For context I (17 f) and my best friend (18f) have been best friends since kindergarten and been basically inseparable. I have struggled with mental health for a long time but have kept it to myself since 7th grade.
A month ago I was in a very low mental state and ended up going to the hospital and mental hospital for about two weeks and was unable to hide it from my close friends.
My best friend was very angry at that. She claimed that I didn’t care about her. I understand she was emotional about the situation so I tried not to take her words to heart. But she then told me “if you ever try anything like this again I’m gonna cut you off because of how selfish you are”
I told her that she was going too far and I brought up how I had never bothered her with my mental health because I didn’t want to be selfish.
She told me that I was bothering her now because of what I did. For context she struggled throughout middle and early high school with body issues and an eating disorder which she told me about a lot. (She was smaller than me) Her talking about how “big” she was in turn made me develop an eating disorder which I never told her about though was evident through my extreme weight loss. when she brought up how selfish I was being I told her everything about how her mental health issues contributed to my own and made comments about her body image issues.
We haven’t talked in about a week and I am reluctant to reach out. I regret bringing up her body issues but I don’t think what she said to me was right either. Anyways what should I do and AITA?
You both need help with your mental health. I hope you are both getting the help you need. I don’t think you should blame a friend for developing a mental health condition. Brain chemistry is at play. It’s okay to take a break from this friend.
Wait a sec, you have a mental crisis that lands you in hospital for 2 weeks and your friend is angry with you? No asking how you’re doing, no concern for your wellbeing, just anger at how this is affecting *her*? She’s the A H for that.
Your reflexive response about how her ED affected you was a bit assholey too, though. But I’m taking it at the time you didn’t respond to her eating disorder with anger about how it was affecting you?
The second part of this comment is a little confusing to me. She has recovered from her eating disorder throughout the past year and half and while she still struggles sometimes she no longer has an ED. By “at the time” do you mean in the argument or when she previously vented to me? When she vented to me before I never told her how it affected me. The most I did was at times ask her stop venting for a bit if the conversation got too in depth. Which is bad communication in my part but I prefer to keep my issues to myself after a previous incident with her in middle school.
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This dosent sound like a friend to me.
Do you get as much out of your friendship as you put into it? It sounds like you support her, but she does not support you.
I’ve seen a number of abusive friendships like this in the past. It feels like a friendship from the inside, but instead of give-and-take going both ways, one person gives and one person takes.
I have a hunch that you do a lot of giving and she dosent give you much back.
Id reccomend taking an inventory of your relationship. Maybe try writing out all of the nice/good things you do for her one one side of a chart, and the same list of nice/good things she does for you on the other. See how it stacks up.
The first thing you should do, when trying to recover from an eating disorder, is not mention yours or anyone else’s weight when it is not relevant, which is most of the time. It doesn’t help you and can be triggering to others who are also struggling.
You’re right I’ve edited the post to get rid of the weights. Thank you for telling me
ESH and it’s probably for the best that this friendship not continue, at least not until both of you receive the mental health care that you both need and deserve.
I cannot fathom getting upset with a friend for needing inpatient treatment and threatening to cut them off if their mental health continues to be poor. Unless it’s coming from a place of hurt/fear because you kept everything hidden until you had a crisis. Even still, it’s a wildly inappropriate response.
You suck big time for blaming your eating disorder on your friend. This is coming from someone who has dealt with an ED for more than 20 years and almost died from it at one point. Your friend didn’t *make* you have an eating disorder. She was in a bad place mentally and was talking to her friend about it. If listening to what she was saying was difficult for you, it was on you to tell her that or to remove yourself from the situation. EDs are also not caused by one single thing like a friend commenting on their own body, so it seems like you have a lot more self discovery there to go through during your treatment.
I’m sorry that you are going through all of this. You deserve better and you are worth the work and care it takes to get into a better place mentally and emotionally. Wishing you the best.
Thank you for setting me straight. I don’t really think she made me have an eating disorder. She was just the start of it and while I don’t really blame her I was very defensive during the argument because of her statements against me. I never should have brought up her issues during the conversation, and I want to apologize for it. I just don’t want to reach out to her and end up being the only one to say sorry when she also said some pretty messed up things.
NTA. This “friend” doesn’t seem good for you. She is angry and calling you selfish for having to be hospitalized. She is not being supportive of you at all and is making it all about herself instead of showing any concern for you.
This isnt an “AITA” dilemma. Yall are both mentally ill teens and if one mentally ill person is difficult to handle, two is just a shitstorm. Especially when yall have the same competitive illness.
Its better to either cut ties or at least stay a little further away from eachother from now on
NTA For bringing up. I’m not going to tell you to dump your friend who you’ve been inseparable from since kindergarten. What she said was not good and sounds very selfish. However, when dealing with two teens with mental health issues, we need more information before suggesting anything drastic. Sometimes people get angry when they are scared and say the wrong things. It doesn’t mean your friend doesn’t need some kind of consequence, but you shouldn’t have to mourn the loss of friendship right now as well. Unless that’s what you feel is best.
I hope you have a therapist you trust you can bring this up with and decide how to move forward. It sounds like she is a strong influence on you and there may need to be some better boundaries set at least. But it is a journey, and I wish you the best.