wildfirewildone
Gold Member
This story begins about 4 months ago:eek:....I had a friend who lost her Pschodoc and therapist when their practice shut down because the landlord was going to sell the building and they were out in 30 days.....As a friend I naturally became very supportive.....listening to what she was feeling and attempting to be a sounding board for whatever she was going through....After her 5th call she started calling 4 to 5 times a week.....As a friend I kept being there for her.....She is schizophrenic and told me she has never talked about her illness with her husband....didn't want to "worry" him.....She then told me I was her only friend and could only talk about her illness with me...A warning alarm went off in my head at that and I chose to ignore it....Asking myself "If a friend I am.....I needed to tough out her difficulties with her"....She didn't like the new psychodoc that her previous one sent her to....He is Korean and has a very thick accent which she said she could rarely understand....so I listened to her complaints about him over and over.....Then her youngest son [age 18] had to have serious abdominal surgery and again I was there to again be supportive....I attempted to explain to her what her feelings could be about and kept trying to ease her fears......several weeks ago she started calling me EVERY day.....then 2 to 3 times a day she left messages on my machine if I wasn't home to get the first call.....And I listened and listened to her go over the same stuff over and over.....I started feeling really stressed and wasn't sure why at first....Along the way I had been encouraging her to get on a list at another agency that I knew about for a new psychodoc.....I had even gotten for her the phone number and approximate area where their office was.....She got a letter about 6 weeks ago from her old therapist telling her where he was so she could make an appointment to see him.....I'd ask her about every 2 days if she had done either of these....There was always some excuse she could find....There was also 3 different times when I set a boundry with her over how often I would be available to be supportive.....Which she totally ignored!! Last Sunday I set a boundry and had her agree to only leave one message then wait for me to call her....Monday arrived and while I was on the computer she called TWICE within 20 minutes!! I was rather irritated about this....but I waited a half hour to try and de-stress before I called her to remind her of the boundry we had agreed upon the previous day....She interrupted the middle of my first sentence and started on with her doctor complaints...which I interrupted angrily [I was STRESSED out to the max!!!] and asked her if she had made the call to the agency and made an appointment with her old therapist.....Asked her why....She said "I dunno" and then began complaining about her problems....I lost it at that point and yelled at her "Don't you get it!!!! I am too overwhelmed to do this now....My mom is going into the hospital!!!!"....Which she nastily replied " You're PATHETIC!!!!" I told her I was not going to listen to this from her....she started saying some other mean things and I told her if she didn't stop immediately I was going to hang up and she yelled at me "Oh, no you won't" and started up her meaness which I interrupted quickly and told her I was going to hang up now and then did so!!! She left a message the next day that we were no longer friends....and I shut the rest of it off.....I am soooo relieved!!!! I've been sleeping better and am a lot less stressed!! I had asked myself a few times in the past 2 weeks....If I get forceful with my boundaries and she breaks off the friendship.....how would I feel? I kept getting celebratory feelings!!!! So when I got her message I just about got up and danced!!! I was getting in really bad shape the last 2 months....with high anxiety levels which affected my well being.....increased PTSD symptoms that got to be very painful and sleep was nearly impossible...six weeks a go my psychodoc had to put me on a mood stablizer as my mood swings were really gone wild.....That's when I started thinking about what was it that had me stressed out.....It was her "using" me as a therapist and I had made myself very available as I thought that's what friends do....I found out that it was just about "killing" me!!! And I had been dreading every time I came home as to her messages she left....or even every time the phone rang when I was home....As I look back...It was 4 months of pure HELL!!!! I don't know why it took so long for me to realize what was going on.....I guess I thought a friend "had to".....WRONG!!! I have also learned not to get myself so entwined with anyone's problems....and that sometimes one has to yell loudly "NO..NO..NO!!!!!!!!! in order to have a healthy life....and if one's friend drops your friendship....she really wasn't a friend in the first place!!......FINDING PEACE
