Unhealthy reliance on my friend?
I (18F) have a very close friend (22M), I’ve known him for about 7 months and I’m worried that I’m becoming unhealthily attached to/reliant on him.
To preface this, I have absolutely no interest in a romantic relationship with him. It is purely platonic, and I am very happy with having this person as just a friend.
Our friendship started by me reaching out to him for help- I had been having a particularly hard night, and decided to talk to him for help, because at that point, i saw him as a sort of older figure in the sport we both did. After that, he became a really important, supportive person in my life.
I’ve been struggling with pretty severe depression from something that happened a few months before I met this person, and he became who I reached out to when I was having an episode. It isn’t one sided, of course- we both have some mental struggles, and if he needs my support for anything, I’ll do everything i can to help and support him.
However, like the title says, i think my reliance on this person is becoming unhealthy. It feels like he’s the only person I can truly be vulnerable with. If he doesn’t respond to my messages I feel a little stressed, and I check his activity status online pretty frequently. I think about him a lot and I honestly have a lot of dreams about him. I have plenty of people I can reach out to in crisis- im incredibly lucky to be surrounded by kind and caring people. But, this person is the only person i ever actually want to talk to, and im afraid of myself becoming overbearing.
Most distressingly, however, he recently got a significant other (20F), they first met about 6 months ago, and I cant help but feel jealous and a little spiteful towards her. They spend almost every day together sleep over almost every night, and my friend has become way busier after getting into a relationship. I have less long conversations with him, and he has a tendency to drop everything, and leave/cancel hangouts to be with her. Sometimes when he hangs out with me she gets angry or upset at him, despite the fact that I’ve known him for longer (also might be worth mentioning that I’m aroace, and she knows this already).
I can’t bring myself to always like my friend’s s/o, (some reasons I think are more valid, but thats a different convo) when I think about the two I feel nauseous and frustrated. She is very sensitive and cries a lot, and if she doesn’t get my friend’s attention every day, she gets very upset. There have been times where I was having an episode so my friend offered to hang out, but brought his gf, and she was upset about schoolwork or something, and i felt the urge to hide my episode, making me feel worse.
I think it’s making my episodes worse. He didn’t really respond to me or message me much for a few days, and I already was having an episode, but it got to the point where I reached a state of crisis recently and had to go to a hospital (obviously that wasn’t the only reason, but I think it contributed). I’ve done everything in my power to hide these feelings around the two and support my friend, and so far I’ve succeeded, but it isn’t a good feeling. The last thing I want is to crash out on somebody I care about.
I don’t know why I feel so strongly about this- I just want my friend to be happy, he’s been nothing but kind and supportive to me, and when I first found out he was in a relationship, i was so excited for him! I intend on bringing this up with my therapist when I manage to get more consistent therapy (im in an iop program right now), but for the time being, what should I do? Should I bring up any of this with my friend? I can recognize that there have been faults on his end, but I’m not sure exactly where they lie.
TLDR- im depressed, i have a friend I rely on heavily, he got a girlfriend, and I’m happy for them, but I’m jealous that they spent all their time together.