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Having a best friend that has had a relatively easy life is very isolating and makes me depressed. I’m starting to resent her

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The_One

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So I don’t wanna throw a pity party for me. I know life does suck it can be unfair it can be a bitch.
I know I shouldn’t compare my life to my friends or anyone really. I’m me, I’m myself. Life is messy and ugly. Life can be beautiful.
But I’m really starting to resent my best friend. I don’t want to feel this way but I really really am.

I get jealous of her because her life is so easy compared to mine. Idk all her inner struggles bc I know she struggles with weight and everything.
But her parents are rich, paid her way through college, she doesn’t even need to work.
She got into a car accident and somehow it was totaled she was okay but her whole new car was paid off by the insurance (what kinda luck is this)

While me, I have to work to pay off bills even if I live at home my mom is a single mom and she won’t support me unless I ABSOLUTELY need it. My dad died. I don’t have a paid off car. I had a student loan and pell grants that are now being covered by bidens loan forgiveness and when I told her this she sounded jealous???

We were working together for a couple years and whenevr we worked together I’d get the shorter end of the stick.
For example- first job, I got fired and she moved on (my mistake I was an Idiiot totally unacceptable and unprofessional behavior so maybe it’s not the best example)
Second job we worked together I’m laid off, she is kept on, promoted. This time it’s not bc of my work performance it’s bc of Covid.
Now she’s making ALOT more than me while I’m still recovering from being laid off. I got a job and was kicked back 4 dollars down after a year of no work. I got a new job and now make 1 dollar more . Ikay I know life sucks and it’s unfair but what the hell man. It makes me so mad.

Don’t get me started on dating or relationships. I’ve had two relationships and both failed. She has never dated a man seriously and she’s obsessed with getting married. She goes on rants about how unhappy she is being single and how much she wants to be married and why not me blah blah blah and it depresses me bc I feel the same way sometimes but I told her to delete IG because it will make you feel worse but she doesn’t listen. I deleted IG app off my phone. I don’t crave marriage like she does. Of course I do worry about it but there’s nothing I can do and I’m just not gonna settle just to be married.

I sound like a hating ass bitch, and maybe I am. Maybe I’m the toxic one. Yes I’m in therapy. Yes life sucks. But whenevr she complains to me about anything I can’t help but roll my eyes so hard.
I feel like I’m a lot harder than her and can handle a lot of emotions. She can’t. She can’t even handle pain like I can.

I don’t wanna lose friends . I barley have any now. But it’s just super super annoying .

Now she’s on Prozac and she’s a completely different person. She used to be laid back, now she’s anxiety ridden and clingy and super bubbly. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.
 
two of my own psycho ticks bubbled to the top of my psycho cauldron while i read your post, libra. isolating and self-sabotage. the first step in my own isolating and self-sabotage style is putting together a list of excuses for pushing away a person and/or opportunity. you've got an impressive list of excuse there. ship that lady off to the toxic person landfill, pronto! ! !

my pattern of isolating and self-sabotaging still holds, but i heal a bit every time i resist the urge and look for other ways.

but that is me. . . gentle support while you find what works for you.
 
what do you want to do?

What are the qualities from the friendship that you value and are important to you? is there a way to remind yourself of those when you get annoyed with her or jealous of her?

She's on medication for anxiety for a reason. Might be a reason you dismiss, but are you hearing her? Has her car accident impacted her? I know you feel she is lucky that the insurance covered the loss of the car, but a car accident can be traumatic.

Maybe examine why you compare yourself to others like this? And what you value in relationships/friendships?
 
what do you want to do?

What are the qualities from the friendship that you value and are important to you? is there a way to remind yourself of those when you get annoyed with her or jealous of her?

She's on medication for anxiety for a reason. Might be a reason you dismiss, but are you hearing her? Has her car accident impacted her? I know you feel she is lucky that the insurance covered the loss of the car, but a car accident can be traumatic.

Maybe examine why you compare yourself to others like this? And what you value in relationships/friendships?
If her car accident impacted her she would’ve told me. But then again she used to be really private with her feelings and at one point I used to think she has no feelings . She says she’s on Prozac for depression. And now that she’s on Prozac she is a lot more clingy and open with her emotions which is really weird for me and I’m not used to it.
My emotional patience has gone down ever since I started lexapro and I’ve been more irritable about certain things. I feel like I don’t have alot of empathy for things like I used to. So that might be what’s causing me to feel this way.

I just feel like she lives a very privileged life and I don’t get why she’s so depressed about it. But I’m not her.

two of my own psycho ticks bubbled to the top of my psycho cauldron while i read your post, libra. isolating and self-sabotage. the first step in my own isolating and self-sabotage style is putting together a list of excuses for pushing away a person and/or opportunity. you've got an impressive list of excuse there. ship that lady off to the toxic person landfill, pronto! ! !

my pattern of isolating and self-sabotaging still holds, but i heal a bit every time i resist the urge and look for other ways.

but that is me. . . gentle support while you find what works for you.
Yeah I do , do this. Especially after the pandemic And horrible breakups I realized I am fine on my own (I’m really not) I lie being social.
It just feels like if I try to have a boyfriend or love live or get married now, she will get very jealous. I know she will.
And that makes me not wanna date as stupid as that sounds.
 
I just feel like she lives a very privileged life and I don’t get why she’s so depressed about it. But I’m not her.
maybe she does have a very privileged life. But she's saying she suffers from depression, but sounds like you don't believe her or feel she has a valid reason to have depression.
Which means you're forming judgements about her mental health?

