tl;dr: I recently realized all my friendships are very one-sided and I don't understand how to fix this.
If you check my post history, you'll probably see that I'm going through a rough time. My dad died a couple months ago, I'm struggling with self harm, I've got an urgent referral to a psychiatrist (haha, I got an appointment in the middle of typing this). It's rough.
I've also been having a difficult time with my wife (26F). I made a post a few days ago where it was kind of pointed out that our relationship is pretty one-sided on the emotional side of things. But the more I think of it, the more I realize all my relationships are like this?
In the past week I've talked down three friends from crises. I've always thought that I had good boundaries, like I tell them that "I can't always be here for you, but please reach out. If I'm quiet it's because I'm taking time for myself." And it's true, I'll ignore messages and check in later.
I really like supporting people, and I used to have friends in the past that would threaten to hurt themselves in manipulative ways for attention. So I started trying to keep people at an arms length and not burden myself with "fixing them". I still like to make sure they have safe though, and encourage them to reach out and pursue resources. I give crisis lines and I've referred them to therapists.
I've also made some more acquaintance like friends where we don't get into any sort of deep conversations and just have fun.
When I'm happy, this works. But my problem is when I reach out to any of my friends, they don't help me. One friend in particular (20m), constantly talks to me when he needs support. He also says he is always there for me. However, when I start talking about what I'm going through, he leaves me on read. Then a few days later he'll reply but completely change the convo.
It all just makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong, because this is my experience again and again. When I've told my friends how I feel it just makes them sad, and then the conversation ends up being about them feeling like terrible friends. And by the time we reach the end of that conversation I just feel unsafe telling them about how hard things are for me. I get worried they'll steal that pain too and make it all about them.
How do I talk to my friends? How do I stop myself from feeling so guilty? How does one make friendships that aren't one-sided?
Submitted October 01, 2020 at 08:50AM by VelvetShedding https://ift.tt/2EVA2wg
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