u/ComparisonLost1846

So I posted before about a friendship I’ve had for a few years now. I feel like she’s very emotionally dependent, which strains our friendship. I don’t really get a lot from being friends with her, but I worry about her mental health and feel it’s important to keep tabs on her. But at the same time I feel myself resenting her.

I talked to her last night and she was venting to me again. I find that she has a lot of difficulty maintaining friendships or work relationships and falls out with almost everyone. I also suspect she was dishonest with me or selectively honest (she told me she failed a certificate course or something because she submitted one assignment a couple hours past the deadline because of technical issues, but then said something alluding to having an issue with studying, and that’s why she failed the course, after I suggested something different).

It’s just exhausting to be the person she vents to after she falls out with everyone. I want her to succeed in life but honestly people don’t want to be around her because she’s draining. I also want to be honest with her and not enable her. What do I do?

One of my favorite long reads. A really interesting deep dive on a deeply entitled and shitty person

I’m 26F and she’s 29M. I’m not sure if she has BPD but a lot of the stuff on this sub aligns very very well with our relationship and some of her patterns so I thought I would post here for guidance.

So we’ve been friends for about 4 years, on and off. We went through a friendship breakup about 3 years ago that lasted for about a year, but we’ve been friends since then. She has some attachment issues stemming from her childhood and is very needy, which both makes me feel like I need to remain her friend and pulls me away. Our friendship has also experienced some difficulties because I started working a more time consuming job and she has had some difficulties finding consistent long-term employment, so I don’t have a lot of time for her and she’s the kind of person who needs her friends to have a lot of time for her.

We’re also in different states, so she needs a lot of reassurance through phone calls and things of that nature. She likes long phone calls. She frequently needs to talk to someone when she’s in crisis, which I understand—and usually I try to be there for my friends in crisis. The only issue is that she’s in crisis A LOT. She often falls out with other friend groups. This is partially because she has some communication issues, partially because she tends to fall in with somewhat shitty groups because of trauma and low self esteem, and partially because she spends a lot of time on Discord and other sites and socializes with the worst breed of basement dweller. These people really negatively impact her self-esteem, which is sad for me to see and makes me concerned for her.

Honestly this is gonna sound really shitty but I feel like I’ve outgrown her. On the other hand, though, I care about her and worry about her. I don’t really know how to juggle this, because I don’t get as much out of being her friend—I feel like our friendship lacks emotional reciprocity and I often feel like a caretaker. Recently she called me at 12:30 am when she knew I had work the next morning and was fast asleep. She apologized for that, and I accepted that apology, but i feel like it’s indicative of a wider lack of balance in the friendship. She doesn’t have a lot of friends though so i also feel like I don’t have a good reason for leaving the friendship besides this.. also, I feel like I need to keep tabs on her because she can sometimes make really catastrophic decisions and I worry about her mental health. She’s also really scared of being abandoned specifically.

TL; DR-I have been friends with this woman for 4 years. She is sweet but impulsive and has attachment issues. Because of these, I sometimes feel like our friendship isn’t equal and have some resentment against her, but I also don’t feel justified in ending the friendship because she has a very limited support system and is terrified of being abandoned. I’m not sure what the ethical thing is.

Just for fun. I feel like my protagonist would post on r/TrollCoping pretty frequently as her main coping mechanism is dark humor and storytelling. I also feel like she would like r/DivorcedBirds and post on r/girldinnerdiaries at least once lol. My antagonist would post EDM concert pics a lot and post on r/LPN (he’s a hospice nurse), argue with teenagers on r/fantanofans, and post the occasional screed about women on like one of the redpill subs. My secondary antagonist would be in the comments on literally all the porn subs, most of the sports subs except for like golf and F1, and also randomly post super wholesomely on r/cooking and encourage everyone in the comments. Just randomly thought of this at work today.

I am a third year teacher at a Title I school. I teach 11th grade ELA.

Last year was great, but this year has been a lot harder. I’ve been struggling with classroom management and behaviors more. I have one class that I really struggle with maintaining control over because it’s mostly boys and they’re mostly friends. They don’t shut up. I’ve done stuff like seating charts, but I constantly have to remind a couple problem students to sit in their assigned seats because if I don’t, they will walk around incessantly. Last year I had an autistic student in first period and I let him pace around the room when he was finished with his work, but this isn’t that; the two boys come from gym and have to walk up five flights of stairs, and they insist on talking to their friends or touching their friends while I’m also talking.

I’ve called parents and stuff but it does nothing. It’s really negatively impacted my mental health and I feel constantly disrespected. I’ve been losing my temper more frequently. I’m also autistic and that was a big reason why I pursued education, because there aren’t a lot of us in education. But I can barely get through a lesson because I’m so focused on behavior management. I feel so overstimulated. I feel like such a pathetic loser.

My standardized test scores have gone really well and my observations have been good for the most part. I’m eligible to apply for tenure next year, but I’m not even sure if I want to do this. I thought teaching saved me because I found such a sense of purpose and fulfillment out of this job but now I feel like I have no authority. Is this normal/part of the learning curve or am I uniquely bad at this? Should I leave?