I’m struggling to decide how to handle this issue with a friend. She’s always been volatile, including in a work setting, and I’m the opposite. If anything I under react in the moment, I freeze and reflect after the event.
She had an abusive childhood and is a very angry person underneath. The extent this comes to the surface depends on how happy or unhappy she is in her life at the time.
This summer her partner of 5 years left her saying he wasn’t prepared to deal with her anger any longer. She had been having therapy which had made things worse in terms of her expressing her anger and directing it at him. She took this extremely badly. She is estranged from what family she has and she doesn’t have many friends. Apart from me, there’s one who lives abroad and there’s a close friend of mine who I introduced her to a few years ago.
She’d withdrawn from pretty much everything since he left but we kept on asking her to join us when we were doing something and in the end she came out a few times. Then she invited us both over for a meal at hers one evening which was lovely and we were both looking forward to it.
Her ex recently started posting pictures of his new home on social media. It turns out my original friend had liked a couple of his posts. Part way through the evening my angry friend provoked an argument with my original friend about this, it was a horrid verbal attack. My original friend told her a few home truths and left.
She continued to lay into my friend, her lifestyle, character etc. after she’d gone. She described her ex in vile terms and gave me examples of why he was such an awful person which were tbh nothing of the sort.
To try to cut a longer story short, I’ve had an epiphany and no longer want anything to do with her. Over the years she’s occasionally said unkind or ‘off’ things to me that I’ve let go. I’ve seen her do similar to other people. She’s also told me how awful people have been to her - family, work colleagues, neighbours, and now I’m wondering how much of it is true and how much of it is her over reaction.
I guess this is the first time I’ve known the supposedly evil person so well and can see that her accusations are totally unfounded. I’ve also realised I’m pretty much ‘last woman standing’ and I don’t want that responsibility.
I stayed with her for a couple of hours after the row. She was in a terrible state, telling me how she'd thought of harming herself when her ex left and how awful her life is and that she’s totally alone. Once she was a bit more stable emotionally I left.
I needed time to process things. My problem now I’ve decided how I feel is how I extricate myself. We used to message each other several times a week. She sent me a usual chatty message after almost a week. I sent a reply that didn’t invite a response. A week later she has sent another.
I’m conflicted because she has nobody else but I know she isn’t my responsibility. I need to tell her, don't I? Is it cowardly to send a brief message? I would be very intimidated to speak to her in person, especially if she had no idea what was coming. Do I give her a heads up that we need to talk, then have the conversation? I’m not good at straight talking though, I find upsetting people really hard. This has led me to allow relationships to go on too long in the past, both romantic and friends.