Mostly just putting this out there, advice is okay but I really just wanna scream into the void because I have too many irl mutuals with this person.
My best friend from high school (24F) is in another rut and in hindsight I should’ve seen it coming because it’s a pattern. She hasn’t had an actual job for almost 3 years at this point and isn’t in university either. She’d been living off savings and being supported by her single mom. Problem is that her mom is financially irresponsible and doesn’t have a steady job either.
So the whole family lost most of their money on forex because they were betting on that instead of getting an actual steady income. I totally understand that event would be traumatic and being on the verge of poverty is dreadful. I don’t comment much about it but she vents that she doesn’t have money but she’s too lazy to get a job. I don’t see a point in telling her to face reality and get a job because she knows that, she just doesn’t want to.
She’s been spending the last year holed up in her room watching tv shows all day. We used to call each other and she’d watch me play video games on stream, keeping each other company and some sanity. Since going out costs money. But lately she’d only be up for a few hours each day and sleep for most of the day. On top of having a history of being flakey and not respecting other people’s time, I haven’t been wanting to spend time with her even if I should at least check up.
What feels toxic for me is her projecting her insecurities and misery to me. She discourages me to hang out with other people, puts me down if something good happens to me, and always assuming the worst out of whatever I’d be telling her about, like my job. I’ve had my fair share of losing hope at times but now that I‘ve been wanting to try and have some hope for the future she just wants me to be as hopeless as she is.
I know it’s depression and a trauma response. She needs therapy and I am not that. On my end, I just feel like she’s not in the position to be a good friend to me at the moment and I’ve had years of her repeating the same pattern and even with hitting rock bottom it just doesn’t sink in to her that she needs to be an adult and make adult decisions.
I’ve supported her when she’s going through hard times, I just need to invest less time with her because she hasn’t been interested in being an actual friend lately. Mostly hitting me up when nobody’s around for her.