What do you do when a friend is so dependent that it's crushing you?

[ClockworkBlonde]

About three years ago, I noticed that an online acquaintance on the Xbox was struggling mentally so I reached out. Soon enough we were talking everyday on Messenger, in party chat or playing together. I started visiting him in QLD, he started visiting me in NSW. For all intents and purposes he was the closest friend I'd ever had.

About a year ago, he started exhibiting signs of intense jealousy and paranoia. Keeping tabs on me through game trackers, watching my activity, waiting until I was playing with other friends to start fights. He demands attention, so I have to stop what I'm doing to give it to him or I come back to 20 messages which can range from insulting and berating me to threatening self harm or suicide. The insults are along the lines of that I don't care about him at all, I'm a bad friend, all I do is lie and make excuses for myself, I'm replacing him. He latches on to simple semantics and will fight with me about it for hours. For example, I once told him I was just doing one more thing with another friend then I'll wrap things up to play with him. He timed me, then lambasted me with accusations as to why that thing took so long and why would I tell him I was wrapping things up if I wasn't.

I'm not oblivious, he's emotionally abusive and manipulative. I am his doormat. I in no way blame myself for anything he puts on me and I have made him aware that he manipulates and tries to control me through negative conditioning. We've had good talks about this and I know he actually cares for me, I've seen progress in his actions. He can be reasonable when he calms down, but when his emotions are getting the best of him I could be dying and his problems would still take precedence. No amount of reasoning and evidence will convince him that he's the problem, he will always play the victim.

I was already coping with several mental illnesses and a self-harm addiction, now with his unhealthy dependency on me I'm drowning. It's not as simple as blocking him because we share friends and he knows where I live. I don't even WANT to avoid him, I just want him to wake up to himself and be the friend I had for those two years. I've urged him to get professional medical help, but he refuses.

I want out of this situation some way, it's steadily declining my mental and physical health. But I've never been good at putting my own needs first. My walking away would mean more suicide threats, and I could not live with myself if he went through with it.

[kody_love]

Wow. That is such a difficult and exhausting position to be in.

Your friend is very fortunate that they have a friend who is so caring, patient and understanding.

It is clear that you know he is being unreasonable, manipulative, and coercing you into doing things.

I understand how it is the instinct to believe that if your friend hurt themselves or committed suicide, that it would be your fault. However, you should actively fight this initial thought because it is wholly untrue. Your friend has convinced you that you have some responsibility over them, over their actions, that you would be forcing their hand if they hurt themselves. Even with your friend's mental health issues, it is wholly their responsibility. It is wrong of them to dump it on you, to coerce you into staying in their life by threat of suicide. I am sorry if it sounds harsh but real friends do not do this.

This friendship is unsustainable. Although, as you say, he is more reasonable now than he used to be when he calms down, there seems to be no effort made when it is needed, i.e., when his emotions are at their worst. This is the kind of effort that would be needed in order to make the friendship work. This friendship is clearly more one-sided than a mutually beneficial friendship should be.

Clearly you have had discussions with him before where you have told him what he is doing. Have you communicated to him that it is unsustainable, that you will not be able to continue the friendship if it continues this way?

[Guest_1643]

Hi Kody Love -
I can see you feel empathy for his situation and feel sensitive to how you may affect him if you leave

May I suggest that is not the most important thing for u right now - you mentioned you have some hard things you are struggling with for uself - if he had any empathy at all - he would be aware that you also have some needs.

Sometimes in friendships vevry quickly a power imbalance emerges where one person is more loud and open about their struggles. Somtimes that makes the other person think "well i might have some things going on, but I'm not as important/urgent/in need of help as this loud, obviously vulnerable person, so I guess it's more important that they get the help - I'll put myself second."
You are number 1 kody love. It's also interesting to think how leaving him as a friend could actually help him more in the long run - as he will learn to rely on himself and develop some coping strategies (in an ideal situation - of course, he could also jsut find someone else to lean on and rely on....) stay strong kody love, ur worth it and you matter.

[Guest_1643]

oops - sorry confused usernames - read both the messages! Thanks for u helpful comments Kobylove to ClockworkBlond who is the op.

[Emmen]

Hello ClockworkBlonde,

Welcome to the forums.

Reading your post brought back difficult memories of a friend I once had who was very much like yours. Like you, I started feeling like the dependency was crushing me. Speaking to him felt pointless since he'd understand at first, but later twist what I said to make it sound like I abandoned him. And then I'd start feeling guilty for being mean to him. He was also suicidal and I was in constant fear that if I stopped talking to him, he would commit suicide and that his death would be my fault.

Since his dependency was wearing me down and causing my mental health to slip, I had to stop being that sole friend that he depended on. I had to cut contact with him because there was no other choice since I had already tried explaining the situation to him multiple times and failed. A counsellor told me that I was in no way responsible for his life and that I needed to understand that. I was not his caregiver, and his life choices were his own to make.

