This is a long post about my friend Mary (Not real name).
Mary and I went to secondary school together in the 1990s. We weren't really close friends, we had some GCSE subjects together and got on ok, but she was absent a lot due to ill health. I don't really know with what, but her parents (her mother really) kept her off school a lot. I think she had glandular fever originally, and there was vague talk about complications from that. I visited her in hospital once, so she was genuinely ill at one point.
After GCSEs we lost contact. I moved to a new area and school with my family, this was before social media or mobile phones was the norm. I only really kept in contact with my best friend, Sophie, via written letters and the odd landline catch up. So, lost contact with Mary.
Roughly 14 years ago, Sophie (who i still have sporadic contact with) mentioned in an email that she'd been in contact via Facebook with Mary. Mary had basically been unwell since we all parted ways at 16, was bedridden through ill-health, was too unwell for visitors, her mother had been her carer but then had tragically passed away herself. So, things pretty dire to say the least. Sophie said Mary had been asking after me and would it be ok to pass on my email address and mobile number so we could catch up. Fine, no problem, of course.
We've been in regular contact since then. Always by email/WhatsApp. She told me she has various health problems, including ME and joint problems. She originally said she's basically a vegetable 6 days a week, but is able to take a class A level drug once a week that allows her to email and message people, catch up on social media etc as her only window to the outside world. So this has been our friendship over the last 14 years. Its mostly fine, but it sometimes feels like a lot of pressure occasionally, because if she messages me but I'm out with friends or on a long-awaited date with my husband or I'm ill and need a early night (or whatever), I still feel obliged to message back and forth with her as she's so dependant on that few hours of interaction. She always maintained that physically being around other people was toxic for her health, so the last time I physically saw her was at 16. Since that point our only communication has been by typed messages.
There's been small signs over the years that she might be not quite right in the head, but I put this down to her being so unwell/Maybe misinterpreting her true meaning etc. There was one incident where she was beside herself, saying (unbeknownst to me) her boyfriend (?!) Dave Had left her for someone else. It transpires she had a boyfriend for years, actually Dave was someone else from our school year who'd she'd stayed in contact with, but one of her other friends (Denise, Also someone from our year) had first off been an evil cow by suggesting maybe the ill health was psychological rather than physical, and had then stolen her boyfriend. I kind of tried to be supportive without getting too involved (which you can't really do when you're only interaction is via WhatsApp anyway). Her messaging can be quite confusing too, which i had rationalized as her being unwell and on meds. But basically, when I probed for how long she'd had this boyfriend and how had they met up, it transpired he'd actually been in a relationship with denise first and Mary either genuinely had an affair with him, or she was convinced he loved her but had actually invented the whole affair. But she genuinely presented this to me as this evil bitch stealing her boyfriend. Weird, but I kind of thought it's none of my business. Also, very juvenile, but I rationalized this as her kind of being trapped emotionally/developmentally at the age of 16 as she'd been bedridden since then.
There is other stuff. Like how she told me she was getting another tattoo. Another one? How have you got any when you're too sick to leave the house or bed and the mere presence of other people is toxic to you? She sidestepped this. Its very easy to do that when sudden pain means you need to leave the chat and stay uncontactable for months.
I've kind of been thinking for a while, is she really physically that ill? Or is it now a psychological problem? She's alluded to strained relationships with her sibling and father, basically that they're liars and cruel and purposely do things to make her sicker, lie to social workers and doctors to get her in trouble. When I probe on why they'd do that, I get vague paranoid statements about her dad's new partner masterminding a hate campaign etc.
The latest is that her (wicked, evil, negligent etc) GP has delisted her as a patient and immediately stopped all her prescriptions. Trying to probe on why this happened just resulted in a massive rant about how they're negligent and have left her without medication that her life depends on, and it's just fortunate that she's been stockpiling meds for a while so can survive but just imagine if she hadn't thought ahead? She would be dead by now. This was all said at the start of this year by the way, but she apparently still survives on the stockpiled meds.
Basically, I don't know where to go with this friendship. I previously thought I was a source of support for a genuinely sick and lonely friend. Now I feel like a sounding board for someone with paranoid delusions. Lately, she has been quite rude to me in messages. Like, I asked if she's had any contact with Dave and Denise or are they still no contact? She replied that she can't contact them because the police told her she's not to??!! I was like "erm... police involvement sounds very extreme, how the hell did things reach that point?" She immediately backtracked by saying "you know the police were involved, I told you at the time, but never mind if you forgot, im sure your life is busy" as if I'm a self centred cow who had been told this but forgot (Not true, I absolutely would not have forgotten that!) But also nicely deflecting answering what the eff she had done that had required police telling her to back off. She then went offline.
A couple of last things. I don't think she knows this function is available, but I can see that she's always the first to view my Instagram stories, no matter what day or time I post. She also recently (I'm assuming by accident) clicked that she was 'interested' in attending my child's parents evening. I had just clicked that myself (Just as I know Facebook will then helpfully remind me that I'm meant to be attending!) And within minutes, it flashed up on my newsfeed that Mary X is interested in attending Year 2 parents evening at xyz school.
Weird, no? Even weirder when she's recently told me that she's not been on Facebook or Instagram since 2012 because she's been too sick.
What do I do? Sorry, I know this has been long and rambling, but I just don't know where or how I proceed? I know she's not really going to track me down and murder me in my sleep if I stop contact, but equally I don't feel right just cutting her off. She is still a friend in need isn't she? Even if it isn't for the reasons she's presenting.
I previously thought there's no harm me just providing a friendly, meaningless chat once a week. But lately she's been pretty rude and snidey to me and I'm just thinking why the eff am I colluding in this nonsense?
I don't know. Well done for reading if you've reached this far. Any advice welcome.