My difficult situation w/ my best friend

[Dingus]

2016, diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa. From year 10 to now, I’ve been dealing with restrictive eating habits and the inability to accept myself. I don’t want to get into huge detail so I’ll get straight to the point. Recently my parents split up, and my Dad moved to a different state for work, so it’s only my brother and I living at home. At the start of this year (2019), I started to become very close to a friend of mine who has had an awful upbringing and is currently diagnosed with depression and borderline personality disorder. I welcomed her into my home where she could get away from her Dad, who has bipolar and makes her upset. The year was going well, I started smoking marijuana with her as she was quite addicted to it. I eventually became addicted to it myself where I’d smoke it every night. I decided to quit smoking and our friendship took a huge turn. An incident happened to her (including her family) that broke her trust. Unfortunately my she has extreme paranoia and if one thing goes wrong, she crashes and burns. Throughout this whole year, it has felt like I’ve been her care taker as she would always sit on her problems and it felt like she constantly needed support from me. I’ve been losing weight recently and have been feeling quite frustrated and drained from all her negativity and breakdowns, so I decided to try and do my own thing for a while which got difficult as we live together. I would always tell her supporting advise, to look after herself, like what I’m trying to do, but she is extremely unhealthy and needed an adult to help her because I obviously wasn’t helping. It’s really upsetting to me because I believe I’ve began to dislike her presence and talking to her as she has become so intense with her language and very sensitive. She has abandonment issues and hates being alone which doesn’t help. For the past couple of weeks, I constantly feel like an awful person for not being with her as often as I was at the start of this year. Half of me is telling me to be with her and to support her, whereas the other half of me just wants to get away from this mess as I have my own life to deal with. I had a talk to her and pretty much let my feelings out, saying that I don’t think it’s healthy for her to live here anymore as it has become too hard to cope with and that I believe she needs better help... Apparently she self-harmed. I can’t stop thinking about this and I just wish I never put myself in this situation.

[Quercus]

Hi Dingus and a very late welcome to you.

Sometimes we all miss seeing posts and that seems to be the case here. For that I'm sorry and hope that you feel able to return to talk.

To say your situation is tricky is a total understatement. I suppose the part that stood out to me most was that your friend had self harmed. May I ask if they told you this or did you find out another way?

It might sound very strange to ask that but I have been in a position where someone threatened suicide if I left so part of me appreciates the horrid position this puts you in.

It feels soul destroying and is very unhealthy for YOU. Threats of self harm are recognised as a form of emotional abuse.

Self harm and your friend's safety is incredibly important, but so are you. This relationship is one that I would find very damaging and the reactions you've had seem totally reasonable to me.

In my situation I chose to leave because they wouldn't. Sometimes you do have to protect yourself first no matter how hard it is. Above all noone is responsible for our actions but US. It doesn't stop us feeling guilt and pain though.

I hope you are able to seek professional advice asap for YOUR own saftey. Relationships Australia is a solid place to start with experience in this area if you wanted to try their phone line.

If you want to write more I am concerned for you and would be happy to hear how you're coping.

Nat

[Croix]

Dear Dingus

I'd like to join Nat in welcoming you here. You have had to wait for replies, which is something we all regret, however the system does not always work as it should. You and the subject of your post have nothing to do with the delay.

Reading your account I think there are a couple of things for you to consider, and they are not being selfish, just practical. On aircraft it says:

"put oxygen mask on self before helping others"

Which is pretty obvious.

You mentioned you had an eating disorder you'd had it for quite a while and it was ramping up again. As I'm sure you know is highly dangerous, and takes time to treat. I know you said some of the reasons, however it is you living, and being healthy and happy that is my first concern.

So may I ask if you have competent specialized help wiht the anorexia? If not please do, it is life-threatening , see the Butterfly Foundation for more exact and practical information

https://thebutterflyfoundation.org.au/

I will compliment you on giving up the weed, that shows a pretty strong character and determination.

Like make who have affection or friendship you have seen yourself as a bottomless well of care and support, unfortunately this has not been enough , and now you feel torn between your survival , and the situation of your freind.

Yes she has great problems and coping by self-harm is not good, however such a complex problems needs a team of support, for the BPD, the paranoia, the drug use, and the self harm - as well as practical matter of living arrangements.

Thees each take their own specialist care, not the efforts of just one caring but untrained person to try to hold it all together and harming herself in the process.

Having mixed feelings, guilt plus anger is entirety normal, you would not be human if you did not.

Perhaps you can persuade your freind to reach out, our 24/7 Help line (1300 22 4636) would be a good start.

I do hope to talk wiht you some more

Croix