Almost my biography. I never thought of killing myself. As a Jew I know that due to the fact that I am mostly non-observant I am destined to millennia of suffering.
Uh what? I’m a Jew, and that makes no sense to me.
Stop answering the phone late at night. That’s what the “do not disturb” setting is for. You can probably set it up so that your emergency contacts get through. Otherwise, assign Katie a chirping crickets ringtone and let it go to voice mail.
If she asks, just say, “oh, I was a really tired. I must have slept through it.”
Then start taking longer and longer to return her calls and texts. It’s the “let her cry it out method”. If calling you two late at night stops being rewarding, she’ll go in search of other prey.
I am sorry – different Rabbis have different opinions.
As someone with moderate depression I know that friends do help. Katie has severe depression – so she needs help very much.
I was less of a prodigy, but still outstanding. Only later I became sub average.
She needs professional help, though. In sounds like she might even need in-patient treatment. She needs help beyond what Maggie can provide.
I had moderate depression since 1990? or late '80s?
Thank G-d I never had severe depression, so I would not know.
Maggie, you really do have to think of yourself first. Does she know what’s going on in your life right now? Because it’s true that many severely depressed people are self-obsessed (I speak from personal experience, no judgment here… being unable to see over the prison bars of depression is part of the illness) but if I’m reading you correctly re: how you dealt with your depression, maybe you’re being as self-contained and silent/brave vis-a-vis your illness–not wanting to burden anyone, as w/the depression–but it’s to the point that your friend isn’t aware how heavy your own burden is.
Of course, your making the comparison to your own dignified self-composure during your depression is entirely understandable, but (as you acknowledge) not helpful. In many cases, keeping the depth of one’s depression a secret shame could be an even more dangerous route to take. And it has nothing about dignity. She’s ill, no more able to control her symptoms of that illness than someone with hypothyroidism can prevent being cold and sluggish, or someone with emphysema can prevent coughing.
I wonder if you could consider writing her, kindly and gently, something along the lines of:
"Look, I am very worried about you and I care deeply for you. I beg you to try and see your therapist more often, if possible, because as you know, I’ve got some serious shit going on with me, and though I want to be able to help you and listen to you, the truth is, I’m distracted and focused pretty tightly on getting through my health stuff. I’m really sorry I can’t be that friend, because I want to be. I just can’t right now.
“But you shouldn’t be alone through your own issues. So have you considered joining ___ Facebook community [assuming she’s on facebook; substitute any other good depression communities you can find], or increasing the number of your sessions, or even finding a support group? You deserve to have your voice heard, and I love you and I’m trying my best but I just can’t handle more than my share right now.”
Or something similar?
Dude. Do you think this is helping someone else, or do you just feel like bringing the conversation around to your own problems? There’s no need to reiterate your very well-known autobiography. Maggie’s thread is about something that doesn’t relate to you, as you acknowledge. Why jump in just to remind us of that?
I hope you’ll dam that river up now before we get to the inevitable part about parents ruining lives by daring to encourage their kid to take a potentially lucrative college degree.
Congratulations, choie. You have said what needed to be said (on both fronts) and made it clear and complete. Well done. Hope all involved read and consider.
I’m going to say something that might offend, but this ‘friend’ of yours is just one of those people who suck the lifeblood out, and when she’s bled you dry she’ll find someone else.
I suggest you block her number to make sure it goes to VM. And if you are a FB user, I’d block her there too. As it is, you are just feeding her illness which is primarily attention seeking.
Good luck though!
She may be ill but it doesn’t sound like she’s trying very hard to get better. Before you jump down my throat on this, I have depression and have had it for over a decade. The absolute worst thing you can do with depression is jump on the downward spiral and go for a ride. it sounds like she’s taking you down with her every single night while she purposely wallows in the pain. It’s almost masochistic.
any decent therapist will tell you to stop the spiral as soon as you can and work on being realistic in your expectations and world view. She’s got the same script night after night. And it’s all about her and how bad she feels. The more she talks about it the worse it’s going to get.
What she really needs is an outlet for her to volunteer or something to care about outside of her dark brain. A positive distraction is almost life saving.
What she doesn’t need is a friend to dump on every night.