He knew where I lived as well, and I was terrified he'd come and find me. But I also had very supportive mutual friends who I confided in, who made sure they were there for me to help me recover. Those mutual friends also began noticing his behavior more closely after I told them what was going on, and they realised that the way he behaved with me was different from how he behaved with them. A few weeks after I stopped talking to him, he sent me an email and I explained again that I had to look after my own mental health. He didn't contact me again after that.

I hope that my story will help give you some clarity as to what the future could bring if you did cut contact with him. Personally I think you should consider telling him that you need some time to yourself and then slowly cutting off contact with him. It's best to take one day at a time rather than to worry that he may come to your house and find you. And most definitely confide in people you can trust (those mutual friends if need be).

Do share more if you feel comfortable.

Kindly,
M

[ClockworkBlonde]

I've told him that I'm not sure how much longer I can go on with things the way they are. But I've also always said that I'm here for him no matter what, and it's sort of hard to reconcile the two ideas. Like it would make me a liar, and I know that's what he would latch onto as well.

"So everything you've ever told me is a lie and the friendship meant nothing" - Something to this effect has been said many times before. And even though I know it's entirely unfounded I really take such things to heart because I've sacrificed my health and even my work success to try repair this friendship, yet somehow I'm always "giving up". Many times while he's berating me I've said "I need to stop this now for my safety, please respect that" and that's apparently me giving up.

In our talks while he's calm he's told me to always, no matter what, look after myself first regardless of what's happening with him. But then he doesn't let me? I have no idea what do to in those situations.

[Guest_1643]

hey -

"I need to stop for my own safety"

how would you respond if someone said that to you? What would your first thought be?
I'm guessing, from your posts, you have a great amount of empathy - and your first thought would be concern and a need to help the person, whatever way possible, realising how serious it is due to the word "safety"

it seems you say such a thing to your friend and not only is there no concern, no empathy and no stopping, he is critical of you for "giving up"

this is an odd response and not fair to u

[Guest_1643]

also you did the right thing - set a boundary and used your own feelings to describe why it needed to be -

didn't attack, insult, just said wat you were feeling
It doesn't work because this person unfortunately doesn't respect boundaries. I'd be honestly a little bit worried about continuing to engage as this person seems to take advantage.

[ClockworkBlonde]

I think a lot of this would be easier if he had anybody else, but he doesn't. Some of the people we play with online are his school friends and even they spend most of their time avoiding him, which somehow becomes my problem, or they're speaking their minds (and he CANNOT take criticism, despite being perfectly okay doling it out by the truckload and in no constructive way) which also becomes my problem. He'll never address the person actually involved, it all just lands on me like I have all the answers and it's my job to resolve it.

Every problem in his life, despite my having no sway or involvement over the situation, becomes my problem. I've been called his mother, his therapist, his babysitter by our mutuals. I've told him that there's no room in our friendship for me. He has responded to this with apologising that he's become somebody I can't open up to and telling me he wants me to share my feelings more. Then every time I do, he takes offense one way or another and has even straight up told me my feelings are wrong.

What can I even do here? I am literally all he has but that is far too much responsibility and I'm not coping at all.

[ClockworkBlonde]

I'm sorry you had to deal with that, and I'm so happy for you that it turned out okay. Sounds almost idenitcal to what I'm dealing with.

I've been told I'm empathetic to a fault, and I think that's a big part of my problem. I'm the only real friend he has left, so removing myself would leave him with absolutely nobody. Even with me in his life he's talking about ending it because "we're not how we used to be" and "every day is worse than the last". So even though nothing I do seems to help anyway take me out of the equation and I'm convinced that he'll do it. It's going to be on my conscience no matter how irrational I know it is to take responsibility.

This week he had a blow up at me over something other people did, which was somehow my fault. I'm dealing with constant and debilitating pain from cholelithiasis at the moment so the stress of the argument had me vomiting, and the vomiting made the pain bad enough for me to black out. That was it for me, I told him I was taking a day to myself, it was not a request and to not contact me at all for that day. He was sympathetic and complied without resistance, but the last thing he said to me was "But I still want to talk about X situation when you're back". So I spent the whole day anxious out of my mind that the next day would be more of exactly what I wanted the break from in the first place.

There just doesn't seem to be a way to gain distance at all. He's of the mind that his problems are 100% warranted, 100% truth and 100% priority. Anything to the contrary is wrong, there is no rebuttals or alternate explanations. Anything I do for my own good will just stoke the fire until it explodes. Gosh I hope beyond hope that it could turn out the way it did for you, but I have very little faith of that possibility knowing what I know about him.

Despite the anxiety I did have a good day alone, so your idea is one I will definitely consider. Thank you, and congratulations on escaping an awful situation. I wish I had your strength.