Having a friend dilemma - I don't even know if it's all in my head

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I've made a new friend lately who I feel is trying to take over my life. When we drop our children at nursery, she follows me to wherever I go, and I had to strongly dissuade her from coming to the dentist with me the other day.

The truth is that now my daughter is at nursery, I haven't got a lot to do in the day, but sometimes I just want to walk around town on my own, or go home and sit and watch DVDs. I know that sounds dull, and not as much fun as spending time with a friend (and she IS a friend, she's very nice and fun to be with).

I used to be very very outgoing and sought company almost constantly. But recently I've wanted to spend time on my own. I am approaching a milestone birthday, and I am starting to feel like people's free councilor - they offload onto me. I used to like this, it made me feel important, but now it makes me feel used, and emotionally wrung out.

I seem to have become self centred and selfish.

So, I don't know what to do. Should I ask my friends to back off out of my life, or make excuses to be alone, or shall I carry on as I am currently, around people all the time? I don't know if this is 'right' for me, you see. I've always cherished having a lot of friends, it's not my normal reaction to want to back away from people. generally I love all my friends so much I'd have them move in with me forever if I could, but right now I just want them to leave, fuck off stop talking.

It's me, isn't it.

What would you do? (And why is this happening to me?)

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My DD is at nursery every morning and i absolutely love having time alone then, and wouldn't like to have to spend every morning with someone else either.

i'd just tell her you have something else to do.

sorry you're feeling like this.

I don't think it would be best for you to tell someone to back off out of your life - if as you say you do, you actually like them, you used to enjoy company and it is something in you that has changed, not anything they've done.

However, that doesn't mean you should suffer in silence! You can tell someone in a nice way that you have plans or it's just not convinient for them to come along / over right now.

"I'm busy today, but how about meeting up for a coffee on wednesday?"

"I can't right now, but you could come over next week, we can have a gossip and a bit of cake"

etc etc

You get some space, you get some control but you do it in a way that makes them feel that you do want their friendship still.

But also, I think it might be good to spend some of this alone time really looking at why you are feeling like this, if it isn't how you've always been. You aren't depressed, are you?

I think I'd tell her that I have something else to do, but providing you like her and enjoy her company, would ask her if she wanted to meet up for coffee on such and such a date.

Just out of curiosity, but feel free to tell me to mind my own business(!) - are you feeling a bit low atm, if you say you used to enjoy other people's company? I just wonder if you might be a bit depressed? Sorry if I'm way off track there

What though? I don't know what to tell her that she won't tag along to.

If I say I need to go shopping - she comes with me

If I say I'm going home she says "Oh I'll nip in for a coffee" then doesn't leave until it's time to pick the girls up

She's signed up at the same gym as me - so guess where she goes if I go to the gym?

I've told her I was going to see my dad tonight so she didn't bring her daughter round to do joint dinner .... which we SOMETIMES do, and once or twice a week it's really nice, but I can't be bothered to be public property all the time. But sometimes she just turns up, and if my daughter is here I can't hide from the doorbell because she goes running to it shouting YAAAYYY!

I do feel, and it's not just her, it's a few of my friends at the minute, I do feel like public property. But really I don't think anything has changed, it's me.

I was starting to feel a bit low a month or so back, but actually have been feeling better recently, and am perfectly happy sitting here alone in the house (daughter is at my mum's for tea) playing on the computer.

I just have this almost overwhelming urge to be on my own. And people are irritating me by being with me, talking about Stuff.

honestly, I think I'm just turning into a wanker

Isn't that just because you are getting NO time to yourself? Then it does get irritating, but if you even had a couple of days to yourself a week you might enjoy company again on the other ones.

I never used to need time to myself though. I used to spend all day just talking to people, every day of the week. And even now, the theory of that sounds good to me, but the reality is that after 2 hours I want to throw their coat at them and say "It's time for you to go home"

And I have always been very welcoming.

Another weird thing is that I've become very intolerant of toddlers. My duaghter is 4.5, she starts school this year and is a proper big girl now. ANd toddlers are getting on my nerves. ANd their parents are getting onmy nerves.

EVERYTHING is getting on my nerves.

My boyfriend is blaming my pill. He says I'm grumpy since I started it.

Some examples -

If you say you're going home and she says she'll come along, say "oh sorry, not today, I've got mountains of housework to do and I really need to crack on. Let's get together on Tuesday and have a coffee"

Trick is to always give an alternative that's a few days away, so she feels you still want to see her, but gives her the clear message that you won't be seeing her until that day.

