Hello everyone,

I am having trouble with a friend of mine and i am not sure what to do. This might be a long rant so please bear with me…

Lets see, it all started 4 years ago in college – we were in the same class, totally lost over our subject, attuned to literature and bonded over agonizing. I became her counselor in many ways (used to be that way for a lot of my friends because i have a knack for identifying certain things). Anyway it was all hunky-dory till then until my relatively lower grades and guilt over indifference prompted me to action in the next year. I became heavily involved in studying, classes and joined a number of societies. As you can guess, i no longer had the time to be an agony aunt. Naturally, the silent fights started. Meanwhile, i was having some problems with my room-mate and constantly fluctuating self-worth. She was obviously going through stuff as well. Eventually we patched up after some months and it was relatively peaceful. Then third year started, by then i was exhausted from working, confused about the future, my nearby friends were gone and had a shitty break-up and placement season. I guess i already had depressive and anxiety issues but this time, it just hit me like a ton of bricks and i just shut everyone out. I admit i have always been the type who likes to first manage her shit and then turn to others once it becomes unbearable.

This worked well earlier but not when i had prolonged bouts of non-functionality. Meanwhile, she too was going through a crises about the subject she had taken but not as severe as mine as she was able to function atleast. For me, i stopped coming to college, found it harder and harder to do every day activities, lost interest in life and progressively became suicidal. Anyway, i did have bouts of recovery in between and eventually made some hard choices – decided to come back home after the degree was over and just work on myself (its a 3 year one). Meanwhile, after many months when she learnt i was troubled, she tried hard to contact me but i just didnt respond. It wasnt just the depression, it was other stuff too – in the past, she has always had issues when people dont answer her calls or texts – gets very upset and agitated. When i go home after months, i tend to want my space while she wants to talk. Eventually, this resulted in her sending me upsetting long passages on facebook which sounded highly pushy, aggressive and retaliatory. Our friends often joke if we are in a relationship or something. Anyway, we are exact opposite – i like to be given my space while she likes to be prodded (thats how she cares). I am sensitive but not overtly sentimental.

She is highly sentimental and often, very aggressive in her approach. I hate conflict unless absolutely necessary. Somehow she always manages to push me into those unpleasant situations. Once she called me like 25 times because she was worried i wasnt picking up and honestly, all it did was give me an anxiety. She managed to procure my room-mate’s number to contact me. I know to some this may come across as a concerned friend but i need my boundaries. She keeps bugging me to tell her what is wrong, she wants to be closer etc etc but i dunno, somehow i feel very tensed with her. I find her very negative and possessive at times. Her obsessive need to be in touch is something i dont understand. I dont like talking much on the phone to anyone except family but she keeps posting these needy, sarcastic, hurt messages which just piss me off even more.

I have tried to be more open with her now – believe me, now i am more open with my closest friends and have reached out to the old ones but with her, i am just plain scared cuz she gets so freaky. And then sentimental too. I dunno why she doesnt get it. She behaves a bit possessively with her other close friend too. Honestly, i want to be away from her and maintain as much distance as possible till i feel normal around her – her past taunts, aggressive behaviour and excessive concern, pushiness have just repelled me. She is often so needy..I dunno what to do but she manages to send my anxiety levels over the moon!

Any thoughts? Thanks for reading, i know its long.

– Moongal