talk almost everyday, whereas now it's weeks before we speak. The recent conversations are always initiated by myself. She used to initiate conversations more often purely because of our different personalities - she's more open and talkative while I'm more the type to keep to myself.
Now here's a little background on me. I won't delve too much into it but I've had a fairly rough past - I suffered through abusive parents, then came out of that environment straight to an abusive ex-boyfriend for a year. The friend I mentioned actually helped me a lot with just being present as someone I could talk to when I was dealing with the breakup. The first few weeks were rough, then I started university and felt like I could fully move on now that there was something to focus on. I had a difficult time in university as I had the misfortune of meeting girls who seemed to hate me for some reason and would talk down to me, plus I had to continue to put up with my parents' abuse. I had several breakdowns during these few years and have spoken with therapists.
Hopefully that gives a good idea of my emotional stability. I've struggled with depressive bouts and suicidal thoughts for about half of my life. It's finally starting to get a little bit better now, however I still frequently second-guess myself, irrationally feel like everyone hates me and am prone to feeling sad and angry whenever I think about the things I went through.
Back to my friend's situation. When we last spoke, she admitted that she's still not doing great and still struggling with the breakup. Neither of us have addressed that we're not talking as much anymore (she's still in regular contact with her all other friends from what I heard). This would easily be fixed by me making more of an effort to initiate conversations, but I'm finding it hard to find the motivation to do it. Our conversations end up going back to her feelings on her breakup and I feel like I don't know how to respond anymore. I don't know what I can say to make her feel better. I don't know what else to say to support her. I'm just starting to feel tired because I already struggle a lot with my own emotional problems and feel like I don't have the capacity to support another person. I just want to be left alone and at peace for a while.
I also feel like she doesn't really ask me specifics on how I am/how I'm doing as much anymore - for example, I ask questions like "how is x going at work", "how's the new x", etc. Our friendship is just starting to feel one-sided now that I'm initiating the conversations and the conversations are mainly centered around her.
I feel like I'm a bad friend. Maybe I should be putting side my own mental health to support her. Maybe I'm being selfish for wanting to talk about myself too in our conversations. Maybe I'm a horrible person for having these thoughts when she's the one actually going through a hard time and in need of support, since there's nothing actively causing me grief in my life currently.
I guess I'd like people's thoughts on whether I'm a bad person for not continuing to actively reach out to support her, or for people to basically give me permission that it's okay to focus on myself for a while so I can come to terms with all my feelings of guilt. I feel awful for not being able to help her through her breakup when she had helped me through mine. I just feel so tired.
-
The advice that helped me was that maybe she could tell her unloading her emotions onto me was too much and so she's withdrawing in order to not ruin our friendship completely. The Redditor also said there's a difference between temporarily supporting someone during their time of need and permanently supporting someone who can't move on.
I wish I had saved their post because they put it far more articulately than I did.
It's now been almost a full year since my best friend stopped talking to me much. We caught up a little bit now and then, but it didn't feel the same.
My fiance actually talked to her without me knowing and asked her to get in touch with me again. She did send a lengthy message, apologising for withdrawing and saying that it was because of our time difference (she lives in the US). Time difference had never stopped us before though, so honestly I still feel like it was an excuse. I think she just kind of stopped enjoying my company.
She asked me how I was though and if I've been doing anything new. She seemed like she was interested. It felt like how we used to talk again.
Then my fiance told me he had actually reached out to her first, which made me doubt whether she actually wanted to talk to me, or if she just felt pressured to.
I reached out to her a couple weeks later and she was just back to talking about herself again. I tried to bring up a few things I've been doing recently, but she doesn't respond to these and just carries on talking about her problems. This was what made me start withdrawing in the first place.
I don't think I can call her my best friend anymore. I'm quite certain she doesn't see me that way anymore. I guess sometimes friendships just fade and I have to learn to be okay with that.
