Depression Support Group
Depression is a real and debilitating condition that is often misunderstood by family and friends. Its meaning can range from a prolonged period of sadness to an actual mental illness with specific symptoms. Find and share experiences with others who are going through the same struggles.
A couple years ago, I struck up a friendship with a coworker, Meghan. When Meghan and her boyfriend broke up, the two of us became very close, as she leaned on me quite heavily to get through the breakup. Things seemed to settle after a while and we fell into what I would describe as almost a sisterly closeness. No topic was off-limits. She practically lived at my house. She got to know my husband and my friends very well.
Sometimes, I would notice that Meghan would lie to other people. These usually seemed like innocuous things, like what she was doing or who she was currently seeing, etc. I always had the impression that for Meghan, lying was easier than explaining certain things. Sometimes I also felt pressured to lie for her. I was fine with this, until I noticed she started doing the same thing to me. It felt like a huge betrayal; I thought we had an understanding that even when something was uncomfortable or difficult, we would be honest with each other.
Starting this summer, the frequency of her lying increased. Further, she became extremely unreliable at work, not showing up to do her part of shared projects and dumping everything on me last minute. She claimed that she was under a lot of stress, but I thought her behavior was selfish and told her so. Meghan does not react well to negative feedback of any kind, and she reacted very poorly to this. I felt like we talked it out, and I said I’m fine with pretty much anything aside from dishonesty, and she said she would work on being more honest. I thought this was a good place to leave it.
About two months ago, I received violent threatening text messages from one of Meghan’s friends, Jon. Jon had always come across as sort of a machismo weirdo Boston guy (I just kind of thought that is how all people from Boston were, honestly), but we didn’t really have enough of a relationship for him to ever contact me for any reason except to ask if Meghan and I would be going out on any given weekend, let alone to be violent towards me. The timing was odd because we were crashing at Meghan’s house after both my husband and I drank too much. The text message was essentially saying that if I did not leave Meghan’s house, bad things would happen to me, followed up with increasingly aggressive taunts to leave her house. (I obviously blocked Jon’s phone number after this.)
I showed Meghan the message and she was very upset and immediately started crying. I asked if she had any idea why he would send that, and she basically told him that she had talked to him about my telling her that I thought her lying and selfish behavior was inappropriate, but that she clearly wouldn’t talk to him again, etc. I felt bad for her for losing a friendship, but it was good that we mutually agreed my safety was more important.
Approximately two weeks after than, Meghan skipped a day of work (which sort of sucked because I had to do all of our mutual shared work again). I couldn’t get ahold of her, and later that night she sent me a novel-length text message about how she has started seeing Jon and that we can’t be friends right now, but that she still needed me to keep helping her at work. However, we still work together and share a significant portion of the same friend group. Oftentimes, I feel like Meghan is using the fact that we both know she can send Jon after me to limit my reactions. For example, her flakiness at work has only gotten more extreme (she dumped an entire week straight of shared work on me), but I feel like I can’t react because any negative feedback might result in violence towards me. This has caused me a ton of anxiety; I have almost daily panic attacks now that something innocuous might set either Meghan or Jon off. Panic attacks have always caused me suicidal thoughts, and the increased frequency of these panic attacks has lead to extremely persistent suicidal thoughts; so much that I feel like most days it is all I can do to quell them.
Further, Meghan fluctuates between periods of extreme warmth towards me and extreme aloofness. It’s hard, because I feel like I’m willing to forgive her, but I need her to be more consistent and to prioritize my safety. Recently I feel like I’ve been pretty liberal with my definition of warmth in that unless she is actively trying to be cruel, I consider it a win. Additionally, I’m worried about her. If Jon, who has essentially no relationship to me at all, is willing to be violent with me, then of course it’s not a stretch for me to worry that he might engage in violent behavior towards her.
1. go to the doc and get something to take the freak out away, because you can't function with that level of anxiety. I dunno. Clonazepam? Just a couple of them? Something to break it.
2. How you move longer term has 100% to do with the secrets you have told this woman about your life. Anything you have done wrong? any cheating? Anything like that?
If you have done nothing you can't handle your husband hearing, then stop all communication with her RIGHT NOW. Not another word. You are no longer her friend. AT ALL.
This isn't negotiable. You are being manipulated by someone who is a habitual user. you don't have to worry for a second about her trained bulldog, he is acting 100% on her instruction. He has no beef with you of his own. Do you understand?
So you are going to stop all contact, all relationship. She is not the person you think she is, she has made a career out of operating this way and you are just one in a long line of love-bombed, manipulated, abused and eventually discarded victims along the way.
She is performing a service: she is teaching the world about people like her. You can take this horror, this anxiety, this pain adn misery, and unpack it and discover a truckload of high quality lessons about humanity in there for you to use for the rest of your life.
:P
Don't warn her don't give her any last chances. You don't give the lion one last chance not to bite you.
Chances are only for honest people and she is the worst form of dishonest person.
So no chances. No warnings. just... she is a stranger now. She'll know the moment you reach your understanding that she has lost you anyway and you will find she dumps you with insult probably, which is fantastic because then you have a good reason never to go back. Right?
But before all this, you are going to have to find a way to mention to your line manager that you are doing all the work, and can limits please be put in place so that your work is done by you, and her work is done by her.
Have the conversation with the line manager, make sure they understand that you need to tread softly, and that you just need to step back out of doing her job for her without any fuss. Mention the tame psycho she has on a leash too. Bosses usually are capable of stepping back and letting people fall on the floor on their own,. If you know what I mean.
Because this is what you have to do. Withdraw. Carefully, quietly, wisely.