Love friend in real life but not on social media

isohon

Ahshurlook wrote: »

I have been doing a lot of thinking and I've tried to help her with what she's going through but the announcement this week of the reality tv show is just a bit much. I'm feeling really overwhelmed by our friendship right now and think I need to take a step back. I love her and we've been friends for over 20 years but I need some space. Someone who constantly needs validation is very draining.

You have been a patient and good friend. I think you know what is happening, and have done a good job of articulating it here. Your friend is in a bad place, and appears to be spinning out to a certain degree, this has lead to her overburdening yourself and other mutual friends. It seems you have also been more heavily leaned on by her than most, and you have a right to recognize that being someone's emotional support can be very personally costly to an individual.

You will know best how fragile an individual your friend is, but if it is at all possible to gently get the point across to her that she may be overindulging in social media, perhaps even as others have said by making it a generalized conversation.

I've been in both pairs of shoes over the last few years, and unfortunately I wore your friend's much longer than your own. I didn't go down the obsessively positive #bestlife route, I went down, what was probably a lot worse, the bitter, caustic sarky route. Friends did try to get me to notice what I was doing but it never clicked for me until it was too late for some of my best friendships. I didn't make it easy on them either, but I do wish one of them had just flatly called me out, and taken me through the comments and postings and gotten me to see from their side how I was coming across. In the end some abrupt silences, in certain cases permanent, eventually forced me to recognize what I had become. It is cliche to say it, but when I think myself during that period I imagine myself with scales over my eyes.