If you're medication is impacting your ability to have empathy, it's good to recognise that.
I just wonder why you're focusing on these things about her, and I go back to my question of what you value in this friendship with her and how do you want to be in friendship with her? if fundamentally you think you two are too different and can't understand each other, then why are you friends? Make new ones!
 
I waffle back and forth on these concepts. On one hand, I find it a challenge relating to neurotypicals. On the other hand, alienation and isolation are an anathema to my recovery. In the end, I prefer to find ways to connect with people rather than berate myself over the differences. We're all a little different, some are a lot different. Me, I have two of the most stigmatized disorders in the DSM and a whopping PTSD on top. Humanizing myself, and others, has been a lifelong road for me.
 
Yeah I do , do this. Especially after the pandemic

ditto here. my pre-therapy approach for this was to take time for therapy work before i started judging people harshly enough that i could feel justified in pushing them away. pre-therapy me was pretty brutal with my style of pushing people away.

the rendition which bloomed in the covidic petri dish is ? ? ? do we have a word for ^it^ yet? for sure i'm having trust issues with the pre-covid therapy which had me treating social distancing and masking like bad things. i'm starting to think it's a good thing that i was new to the area and my current lifestyle when corona crowned. i currently have nobody to push away and i even get awards for being a social distancing champ. good thing my social distancing psycho tick proved to be therapy resistant. i'm not feeling highly motivated to close those social distances.
 
maybe she does have a very privileged life. But she's saying she suffers from depression, but sounds like you don't believe her or feel she has a valid reason to have depression.
Which means you're forming judgements about her mental health?

If you're medication is impacting your ability to have empathy, it's good to recognise that.
I just wonder why you're focusing on these things about her, and I go back to my question of what you value in this friendship with her and how do you want to be in friendship with her? if fundamentally you think you two are too different and can't understand each other, then why are you friends? Make new ones!
Look it’s very layered. I think I’m not happy with my life and where I am right now. I want things to be different. I feel like she’s really codependent on me and she always has been since college. I feel like she leans on me too much for emotional support . I went through bad codependent relationships before and told myself I need to stop with these habits so I feel like I’ve become more independent when I broke up with these exes.
So there’s that. I mean also I feel like I’ve changed a lot since I’ve met her.
We have a lot in common, our cultures are the same we come from the same place. But I feel in some ways I’ve changed and she hasn’t.
And recently she has gotten really clingy. I started a new job and she did too. I’ve been really busy. Apparently she hasn’t been. We usually text everyday which is whatever . I was thinking we’re speaking at the same pace. Today she asked me why I was being so quiet she thinks I’m being quiet, like after work. I said no I’m just busy with work, which is the truth, I really am. I’m actually drowning in work, and I also said we have been talking everyday. Idk how I’m being quiet,
We’re supposed to meet tomorrow. She already asked me if we can meet for brunch next or the week after.
She has never really been this clingy before. So I’m thinking it’s the Prozac.
I’m sorry I’m being bitchy. Like I said I think my emotional patience has gone down a lot, especially since starting EMDR and then doing therapy in general. Plus the job tires me out. I don’t have time to emotionally spend my time worrying about her mental health. She never really cared about mine in the first place.
 
ditto here. my pre-therapy approach for this was to take time for therapy work before i started judging people harshly enough that i could feel justified in pushing them away. pre-therapy me was pretty brutal with my style of pushing people away.

the rendition which bloomed in the covidic petri dish is ? ? ? do we have a word for ^it^ yet? for sure i'm having trust issues with the pre-covid therapy which had me treating social distancing and masking like bad things. i'm starting to think it's a good thing that i was new to the area and my current lifestyle when corona crowned. i currently have nobody to push away and i even get awards for being a social distancing champ. good thing my social distancing psycho tick proved to be therapy resistant. i'm not feeling highly motivated to close those social distances.
I’m sorry I don’t mean to be rude but I don’t understand what you’re saying.
 
not to worry @librapisces4. i don't see even a bit of rudeness in the honesty to say you didn't understand, nor is it a shortcoming on your end. i do talk/write weird in all my languages and what i was attempting to say isn't worth repeating.

the global shut down yaddah blahs are especially hard to find words for. nobody's talking about it and the government propaganda doesn't give us much to go on.

i don't quite believe the silent majority who is pretending to be unaffected. for certain, i and my foster family were deeply affected and nobody seems to care. am i safe in saying public apathy is at an all time high?
 
I said I think my emotional patience has gone down a lot, especially since starting EMDR and then doing therapy in general.
I think there's probably a lot in this. When I'm getting worn out, my tolerance of anyone and anything goes down the gurgler. It goes from being annoyed by people who are shits, to being annoyed at people who are really just people.

Comparison with the people around us is apparently a survival strategy that has helped humans survive. But psychologically, it's shockingly unhelpful.

Your friend has a great life. Good for her. If you just can't tolerate her right now because you need to emotionally recharge and focus more energy than usual on stabilising after therapy, that's really normal. And it's okay to change the status quo, like how much you're investing in friends, in order to accommodate your changed needs as you do the recovery work.
 
I just feel like she lives a very privileged life and I don’t get why she’s so depressed about it.
Privilege does not in any way imply happy. At all. The problem is that you are comparing yourself to her (which you acknowledged). And you can't know what is going on inside her. You can't assume she tells you everything. I was viewed in some of my circles and super smart and happy and delighted with my life. I've tried to kill myself 3x. I have dealt with crippling depression for decades. I never used to share any of the bad stuff with even my closest friend.
 
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