Friendship really starting to drag down my mood

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My mood seems to be just dipping lower and lower the past while and I find it hard to speak about things to anyone because I'm very much the kind of person who keeps things in. I'm on a waiting list to see a new therapist in the new year, so hopefully that comes up soon.

Anyway one of the things that has triggered my low mood is the fact that I found a small lump on my breast just before Christmas and made the mistake of telling someone I thought was a friend, but I've come to see that she isn't. Anything I have ever told her in confidence she has gone back and repeated it to complete strangers. She posted on a Facebook group about my breast lump and she tells her partner absolutely everything and I constantly get messages written in the context of "we" rather than just her. I also live alone because I lost my partner a few years ago when she was just 33. I constantly get pity from this friend and I find it very hard to deal with because it seems to be triggering something in me. Her words never come from a place of care. She leans on her boyfriend for absolutely everything and feels resentful of me because I'm not like this and it's like she constantly projects her own life and insecurities onto me. Logically I know that this friendship is no good for me yet I find it difficult to end because she is someone I know for close to 15 years now and she isn't the most stable of people. Is there ever a kind way of dealing with something like this?

She's not your friend.
She spoke about such a delicate and personal and highly anxiety inducing subject online to strangers as well as her boyfriend - she betrayed your confidence.

Seriously, dump her.
Don't tell her why, just fade out.
You don't need your energy drained with any arguments.

You were able to cope with the death of your partner.
You will cope without this waste of space in your life.

What is going on with the breast lump?
Have you seen a GP?
Mammogram?
Ultrasound?

Focus on your health - physical and mental.
Don't let this blood sucker use any energy.

It's not completely clear to me whether you still genuinely like this person and value the friendship, or if you're staying with it either because of inertia or because you're pitying her instability. I also can't tell why you find it hard to deal with the pity - because you think it's insincere, or because it reminds you of her lack of discretion, or because it reminds you of health issues that you don't want to think about all the time.

So maybe you should think about how much you want to maintain the friendship. In the meantime, there is nothing wrong with, next time she "pities" you, saying something like: I know you mean well, but I really don't need to you dwell on this, especially since it was such a breach of confidence to blab about it on FB.

@PGSTesting123 thank you. I definitely think fading out is the best solution all right because she is the kind of person to create drama if I cut her off outright.

I see my gp tomorrow about the lump so will likely be referred to another specialist hopefully within the next few days. It's been quite overwhelming but I've just tried to take my mind off things over the holidays

@MsAmerica I think it's the instability to be honest. I have tried to end this friendship in the past and it leads to her hounding me for a long time, so as @PGSTesting123 said, I think fading out of the friendship is the best thing to do. I think the whole thing with her pitying me is her total lack of discretion and her making me out to be some kind of charity case to people that I don't even know. Your suggestion for a response to her is very useful, thank you

Hi, trust your instincts on this one. If you are around someone who is taking some kind of perverse pleasure out of pitying you then it is time to let them go. If you are feeling wobbly yourself it is even more of a reason, ask yourself what positives she brings to you. If the idea of her sitting with her boyfriend makes you feel 'ick' which is understandable then really question if you need a drama llama in your life. I am writing this because I know someone just the same, she seems to feed off people who she decides are 'struggling' and then tells everyone about what a great support she is while at the same time discussing their personal stuff with everyone else. Why is this ever ok? I am going to place better boundaries and ease off and I advise you to do the same. It's lonely but why are we enabling this kind of crap behaviour?

@coffeeisthebest (great username btw) :) thank you. I'm sorry that you know someone like this and am definitely going to do the same as you and lay down boundaries. Like the woman you know, this friend seems to enjoy being the hero in every story and making me and others out to be charity cases that need to be rescued, when the opposite is true. It becomes impossible to trust someone like this so it's definitely a friendship I need to let go of

Good luck! It's hard going with someone who appears so caring and shiny when you realise they are basically feeding off the shit in everyone's lives. So many people like my friend and I realise I just don't. She is two faced and insincere and only really cares about herself.

Have you asked her why she shared the information about your lump when you'd asked her not to? How does she justify blabbing?

@coffeeisthebest that's it exactly. My friend gives the illusion of caring but I think it makes her feel better about her own life when other people are going through a hard time and she is just someone that i cannot trust because she isn't sincere.

@Skiptheheartsandflowers she says she shared it online and with her boyfriend because she was "concerned "about me, but I don't buy it to be honest. She just seems to enjoy gossiping I think

[quote smileyemoji]**@PGSTesting123 thank you. I definitely think fading out is the best solution all right because she is the kind of person to create drama if I cut her off outright.

I see my gp tomorrow about the lump so will likely be referred to another specialist hopefully within the next few days. It's been quite overwhelming but I've just tried to take my mind off things over the holidays

@MsAmerica I think it's the instability to be honest. I have tried to end this friendship in the past and it leads to her hounding me for a long time, so as @PGSTesting123 said, I think fading out of the friendship is the best thing to do. I think the whole thing with her pitying me is her total lack of discretion and her making me out to be some kind of charity case to people that I don't even know. Your suggestion for a response to her is very useful, thank you [/quote]
I will disagree, in that I feel like fading is rarely a good solution. There are so many times in life where we just don't understand what has happened, what went wrong - in a friend relationship, in a romantic relationship, in a work relationship - that I think it's better to try to add at least a little clarity.

Of course you don't want to trigger an outburst of anger from her, but maybe you can at least convey the idea that her various aspects of conversation are unbearable. Maybe something like: I know we've been friends for a long time, but I'm sure you can understand that I'm feeling fragile right now, so your dwelling on my condition, and your spreading my person information around, are making me even more unhappy, so I know you'll understand that I need to take a break.

By the way, I'm not sure it's always right to hold it against people for - you intuit - their not being sincere. First, rememer that we usually don't know for a fact how sincere they are. Second, sometimes people may be making pollite and sympathetic inquiries, and it's often a nice thing to do, even it's not as empathetic as we might wish.

Good luck with the doctors.