Friend has stopped responding to me

[Greytabbycat]

I have a close friend who I don’t see much of, we are long distance friends and have known each other for just over 10 years but she now lives 4 hours away. We text each other a lot to keep up to date and she has had a few mental health issues in the last few years so I check in with her much more regularly than my other friends.

A few weeks ago she messaged me saying her mum is having tests done to check for cancer as she has a lump. She has been extremely stressed and worked up for 2 weeks so we have been speaking every day. I’ve been texting her, having almost daily phone calls etc trying to keep her calm. She doesn’t have many other friends and no siblings so I am the one she comes to with any problems etc. her mum got her test results back 9 days ago and I haven’t heard a single thing from my friend. In the lead up to it she was very nervous and the day before I told her to let me know how it goes. On the day of her mums results, I didn’t hear anything but I left her to it because I thought if it’s bad news, I won’t be on her mind and I don’t expect her to get straight on to me to let me know. So I left it a few days. By day 4 I assumed it must be bad news but I wanted to let her message me when she felt ready. However after a week I messaged just asking if she was ok. No response. She has a blog so I checked it and can see that she has been posting on it, and she uses her phone to post so I know she’s been on her phone and seen my texts and is choosing to ignore. Now I know that if her mum is ill, it’s not my business and she doesn’t have to text me, it’s nothing to do with me and she may not be feeling up to talking. But I just think it only takes 5 seconds to type something like “hey, don’t feel up to speaking right now. Will get back to you soon” or something. To go from speaking and calling every single day, calming her down when she’s on the verge of panic attacks, to completely ignoring me is making me really confused. I’m not sure what’s going on.

AIBU to feel like she could at least drop me a quick text? She has done things like this before. She will speak to me in the middle of a crisis then suddenly stop leaving me wondering what’s happened. Before I knew she had a blog (so I couldn’t check to see if she was alive) she didn’t speak to me for 3 weeks when her last message to me was that she wanted to kill herself and I was beside myself wondering what happened to her. I’m trying not to let it bother me because she may be going through an awful time right now and I don’t want to make it about me. But I also feel a bit… annoyed isn’t the right word but frustrated with her? And I feel awful about that!

YABU because you are too co dependent and available for her. Get some therapy so that you have the tools to protect yourself from friends that have their own mental health issues that are impinging on you.

You are not equipped to be her saviour. You need to look out for yourself more.

Yes she should and could text back a simple text to you, but she is choosing not to. This is not fair, it's most likely her mental health flaring up right now and she does not have the tools to process everything in the most balanced way.

However, sometimes, people can be drama drains, can love to swoop in and be the saviour, and that is not always welcome. Get therapy from a skilled therapist, who can help you navigate your own responses.

I think that ultimately this is part of what you sign up for if you choose to engage in a friendship with someone with significant problems, including MH ones, and few other people in her life. If you enter into a dynamic where you're the rescuer/checker-in/ shoulder to cry on, it means that you are only semi-visible, if you're visible at all, to the other person, who has been set up by the dynamic as the person the friendship is about, the one with the needs and the crises.

This can also mean that you literally have no existence for them apart from when they're in need, and/or that after you've 'rescued' them, they drop you, because they don't want a living reminder of when they were low/in a crisis/suicidal.

I don't think you should realistically enter into this type of 'friendship' expecting gratitude or a recognition of your own needs.

Beautifully said.

I don’t even think people realise they are doing it sometimes but I’ve been there before. Too available for people that want to rant and rant and rant away about their life issues but then when they are no longer in a crisis they drop you like a stone.

You have to ask yourself if this is a common situation you find yourself in and if it is it’s time to become less available.

What are you getting out of this friendship OP? I’d be really interested to know if you get any emotional support back.

I don’t really get much out of it tbh. I have tried to distance myself many times but then I feel awful. She will send me voice notes in tears and i just feel so guilty. I know she can’t help her issues but she complains all the time and it can really drag me down. In the past I have got annoyed and told myself I’m going to stop, but then when she messages me again I feel like I have to be there for her as that’s what a good friend does. But then she sometimes does this where she just ignores me and I don’t understand it

I think you need to rethink your idea of what 'a good friend' does. A good friend is not a human service animal. A good friendship isn't one-sided, and isn't 'about' one person's problems only.

I stepped away from a friendship where the individual in question, a former officemate of mine in a previous job, was profoundly depressed and lonely, with seriously disordered eating, suicidal ideation, and on the opposite side of the world to her family. I realised my help and support was taken for granted by her (because I had a child and a DH, therefore was, in her view, in a much better position than she was) and was draining me. I am no longer in touch, and an entire succession of colleagues from my former workplace who replaced me as helpers have also opted out for the same reasons.

