How to deal with friend constantly complaining?!

[Coffeeandavodka]

Hi all!

I have a friend who I’ve know for 15+ years, and I would class her as my closest friend. We’ve grown up together and been through life’s ups and downs, supporting each other along the way.

since the end of her long term relationship (roughly 3 years ago) she’s had a bit of a personality change, and the main thing that I’m struggling to cope with is the sheer amount of complaining!

every. single. day I receive message after message complaining about different things, for example;

message 1: I have to pay £££ for this today
message 2. My manager said this so I said that but then they said this
message 3: I have to go to bla bla bla because “Frank” said I have to
message 4: I have to do this this and this around the house but I also have this to do

i will get these messages one after the other, like a stream of thought! It’s gotten to the point where I feel like a sounding board and not a person.

I’ve really been suffering with my mental health lately, and my friend knows this (on the odd occasion that she actually asks me how am I). The other day I didn’t check my messages from 1pm one day until 9am the following day, and I had 30+ messages from friend ALL different variations of complaints. Not one of them asked if I was ok, or showed any concern for my radio silence. For all she knew, I could have been dead, but instead of checking in she decided to keep bombarding me with message after message about how much SHE has to do and how hard it is for her.

it’s gotten that bad that I feel like I need to see a GP and possibly get onto anti-depressants, and I genuinely think a lot of my mental health concerns stem from her.

every complaint she has I offer her advice (good advice in my opinion) but she never takes it. It seems like she wants to complain and doesn’t want to resolve anything. Which is fine, but don’t ignore my advice and then continue to whinge about the same problem for hours on end!

It’s really draining me, and is making my mental health even worse. It feels like a negative cloud whenever we speak. Sometimes I just want lighthearted and funny conversations with friends, but it’s all doom and gloom and “woe is me” from her constantly! It feels like all I’m good for is to just complain at, and it’s very one-sided.

ive tried limiting contact and not replying to her, but if she sees I’m showing as online on the messaging app then she’ll send about 10 more. If I avoid going on the messaging app at all (which is annoying as I like to talk to my family on there) then she’ll still send me messages. Just as I’ve been typing this out I’ve received 8 messages from her, all talking about how she “has” to do this because so and so told her so, and how much she has to pay for her house.

please help, am I a bad friend? What do I do?

Turn off the ticks on WhatsApp and stop offering her advice in response to the complaints — she doesn’t want or need it. Then tell her to stop, and/or only respond to the messages that aren’t complaints. Train her to recognise that she gets a response for non-whinges.

She's using you as a sounding board. If she's such a good friend then I think you'll have to say something. "Miranda, I'm coming off messages for a while because of my poor mental health. Just wanted to let you know, so you don't worry when I don't respond." I have a friend like that and she can suck the joy out of a day very quickly,so I sympathise. Possibly she just needs to reset her relationship with you and a spell away could help. I know I have also been guilty recently of unloading to one particular friend too.

First of all go into your WhatsApp’s settings and turn off ticks and showing when you’re last online- that way she can’t see when you’ve read the message or when you’re online.

I think you need to focus on you. She’s sort of using you as a renting partner. She’s lost that in her relationship so has put that all on you now and it’s too much. She sounds quite self absorbed.

I’m glad you’re distancing yourself. Please go to your gp and talk about how you’re feeling. See what help they can give you.
Then I would sent her a polite but firm message explaining you’re not in a great place at the moment so
need to focus on your own needs so you won’t be replying to negative messages. If she tries to argue then just delete the messages, you don’t need this right now.

I'd ignore her messages, put them on silent so you don't know they're coming though. If she asks why you're ignoring her, use that as an opening to tell her how bad you've been feeling. I wouldn't tell her it's her fault but I would say that her messages aren't helping and so you've decided to only check them once a day to make sure there's nothing urgent.

I am always amazed at how people like this have any friends at all.30 messages in a day! I don't get that many in a month from any of my friends or family.

Yes! And the fact that this kind of thing comes up so often on here baffles me — I can’t decide whether it suggests Mners are in fact very tolerant or so desperate for friends they happily countenance being peppered with wailing messages to the tune of 30 plus a day!

Maybe the clue is in how often a poster says ‘She doesn’t have any friends but me’…

I often have trouble getting my friends to even meet for a cheery coffee during which I never talk about my problems! I must be doing stuff wrong.

That would drive me nuts. Can you tell her that you honestly don’t understand why she is doing this, that it comes across as a stream of consciousness that would be better placed in a journal and then give her a nice note book?

Or tell her you want to know what’s going on in her life, but can she save it all up for one text on xxx day. If she has to write it all out in one go she’ll probably find it as annoying as you do.

Journalling is a very good idea for calming the mind. I try to do it. Or making lists.