My (17M) best friend (16F) has been acting like a whole different person recently and idk What to do
TLDR: friend has been acting differently and randomly mean to me and she's never been like this before and it stresses me out and makes me upset
i know this is a relationship sub but we don't want to date each other and she's bi and more into girls/fem guys and acts more masculine and i honestly forget she's a girl when not interacting in person so it works out perfectly for a non romantic friendship plus im chopped but it seems to be the best fitting sub for now
so we've been pretty close friends since december like we talk and text most days call when were free or play games like overwatch together on call like friends usually do and she's always been very sweet and nice and we playfully insult and hit each other as most friends do.
we never really argued besides some disagreements and misunderstandings that we would communicate over and work out just fine (usually me initiating the communication because if i don't she won't) but since like the past month she's changed a lot
she's in a bunch of honors classes and were in our junior year and in the winter we didn't have much of a course load at all so we would hang out talk and call and text a lot most days and she would usually be in a good cheery mood but apparently she's been getting more work and stressed i guess but its really changed her
it started like a month ago when she didn't show up to the school cafeteria (our friend group of like 5 including her all go to the cafeteria before the class bell rings) so i texted her asking where she was and she responded "does it fucking look like it retard" and while she does jokingly talk to me like that sometimes she meant it like seriously and then she said something about running to school because i guess she missed the bus or something idk
and then throughout the rest of the day she kept like reacting really negatively to everything i said and texted her like things she would normally be fine with she'd snap at me for and i would get upset. she went to eat lunch with one of her other friends which i guess is understandable
later that afternoon i texted her to check up and ask if she was fine and she said she was just stressed because she had a bunch of tests coming up that week and apologized for how she acted earlier when i told her how hurt i felt and then i thought she was good and we were good. then like an hour later i texted her again to ask about something and she got mad and told me she was trying to relax so i just left her alone
then for like a week and a half she was fine to me but just in a bad mood all the time like i would feel miserable just being around her, then another day came where it was like a school field day and in the morning she seemed fine but then later on we were together planning for one of the events that was a word spell with people as letters and she was giving out suggestions on who should be what but the second i would chime in to offer a suggestion she would tell me to be quiet even though i was doing exactly what she was doing.
then throughout the rest of the day she would switch between being like really happy and showing me tiktoks then randomly yelling at me for random stuff and telling me off. we work at the same place and we had a shift at the same time so like 2 hours after school ended i saw her there and she was happy again but i was still really upset by how she acted towards me and didn't want to talk to her. after like 2 more hours we ended up working the same thing which is when we usually talk and she seemed completely normal and i eventually got over it and we talked fine and were happy again by the end of our shift. then throughout the next couple of weeks she seemed to be miserable half the time and really happy the other half so i would always feel nervous because if i tried to talk to her she would either be cheery or mean.
it kinda continued like this until a few days ago when she was telling me about something random and it eventually went to us talking about what days we were both free from work and i saw we had 2 days we were both off but she said she was busy so we couldn't hang out. as i always do i asked her what she had to do then and she got like really annoyed and asked me why she always has to tell me everything which was like a really unusual reaction since she seemed fine and we always tell each other everything so i didn't find it too out of the ordinary to ask.
then the day after that she texted me good morning (we always do) and she seemed like really happy again but i was still upset from the day before so i didn't really engage with her and basically avoided her out of fear of getting lashed out at and then for our free period i asked her if she wanted me to come to her room as i always do and she said sure but she had to focus on studying, i didn't mind that since i would still at least get to be with her so i went down to the room and she seemed upset that i had chosen to join her, like she said it didn't seem very fun so i took that as her not wanting me there so i just walked away without saying anything. i then sat somewhere else for lunch instead of with her and our other 2 friends that sit with us for lunch (the others have girlfriends to eat with but not us)
then later that day i was fed up with whatever was going on since the past 2 weeks she was fine but i would notice no matter how much i tried i just constantly seemed to annoy her even if i tried my best to not be annoying so it felt like i was walking on eggshells all the time. i texted her asking her to just tell me everything i do that annoys her so i can try to stop it and she told me a couple things like not thinking before i speak apparently even though i try my best to not sound stupid i still do i guess. then she apologized again for how she was toward me earlier and we seemed fine then and talked as normal seemingly happy.
then earlier today at lunch i decided to sit with her and another of our friends for once, and our other friend was saying something so he was talking kind of fast and i couldn't tell what he was saying, so i asked him to repeat like 3 times and i felt bad because i still couldn't tell what he was saying because it sounded like all scrambled up to me since i have auditory processing issues, then my friend told me that stuff like that was what annoyed her somehow and she called me stupid for not being able to understand him, then i told her i was struggling to understand what he was saying and she sort of just left it there, so i was kinda upset by that so i just went on my phone instead of talking and after like 2 minutes she grabbed my phone away from me and told me to socialize for whatever reason (she would kill me if she wasn't in the mood to talk and i did that to her so i don't know why she did it to me) and i didn't want to talk anymore since my mood was ruined. i then just sort of stared off into space while picking my nails and she looked at our other friend and said "this is how he gets when i call him stupid" which was also really weird because its like she sees that she upsets me but doesn't try to do anything to fix it.
i really like being around her when she's fine because she genuinely makes me happy when i talk to her or call and play games but she randomly switches between being happy and being like that and the constant swinging makes me stressed so any interaction with her gives me a lot of anxiety because i don't know how she will react. i also don't want to stop being friends with her because that's now how she is and she stuck around when i was struggling so i only see it right to help her through whatever it is she's going through.