CCitizen, I’ve asked you repeatedly not to start more threads or turn other threads into being about your personal issues. Your posts here are doing nothing to address the OP’s issues, and are instead about your own. Don’t hijack threads like this going forward.
Thank you. “Won’t somebody fuck that?” is not a helpful response.
I understand that no therapist would talk about their patients, doctor/patient confidentiality and all, but I was basically suggesting what you did. Call up and say “I don’t want to discuss with you, but can you bring this up with her” and whether the therapist does or not depends on her
I relate to this post so much. I have social anxiety and hard-wired people-pleaser instincts - I find it nearly impossible to say ‘no’, to interrupt, et cetera, and as a result, I seem to attract dysfunctional people who want to use me as their personal agony aunt.
The thing I keep having to remind myself about is that my health - mental and physical - has to come first. I can try to cut them off politely, and if they don’t take the hint, I will cut them off less politely.
First, you and your husband are not responsible for your friend, her emotions or actions.
Second, the best way to not get sucked into the nightly death spiral, is to not respond. Don’t respond to the text, don’t answer her call, don’t look at her Facebook posts. I’m not saying de-friend her. I’m saying set boundaries. After 9:00 pm each day, have a NO-KATE zone in your life until noon the next day. Something like that. You don’t owe her constant attention. No friend or family member (sisters included) deserve that on a constant basis.
Good luck.
Indeed, it would probably make things worse. She’s clearly in no condition to have a healthy relationship, therefore it would be another thing to agonize over and complain about, and just maybe end in a heartbreak-push right over the edge.
You can’t help her, her depression has become her identity. She won’t easily let go of it and will bring you and your husband down too.
To call it her hobby or identity are not quite the right words, but she is clutching and holding her depression closely to her and using it to keep you involved. It is important to her in an unhealthy way. She needs a friend but only to keep telling her woes to, not to help her solve them, but to keep them going.
She won’t let go of it, nothing you do will help. Your attempts to help will only reinforce her need for your involvement.
I actually…can be the type of person your friend is. And lemme tell you it fucking sucks. I can’t say that this is exactly how she feels or what’s going through her brain but maybe it’ll help put some perspective on the situation. I’ve been battling depression for about twenty years now, constantly fluctuating between moderate and severe. Moderate is tolerable. Severe is just torture. But when it’s severe…my mind wants to talk to someone, anyone. If I talk to someone about my problems, I feel like I’ve at least DONE something. If I let my friends know how I feel, in my mind, I think that it’s helping them to understand why I’m being such a terrible friend. I want help, but I don’t know how to get it. I’m looking for advice, feedback, anything to help make it better.
Even with medication and therapy I’ve still had this same cycle. At the worst times I stress constantly about my friends being in the position you are. Sometimes that worry, that I’m causing trouble for a friend, stops me from just venting constantly. But when I don’t talk about it, it just simmers in my mind. And when you’re depressed, negative thoughts that just sit in your head with no outlet spiral out of control and you feel even more awful and depressed and disgusted with yourself. So even if you know you’re being a burden or you know you’re asking too much of a friend, you still emotionally vomit all over them. Because the idea of holding it in is so much worse than the fear or losing a friend. It’s a shitty shitty place to be in.
I did read that article about how to handle your friend and I actually spotted some things that have been said to me. Again, this is just my personal experience, but in particular, the one about offering a specific subject to talk about was what really works with me. Depression makes you hyper focus on the worst aspects of your life. If left unchecked, your brain’s not going to suddenly realize that it’s overreacting or that things aren’t so bad. No, it’s just going to grip on tighter to how awful life is how terrible a person you are and how nothing’s ever going to get better. Being that friend who stops that spiral, who gets her mind on another track and who helps her realize there’s other things in life besides your depression is going to be the most effective course of action.
Try to do things with her. Go out places that require you to focus on the task at hand. Don’t give her brain a chance to start dwelling on the bad things. Yeah, you’re not going to be able to successfully stop the train every single time but, even ‘normal’ people feel the need to vent now and then. Hopefully it gives you some help on how to handle this. You sound like a fantastic friend and I think that you’re doing a great thing by reaching out for help. For both you and her 