I made a post last month about my friends mum who was in hospital at the time. She has now died and I’m trying to be there for my friend. We don’t live anywhere near each other. We are a 3 hour drive away or 4 hours on the train. My friend doesn’t have any other support at all, only me. She has no other family, apart from her sister who she doesn’t get along with, and she has very few friends. The friends that she does have are in other cities and she isn’t close to them like she is with me.
She has asked me to go to her mums funeral with her as she won’t have any support with her while she’s there. She’s made it very clear that she will feel much better with me there and text me to say “I am anxious that you won’t be able to come” the problem that I have is that I only have 2 days left of annual leave. I was saving them to book a long weekend away in December with my partner, but in this situation I would be willing to use them to support her through her mums funeral. However, we crashed our car a few weeks ago and currently don’t have one so I would only be able to get there via train which is £140. I thought of trying to borrow the money, but I’m not sure who from as none of my family really have a spare £140, we aren’t a very well off family and to me, £140 for train tickets is extremely expensive. I do feel selfish for caring about having to give up my annual leave and spend such a large amount of money on the train. But I feel that in her position, I really should do all I can to support her, so I am seeing what I can do to go. I have put the AL request in at work but my other colleague is also off that week and usually only one of us can be off at a time, so I’m not even sure if it will be approved. I was thinking I can explain the situation to my boss, then he may let me take just one day. Should I be doing all I can to be there on this day, or is it ok for me to tell her it’s not feasible due to work and finances? I feel so torn because I truly truly want to be there but it’s coming at a cost to me, especially because I suffer with chronic fatigue from a heart condition, and getting the train there in the morning to then spend all day being emotional support is going to affect me. But then I feel awful for thinking about myself when she is in a worse position and really needs me?!
Secondly, she texts me and calls me every day. She unloads onto me all of the time, because she has no one else. During work my phone will be flashing with a stream of texts from her, at home when I’m with my partner after a long day, she will be calling me in tears and I’ll be on the phone with her for two hours. This is expected and I understand and don’t resent her at all, I am glad that she finds it helpful to talk to me, but i can’t pretend that it isn’t hard to be someone’s only form of support every day whilst also dealing with my own life. She has text me today about her sister again, she tells me everything her sister has done and said and I don’t know how to respond anymore. It’s weighing me down but then I feel like the most awful human because she’s going through the worst time of her life and I feel like I shouldn’t feel like this. I think I’m a bad person and a bad friend and I don’t know what is reasonable to feel and what isn’t.
Could I please have some advice on how to handle being her only support and how I keep dealing with this without it affecting me? I feel like in this situation I can’t really have boundaries because I need to step up and be there for her in her time of need. But also I can’t just put my own life and feelings and finances and health issues on hold or to the side. But if I don’t, I feel like I’m abandoning her. My heads all over the place!