I texted her after the October 7 attacks (she's Israeli but has spent most of her life elsewhere) but all that did was to elicit hysterical, lengthy voicenotes in which she railed against other people for not contacting her. I no longer have contact with her now, so now doubt I have joined the lengthening list of the baddies in her mind. But that's not ultimately my problem.

I've had a friend in the past who I've had to distance myself from for my mental health's sake because she went completely silent whenever something was wrong and it caused me a lot of stress (ill relative, same as in this situation). Mentioned it a while down the line and she made me feel like an awful friend, despite having always been there for her. Like we're talking went ballistic at me for mentioning I'd have stopped asking if she was okay if she'd literally just said 'I'm okay, give me space please' rather than going radio silent.

Try not to take it personally, but at the same time I can wholly appreciate that you're worried and probably feeling quite hurt like I was.

Basically, give her space and try to put her to the back of your mind for now. If that doesn't work, leave it and address at a later date when emotions aren't as heightened. If things go sour then, the friendship may not be worth salvaging.

I think one message is more than enough so she may feel bombarded.

She’s a user, block and delete her.

I had this recently. A friend who I’d been there for, helping and listening, just told me she was cutting me and her other friends off.
no real explanation except she wanted to be alone.
it did hurt because I wouldn’t have ever done that to her.
maybe we are too nice x

If you’re anything like me it is most likely becuase you are extremely empathetic and take others problems in like a sponge to the point where it consumes you. Their issue becomes your issue.

You get taken advantage of because you are always available. Like an unpaid therapist who when messaged will reply almost immediately trying to fix or solve the issue. When that person no longer needs your support, you are dropped like a stone ready to be picked up next time they need a rant.

The person reaching out doesn’t feel bad for leaving you, they don’t feel bad ignoring you. They are no longer in a crisis and couldn’t give a hoot how you are feeling.

I would ask myself is this a friendship you want to keep? When was the last time this friend asked how you are? Took any sort of interest in your life? Supported you?

If the answer is “never” or “I can’t remember” then it’s time to become less available and distant.

Yes this 100%. I've cut a few people out who only come to me to moan but don't give a hoot about me and what's going on in my life, good or bad! I hope OP has other friends who treat them better!

So why do you do this, then? What is in it for you, to be an unpaid therapist, always available and soaking up the other person's problems like an ultra-absorbent sponge? It's a choice you are making. Why?

And it can be extremely hard to remove yourself from the situation as you feel like you’re being awful for leaving your “friend” in the lerch, you think something bad will happen if you don’t reply, you worry how they’ll cope without you messaging back or you think they’ll hate you for ignoring them.

The reality is they probably will be pissed you didn’t rush to their side, but then they will move onto the next unpaid therapist…

It is a choice 100%! You are right and I realised this whilst entering my 30’s I look back on my adult life and had discussed this with my therapist (paid haha) that I was basically available and soaked up everyone’s issues whilst getting nothing in return. I didn’t want to be the same way in my 30’s.

Sometimes when you have anxiety or mental issues going on yourself you think something bad will happen if you aren’t there to save the day. You worry you’ll appear a bad friend.

Nothing is in it for you other than stress and anxiety. You have to face the reality that you are putting yourself in this position, you are too available and you are doing harm to yourself.

It is a choice to be someone’s door mat, sometimes you have to respect yourself enough to remove yourself.

This isn’t a friendship. This is a codependency. A saviour/victim dynamic. You get to feel a good person when she relies on you, she gets her own personal Support Human.

It doesn’t do anything healthy for either of you.

For the PP who said “maybe we’re too nice” I would counter “maybe you don’t enforce healthy boundaries.”

Yes! I've bent over backwards for friends, including the one I mentioned in my comment here, and all I got was walked over time and time again.

OP: your mental health is worth more than this friendship imo.

Yes, exactly. 'I'm just too nice' is delusional. Someone who has a repeated pattern of being the 'saviour' to the perpetually unlucky, unfortunate, lonely, crisis-ridden, fragile etc etc is choosing those people for a reason.

Is it possible she’s unhappy with you because you didn’t contact her on the results day or straight after? I’m not saying what you did was wrong, you did the right thing letting her have some space to deal with it. But for someone as dependent as she is, she could see that as you abandoning her. The fact she’s updated her blog proves that she is ok. So she’s just choosing to ignore you at this point.

If I wanted to keep things going, I’d send one more text and just say let me know when you are ready to talk and then I’d leave it at that.

However, it if were me, I’d be wondering what I’m getting out of this relationship other than the stress of being an emotional support blanket for someone who is quite erratic and domineering. I personally would use this as an opportunity to quietly move on and leave the friendship behind, even if that meant changing my phone number.

OP this is not a healthy friendship. Just stop messaging her and let the friendship go. She sounds like an emotional vampire and you don't need that in your life.