TW// heavy mentions of mental health issues and e4ting dis0rders
I (17F) have a best friend (18F) who is mentally ill, she has been diagnosed with things such as bipolar disorder and has struggled with depression her whole life. Around a year ago I noticed her relapsing but was unsuccessful in helping. We were talking at that time about our pfps on several platforms and she shared a layout she made on twt and asked for my opinion, in the ss she blacked out the bio, username, nickname, etc. and as a snoop i decided to crop the image to her pfp and reverse image search it. Once i did that it directed me to her twitter account that was apart of the online community knowing as shedtwt which is a twitter community standing for s3lf h4rm and e4ting dis0rders. Obviously, I got concerned once i saw it and looked through all of her 500-ish tweets at the time and found out just how bad she was doing.
This is where i might be an asshole. I created my very own ‘edtwt’ acc as a disguise so I could ‘monitor her closer’ or something, I honestly forgot why seeings as it was almost a year ago by now. Over the next few months i ended up tweeting things myself and found many mutuals on there including following my friend where we too became mutuals. I mainly comment under peoples posts rather than making my own, my best friends posts in particular leading to her labelling me as one of her ‘favourite mutuals’. I ended up admitting to her that i knew abt her twitter acc around march(?) of this year but i didnt tell her about my secret account. as a result she privated her acc, not knowing i was following her. she ended up creating a brand new edtwt account that i also followed considering she told mutuals to refollow her. It has now been a year and not only has having this acc impacted my mental health and caused me to relapse but i feel like im creeping on her. Not only that, but she hasnt spoken to me for two weeks due to an unrelated fight so now i feel extra weird keeping tabs on her and interacting w her on my secret account. What should I do? Also please tell me if theres another sub this might be more suited to – im new to reddit and this is a new acc. ty.
YTA. You’re not a catfish, you are quite literally a stalker.
At this point she probably doesn’t trust you and I would understand why.
Im not sure abt the trust part bc once i told her earlier this year abt the acc she seemed mainly chill abt it rather than feeling awkward and she opened up to me abt some pretty big things later. I totally get what you mean w the stalking and that train of thought is what caused me to post this, do you think id lose her trust if i were to tell her abt my acc? Sorry i just dont know what to do and would like your opinion. Thanks for the comment
I’m confused, instead of going to your friends parents/trusted adult or actually trying to help her, you created a fake twitter to stalk her and now you’re blaming her for your own mental health relapse?
Just thought id give some more context, her parents dont believe in therapy and are super religious and told her she was going to hell once they found out she was s3lf h4rming a few years ago. I have encouraged her to get into therapy and she has using free online sources but she still hasnt told her parents. Also i didnt mean for it to come across as me blaming her i meant it in a way that its kinda destructive to me as well as her atp. Anyway thats my clarification and ty for commenting
Are you guys still in high school? I think it’s time that you go to an adult and tell them whats going on. I genuinely think your heart was in the right place, but this isn’t something that you’re equipped to deal with.
yep! i turned 17 four days ago so we’re still in highschool. how do you think i should approach an adult? and who should i tell? i think youre right w me not being equipped to deal w this bc i feel like i keep making it worse for her.
Go to your counselor or teacher , if you have copies or proof of whats going on, show them – they’re a mandated reporter. This is going to be rough, your friend might resent you for this, but it’s the right thing to do. Also, get yourself some help too.
As far as approaching them and how to do it, you’re just going to have to tell them the truth, let them know how your friends parents have responded, so they know that they aren’t safe people to tell, your friend isn’t a minor so they shouldn’t have to go to her parents.
YTA.
What is your goal here, exactly? If you’re one of her favorite mutuals, you must be doing something to reinforce her viewpoint. You should be trying to help her, instead.
As for your own mental health, I’m not sure what you expected to happen. You’ve become obsessed with your friend’s private life and now you’re all Pikachu face about it affecting you.
Tell an adult what’s going on, because you’re clearly not one and can’t handle yourself, which, to be absolutely fair, can be difficult at your age, but for your own sake, unburden yourself.
My goal here was to kind of see where she was at like for example if she tweeted smth abt feeling rlly bad that day id try to get her to open up to me abt it irl. idk it seems kinda silly looking back now. Also i would never encourage her to do anything bad but i get why youd think that, my comments mainly consist of ‘please try to talk to someone rather than harming yourself’, ‘youre not useless/ugly’ etc etc but i do get they mightve just come across as empty words from someone online (but i was saying these things to her irl ofc). i think i also just wanted to try and connect w her bc she has a habit of pushing irl people away when going through a bad mental health episode. also yeah idk what i expected to happen to my mental state either i guess i thought i was stronger than i thought. Who exactly do you think i should tell? Bc shes told me that her parents would hurt her if i were to ever tell anyone abt what she does. Thanks so much for the advice and sorry for the long comment.
NAH Not an asshole, but a bad idea. I wouldn’t call that catfishing, but you should delete that account and take that secret to your grave. Your friend needs professional help.
Mhm i get what you mean abt it not being catfishing I just didnt know what to call it bc its a pretty unique situation lol. Just out of curiosity, why should i not tell anyone? wouldnt it be better to tell her once she starts getting better again? id feel wrong not telling her eventually. thanks for commenting!
I don’t see how she would take it well. She doesn’t need to suffer for your mistake.