I [28F] am trying to get rid of a clingy, emotionally draining friend [24F] with no success. Reasoning is useless with her.

I met this girl at work as teammates, when we were both saleswomen (about a year ago). I ended up relating a lot to what she’s been through with depression, even though we have different degrees of it.

Problem is, she loves to be in the spotlight, any spotlight, even picking fights with people in the office. I tried supporting her as best as I can, listened to her, pointed her in the direction of a good psychiatrist, encouraged her to exercise. I know the struggle, so I’ll help a sister out, right?

Wrong. She stopped going to the gym and taking her meds within a week while smoking like a chimney. She claims I’m her only friend. As such, I confronted her trying to be reasonable “why did you drop the meds? Were they making you feel worse? Maybe call the doctor” which resulted in a shouting spectacle of accusations of me being controlling, uptight and many other names.

At first I took a break from talking to her because maybe she felt pressured. Never touched the subject again. This was about one year ago. Since then she’s been clinging to me about how shitty her abusive boyfriend is (psychologically abusive, so I have no concrete proof against him), how much she hates her job, how much she hates everyone, she monologues basically.

Some time later I got promoted but we remained friends. Which made things worse because she thinks I have any sort of power over the sales team and tries to leverage my “power” (I’m in a completely different department) while being more and more clingy to the point of calling me late at night. Around christmas last year, I confronted her again. Shouted at again. Called worse names.

She got away for a little while then came back begging for forgiveness. I even said that I’m just trying to be honest, and that honesty is a big part of who I am and that’s not gonna change. “No problem, I’ll listen to you, I trust you to know what’s good for me”.

I don’t know what’s good for her. I’m not a doctor. I’m an office clerk. And her hatred and negativity is seriously affecting my own mental conditions (severe depression and OCD), but I don’t know how to push her away. Ghosting does nothing because she bombards me with texts even though I said “gonna be very busy this week, can’t talk”.

I know this girl needs professional help but there’s nothing I can do for her anymore when my own health is dwindling because of her.

Should I give her one last truth bomb and walk away from the blast or just vanish from her life? I’m really at a loss here. Please help.

TL;DR: my friend is this extremely clingy, dependent and problematic girl who’s making my depression worse. I tried being honest with her about not wanting to be her friend anymore which resulted in a screaming fit complete with name-calling.

Edit: thanks so much for the advice, guys. I feel bad for leaving her because she is in dire need of professional help but as I’ve heard many times, “you can’t help someone who doesn’t want help”. I’m going on paid leave soon so I plan on being brutally honest with her and blocking and hopefully going no-contact might make her realize I’m for real this time. I’ll post an update when I do, for now I need to close my fiscal year lmao. ❤️

Submitted June 24, 2019 at 10:03AM by busyasffffffffff http://bit.ly/322d5hE