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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think it's hilarious that friends who turned their backs when I was suffering from severe anxiety are posting mental health day awareness posts on Facebook!

128 replies

Daisym0use · 10/10/2017 19:33

Just that really. So easy to look good on fb but actually be a sh*t friend!

OP posts:
Myrobalanna · 12/10/2017 12:59

I reckon we've all had the friend who constantly cancels. These people aren't friends. They're also not unique to people with MH problems, they are irritating to everyone and mess everyone about - no reflection on the messee. It isn't about the messee at all. Trying to get a reaction from them won't work because they're not operating on the level you might want them to.

Myrobalanna · 12/10/2017 13:04

sad you can equally say that people take a step back when someone tells them how they're really feeling, because they don't have the capacity to get involved. Poor MH themselves, other calls on their resources, just not knowing what to do and fearing they'll fuck it up, not particularly feeling obliged to get involved because the person is a Facebook acquaintance...

What I'm saying is that just because a person feels they should get support from friends, doesn't mean those friends are obliged or able to give support...or indeed are friends!

Mumto2two · 12/10/2017 13:48

I agree with Pooryorwick here.
While I do sympathise with people who have genuine MH issues, and don't claim to know much about it, I have also seen a lot of needy behaviours in people, being labelled or dare I say it..excused as an MH issue, and that is something I cannot sympathise with.
On another equally unsettling note, I do have a 'friend' whom I've known a very long time. And over the years her behaviour at times, has been dreadful. She has always cancelled things last minute, moans about being alone, but can't see that her constant negativity, simply drives people away. She married once, to a lovely guy, but treated him like dirt and left him for a married man who had no intention of ever leaving his wife. And thereon since, her life has been one long trail of self destruct. I am almost certain she has MH issues, but every time I have tentatively broached the topic, she shuts me down and simply gets so pissed she can't talk. It has put me off seeing her to be honest, and in the past few years I have pulled away and given 'less of myself'. I know this has not gone down well. On a few occasions she has sent rambling texts to say she had nothing to live for..but all attempts to contact her are ignored. I'll hear nothing for a few weeks, and then suddenly she'll pop up with a hi! -And some sorry tale of her latest cougar prowess. I stopped taking it seriously, as I had a young baby and having spent a sleepless night trying to contact her family, realised they weren't bothered either.
Our last two planned outings, were both cancelled AFTER I had boarded my train..and my last message asking how she was, was responded to with a self pitying reply, that was frankly rude & bitter.
I have not yet replied, and as far as I'm concerned, I have no time anymore in my life for her and her MH issues. I have had so many issues of my own over the years, from bereavement to serious illnesses with myself and one of my children, but she has always been so wrapped up in her own erratic dysfunctional world, that she has never ever once, offered me any support in return. We are not mind readers, if someone needs help, them they need to spell it out. Otherwise, I'm sorry, people don't always have the time or patience for playing abstract games of hide & seek.

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