I have a friend who's Russian and I once loved her so dearly that she was the first person I ever came out to. She supported me, she gave me clothes, she listened and loved and was more patient than just about anyone I'd met. We had the same spiritual interests, read much of the same philosophy and psychology books, we even worked together on research last year. Over the summer we studied together for the GRE and I helped her edit her admissions essays because I was a professional editor for the three years before going back to school. In October, she abruptly moved to California to marry this guy she'd hardly known because she had a cultural clock in her head that she had to be married by 23. I missed her dearly when she left.
In February, she came back after her and her husband were having severe fights and she didn't know if she wanted to be with him any longer. But then she got an interview with a grad school here and was accepted. Then she got an interview in California and left for that. Her and her husband made up but then the nasty stuff started again. She got into the school out there and accepted (meanwhile, I got rejected by the only program that even gave me an interview, but to be fair, she applied to Masters programs and I to Ph.D.'s which in psychology, is night-and-day for admissions rates). Then her mom visited them and her husband only got nastier, putting his fist through the door one night. She immediately made plans to come back out here indefinitely. But in the meantime (and this was two months ago) she started developing neurological symptoms that Navy hospital doctors (husband's a Marine) have shrugged off, telling her she's making them up, and referring her only to counseling.
So for the last two months, I've listened and comforted her as she described all the pain she was having, the blindness that appeared in one eye, the numbness, the tingling, the hot-and-cold flashes in her limbs, her husband's continued assery, her other friends abandoning her since she moved, and her mom's depression after her fiance died in January. I never once complained because I cared so deeply. I even wore the pendant she gave me every second of every day, to remind me of her and that wonderful friendship we shared. She gave it to me because it meant so much for my spiritual path.
But then, about three weeks ago, she snapped at me when I told her I was depressed. She told me I was being selfish and not thinking of others. We soothed that over and I picked her up at the airport (at 2:30 AM) two weeks ago. Two days later, we went to hang out and catch up, and within 5 minutes of us being in the restaurant, I said I was cold and she snapped at me that I was being negative and stormed out on me, leaving me to slurp down my smoothie alone. I found her in the Guitar Center next door to the smoothie shop (about 20 minutes later) and told her I wasn't being negative, but was cold. I explained that my thermoregulation hadn't recovered from my years of anorexia and I chilled easily. She always knew this. But then she gave me a lecture about being selfish and that at least I wasn't forcibly starved in a refugee camp like she was (twice) and I did it to myself. She stormed out on me again.
We made peace, hung out two more times, and then yesterday happened...
We were watching Forest Gump, and the end always makes me cry. I kind of started sobbing and she began lecturing me about how good friends don't cry or get sad when they're together, and that if I was a good friend, I'd think of her and stop. Then she got a phone call from her admissions counselor from school and I started crying some more because I felt like I was such a failure not getting into the programs I applied to (but I didn't tell her at all). Some of the crying lately is from the hormones, I know, but I suffer from seasonal depression and it's come back due to our continuous bad weather. Well, at this point, she totally flipped. I tried talking to her and she kept interrupting me, then she went on this 10-minute anxiety-fueled rant that culminated in her saying that she knew she was dying from the neurological stuff, nobody cared (even though I help her all the time), everyone was too self-involved, she'd be the first of all her friends to die, nobody would care that they caused her death with their selfishness, then locked herself in the bathroom. When she came out, I tried to talk but she interrupted again. So I left because I told her that it was obvious my physical presence was causing her too much pain, and that I was sorry the movie made me cry.
On the way home, I texted her because something bugged me: she told me I'd never cared. So I asked her if she really thought that. She confirmed it and said that if I was a good friend, I'd pay attention to how bad she feels and never complain about anything. I proved I didn't care by crying. And yet, I went to see her right after electrolysis, when I was unshaven for three days, and had a chin swelled up to double its normal size! She then called me manipulative for having left, on a day that I was already thinking of the manipulative nature of my relationship with my dad and stepmom who, by the way, severed all contact with me last week (but did I even mention that to her? NO!). That sent me into a nasty crying fit that lasted all the rest of the day.
Then, at 12:45, she sent me a text that she couldn't sleep, and she knew I was at fault because she'd had visions that I was doing witchcraft on her to hurt her. Now she was attacking my spiritual path on a very personal level. I asked her what on earth that meant and why she was hurting me. She told that if I had a heart (
IF I had a heart) I'd let her sleep and stop my witchcraft on her.
I just don't know what to think... maybe these neurological things are changing her, but I can't handle this abuse when I'm only just building up my self-esteem for the first time in my life after a childhood of severe physical, mental, and emotional abuse. I have no love of myself, but that's started to change. And what she said is threatening to unravel that. But I don't want to be the bad friend who leaves her when she needs help. So I texted her, saying that I may sometimes hurt those who love me by not being able to accept love from others (it's really kind of true... when you spend years hating yourself, you wonder how anyone else can care). She sent me a text back saying that it's good that I
finally saw that I make mistakes.
She also told me of a party going on Thursday night (when we had already made plans) which she was going to attend. She told me that I was welcome, but she'd be paying attention to other people so I had best be "a good friend and not freak out" (her exact words). I told her that I didn't need a lecture on how to be a friend and that maybe we shouldn't be friends anymore.
Her response? That she's dying and she doesn't care what anybody says right now because she has to think of herself, and that maybe she's not a good friend because of it, but she doesn't care. She then said that she won't listen to what anybody says right now, and that's where she needs to be. Also, she told me that I had hurt her the day before (for crying at the end of the movie) and I deserved what she said to me because it was right.
Then she said she didn't want to talk about it now because American Idol is on.
What on earth do I do...? I'm falling apart here, losing one of my best friends to something I don't even know.
