How to deal with a depressed but angry friend

[dragonflygold]

Username changed for this.

I have a friend who I have known for years now and who I have spent a lot of time with, we have become very close as time has gone by. We see each often even if just for a drink/coffee and a catch up.
She has always been a bit on the depressed side and I think she struggles with anxiety but recently it has become much worse.

The problem is she is very low key angry as well as miserable these days and picks fights with me about almost anything I say, even tiny things that just don't matter. She's also very defensive, talks about her problems constantly but won't listen to any advice, in fact she argues against any advice I might try to give. And everything is a big drama even if it's a fairly small problem that is soon fixed. If I don't react enough when she tells me something that's happened, she goes on and on about it until it seems a much bigger problem than it really is.

It's incredibly wearing and I don't know how to deal with it anymore. She also never asks me how I am. My life isn't perfect by any imagination, as she well knows, but there is never any interest in what is going on with me.

I think about not getting in touch and just letting the friendship drift but then I feel guilty because I know her behaviour is down to depression. She can be great, we used to have a real laugh together. I know she isn't a horrible person although she is often behaving like that at the moment, to me
Interestingly, if we see anyone else when we are out she is sweetness and light to them, a completely different person.

Has anyone else experienced anything likes this and could offer any advice? I don't want to end the friendship but how do I handle her behaviour towards me?

I can't help wondering whether these relationship issues might not necessarily be down to him. If you get my drift.

She's fallen out with him, she's fallen out with her family, and now she's being toxic towards you, her supposed close friend. You say yourself that you think it makes her feel better to be horrible to you, and when you come away, you feel down yourself.

What's that old saying? 'Don't set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm'.

Clearly some haven't worked with or lived around badly depressed people. Yes they will pick arguments, fights, etc with friends and family. Nit pick, not listen to advice, make bad choices etc just like masking and being nice to others is a big part of severe depression to. However if she is on medication then clearly she needs to go back to see about it being raised or changed. If she is not diagnosed depressed etc then sadly there's not a lot to put it down to other than she's not a friend. Hats off to you for sticking it because mh is not fun to be around or live with and any sane person would absolutely control it if they could. The saying is a broken leg with visible plasters gets more sympathy than a broken poorly mind that can't be seen

@AWeekAndADay Whilst I agree with you that it is difficult for loved ones to be around people suffering from depression, the OP says that this person manages to be nice to their other mutual friends, just not to the OP. So she clearly has some control over who she chooses to be unpleasant to.

It is time for the OP to step back and look after her own wellbeing.

Thanks for this. I know I sound like a wimp and like I can't stand up for myself but I have been around depression before so I am pretty certain it's that which is making her behave like this.

And I understand why she is depressed too, she lost her mum not that long ago and a sibling to cancer a few years before that. Her dad died when she was young & she had a hard childhood. Plus she has an unpleasant home life now.

Depressed people can be so self absorbed and assume everyone else's lives are prefect which I think she does.
But she can be kind and has been in the past so I know it's not her true personality.

trust us op she doesn’t need to be nasty to someone to get better. no one does. if you ease off the visits she doesn’t become further away from any healing. personally i would just match her self absorbed energy to phase it out. non committal ‘god i’m so busy/tired’ if she tries to meet up. she will relish any attempt you make to tackle it as a chance to really let rip about how terrible her life is and unless you’re going in with complete Zen you’ll get triggered into either apologising profusely or saying stuff there is just no point saying like ‘you’re so mean’ there’s no point and you’ll feel terrible. Slowly slowly with this.

Thanks

I'm glad it's not just me and someone else has experienced something similar.

It's definitely bitterness and jealousy too at times, if she hears anything positive about me or anyone we know.
But, as I say, I know this isn't the real her because she wasn't like this when we met, I wouldn't have become good friends with her if she had been.

If you don't want to end the friendship then why not tell her how her behaviour makes you feel? It's either that, continue as you are or stop seeing her!

It might not have been the real her, in the past, but what you are experiencing is definitely the real her, right now.

Look at it the other way round - you are saying that the effect you have on her when you meet up is that she gets angry and depressed. Since you have that effect on her, and she isn’t like that with others, she’d be better off without your company, wouldn’t she?
If you tell her so, she might just start making an effort to address her issues, instead of meeting up with you so you can both enjoy wallowing in them.

If that doesn’t help, stopping seeing her might also push her into making that effort.

Why carry on seeing her if it just causes her to magnify all her woes and upset herself further? You might be well-meaning, but you are inadvertently supporting a downward spiral.

Being an arse and having depression are NOT necessarily the same thing..!!

How long have you had a relationship with the not “real her”?

Yes, I do get what you're saying and I have thought that maybe I am not helping the situation and I am indulging her in her moaning and wallowing.
Maybe a better friend would tell her what they thought/felt even if she doesn't want to hear and reacts badly to it.

She has been like this at odd points in the past but usually snaps out of it.
I would say it's been bad and getting worse for maybe the last year and definitely the last six months.

If she can hold down a job then I imagine she’s choosing to behave badly with you because you allow it. I’d not see her for a while - let her know you’re not enjoying her company and it feels as if you’re making eachother unhappy.

Maybe have one last ditch attempt. If she starts moaning , turn it around and say she should contact her gp, the plumber, car mechanic, or find a self- help group that can her help her. Say she needs to take action to solve her problems. If she says she doesn’t know who, then offer to research them for her, and then send her the links. You could even say that you find that you’re unable to support her when she’s like this, and it’s time she needs professional help.

However, maybe you’re finding out the reason why all her other friends have drifted away from her…

On the basis of this thread @dragonflygold , I would urge you to seek therapy. You don’t seem happy yourself and very vulnerable to profoundly unpleasant people - but you can’t seem to see the wood for the trees

And she’s done nothing aside from fart around with the self help books?

I don't need therapy.
You have completely missed the point of what I have been saying.

I'm not "vulnerable to an unpleasant person" but rather trying to stick by a friend I know is struggling because I know the reasons she is the way she is. And I think I am one of the only people she has fully confided in.

I understand from this thread now that by not being more honest I am possibly not helping if that's what your "wood from the trees" comment is about but I am not just being friends with her because I am too weak not to be.

She hasn't always been like this. If she had and I had still chosen to be friends with her THEN I would need therapy!

There is such a thing as loyalty and sticking with people through the bad times.

‘Ok, best I bow out then if you can’t see me as person instead of a punching bag, good luck with everything’

Op you say YOU have been down
OP you are being sucked in to a friendship with someone who for a year has used you as a punching bag

the above two would indicate YOU need a bit of support. Everyone else has put distance with the person. Not you.

forget the friend. She is abusing you
Focus on yourself

I am going to put some distance there, yes, but I am not going to fully give up on her.

That's not the kind of person I am.

Even if your own family suffers because it drains you and makes you unhappy?

Sounds like a good plan.

My family aren't suffering, someone else said that earlier, not me.
Yes, I find meeting up with her difficult & I come away feeling brought down by it but not to the extent that it's affecting my own life.
I miss my previously fun, mostly happy friend is the main thing and I came here to see if anyone else had been through similar.

I am going to pull back and have a break from her and when we meet I will try to be more honest when is argumentative as pp have suggested.
However, I won't totally ghost her, not after years of good friendship and not when I know there's a reason for her unpleasant behaviour even if that's not an excuse for it.

Ok