Shopping - tell her you have to get round quick so it's best if you go alone, but why doesn't she meet you at the gym on Friday and you'll have a workout together.

Gym - don't tell her when you're going! Vary your sessions. Tell her you go when the mood takes you!

If she turns up, put your coat on before answering the door "Oh, you should have rung, we've got to go out. Why don't you bring X round to play on Monday?"

perhaps you should go to the gp if you feel you have had a significant personality change?

Can you just say that you were looking forward to a long bath/mooch round on your own while you have a think about something etc, but you'll do something in a few days?

This would drive me crazy too.

I cried at my boyfriend because he was trying to make me sing in Band Hero (yes, it does sound childish)

And a lot of people would have reacted like that but NORMALLY I would have sung, and happily. Or I'd have told him to cock off. I wouldn't have cried. And even as I was crying I felt like a prat.

I don't really know what the GP could do. I feel like I have PMT all the time

But actually, in hindsight I cried at him because he'd come home and wanted my attention (which is normal and nice for us) and I'd spent the whole day wanting to be on my own, relaxing, and not being able to. ANd then he came in and wanted me to do stuff with him and my inner reaction was "OHHHH GOD not you as well!"

i know how you feel. There was a mum at school who started waiting for me (she lives over the road from me) at the school, then tagging along wherever I was going. It got to the point I was trying to hide to avoid her! Then I started making sure I asked her straight away what she was up to. If she said she was just going home, I would say I had to go to the docs or had an errand to run even if I hadn't, then just walk the long way home. If she was going up the street, I would just go home and go out later. She was constantly telling me what I should and shouldn't be doing with my kids and this pregnancy, pressurising me into trying to talk whenever I was a little bit quieter than usual (when 9 times out of 10 it was HER upsetting me!!) In the end I got fed up of her saying 'oh I go out of my way to piss people off....I think its funny' so I started actually ignoring her a bit. Rushing past her at the school gate and just saying 'hi' fleetingly and rushing off. She soon got the idea, and though I am still sociable with her now, she has definately got the picture that I think she is very overpowering. Maybe you could do that if you wanted nothing to do with her at all? She does sound persistant to be fair.

There's nothing wrong with wanting time to yourself. You do sound a little down though, and need to find a happy compromise somewhere along the line. Maybe tell her you should arrange a regular meet up instead, once a week or something?

You really do sound depressed.

And depressed people say they're not depressed. When you are, you often don't know you are for quite some time.

Your gp can listen, can diagnose a problem if one exists, and help you.

aND strangely my daughter doesn't count, I still want to spend time interacting with her. I'm not becoming reclusive, I'm becoming intolerant of being available.

she would annoy me
with 2 young DCs any time i get on my own is precious
is personality change definitely a bad thing?? Your tastes change throughout your life
How can she be up for doing anything, anytime? does she have no life of her own??

But

I've suffered with depression on and off for 15 years, and normally, I see it coming, and normally it presents very differently.

Normally I lose interest in myself and don't want to go out anywhere or do anything. But now I am dressed nicely, makeup on, no objection to going out (although I'm not because I haven't got time) - I am just feeling really selfish about my time.

I'm finding it very heard to put my finger on what my problem is.

I look forward to seeing my friends, but within a 3 or 4 hours they're annoying me and I want to be on my own, or with someone else. But they don't go, or they don't let me go, and I start feeling really really trapped and cross with them, because I feel I have to be polite, and can't tell them I want them to leave, or to stop following me around.

oh hang on just noticed you do this with your dp too - no that's maybe not good

so you do want to see friends, you just don't want them to linger indefinitely?

Actually, I am probably not the best person to give advice, as I am almost certainly depressed at the moment.

I've only done it with my DP once, and that was when he walked in from work and demanded interaction when I'd been interacting with people all day (and wishing they would go home).

normally I look forward to him coming home, I cook a nice meal and we eat together, (or play computer games because we're childish) and I still do feel that way.

I dunno. I'm really confused and a bit concerned about this. I've never been very good at sorting out what I really want and need and what is normal and reasonable for me to want and need.

I am always like this ALL THE TIME, so think you're being quite reasonable really.

However, it is hard when you also struggle to be assertive - you literally have to learn to tell people 'it's time for you to go now'. All JustMyTwoPenceWorth's suggestions are excellent, but you can be even blunter - you are allowed to want to be on your own.

However, it is odd that you never used to be like this. I have struggled with depression and relatively recently discovered it seemed to be made much worse by the pill. I hadn't realised for all those years when I was younger which is a shame.

Try a different one?