Toxic Friend

Real friendship isn't about being completely selfless all of the time. No relationship can be successful if it's entirely one-sided.

Successful relationships are reciprocal. There may not be equal 50-50 give all of the time - sometimes one person will give more than another to help the other through a tough time, but it shouldn't be that way always.

You are not responsible for his (or anybody's) happiness.

You are responsible for yours.

If helping him brings you happiness and you enjoy it, keep doing it.

If it's emotionally draining, taking up a ton of your energy and time, and is a soul suck, you should taper off.

I have allowed a number of toxic relationships to exist in my past. I will never do it again. Even if the person is related to me. I won't cut people off - I'm not cold. But I will limit how much of myself I am willing to invest in someone who is incapable of helping himself or herself.

Hope that perspective helps. And I hope your friend will get some help.

It sounds to me like your friend needs serious help. And the only one who can give him that help is him. Your caring and concern are admirable. But you can't cure him of his depression. The problem with depression, especially in men, is you can't really point to it like you can a broken bone or cut or something, and say "There's the messed up part." For whatever reason, men in particular have a hard time admitting their "wiring" isn't working quite like it should be.

My hunch is, your friend knows he has problems, he's just not willing to cross that line to finding help for them. It's admitting frailty, fault, defeat. (Not really, but my guess is he sees it that way.)

Until he changes, your friendship has no hope of survival, and the friend you knew will keep becoming less obvious over time.

I wish you well figuring it all out. I have no answers for you, only observations. And I'm sorry you - and your friend - are having to go through this. You sound like a really good guy to have as a friend.

If he's your best friend, tell him flat out what you're telling us. You can't make the change for him, but he seems to be changing you. In short - you're unequally yolked in this friendship. Tell him he needs help and that you make him get help, but that he's dragging you down with his whine-*****-moan attitude. Maybe cutting him off for a couple of weeks will help him understand that you're dead serious - he needs help.

Best of luck, mate. I went through this a few years ago with a good friend who was the same way. I stuck with him for awhile and we even worked together, but when his poor attitude hung me out to dry at work, that was it. This was years ago! He went through a DUI, followed by bankruptcy, followed by a divorce, and just got fired from his job last week. He never listened to me much back then, so I can't imagine that if I had stuck around he would have been any different. What I can say with certainty is that had I stuck around, I definitely would have been different - in a very bad way.

Again, I really do wish you the best of luck.

What would Pooh do?





Nah, but seriously, it people are constantly bringing you down, and never do anything to bring you up, you have to ask yourself what the relationship is really worth. Sometimes the best things for us are the most difficult things to do.

I love Eeyore so very much. Thanks, GBG.

If this depressing mood has been hovering since high school and your friend is not receptive to getting help, there is very little you can do. Sometimes when we grow up, we have to learn to put boundaries in place. Stay in contact if you want to, but put some space there. It's all about what you want in your life. Toxic friends, your description, can only have effect if we let them. Good luck.

I really feel for you. It is difficult for people to be objective about themselves and when you throw mental illness into the mix, it is near impossible. Your friend is very lucky to have someone who cares so much about him. I agree with the other posters - he needs to be willing to seek help. You can't fix him by yourself. However, maybe you can takes steps to make it easier for him to get help.

You said he is too stubborn to speak with a doctor himself. What if you looked into different therapists in your area and received information from them on ways they can help and their pricing. You could take this information and just leave it at his house the next time you're there for a visit. Up to you if you want to have the discussion first about believing he needs some help, or if you just leave it behind and not mention anything. I guess it just depends on how you think he'll react. Basically, he can choose to call or not call, but either way it would be his choice and nobody else would need to know. Also, could you speak with a naturopath about some supplements that may help his depression? People have mixed feelings about naturopaths (personally, I think you have to be careful that whatever you take doesn't interfere with any other medication prescribed by a doctor). If you were to purchase something from a naturopath, again you could just leave it behind the next time you're at your friends house with a dosage recommendation the naturopath would give you.

Just my thoughts. In the end, you need to do what is best for you. Good luck.

Having been there myself with clinical depression - Maybe someone needs to make him get treatment. (not you, it's not your place, but you can alert people who can help him)... One of the problems with depression is it makes you lose your will to live or do anything, and that can make it impossible to get yourself together enough to get treatment. It sounds like he's got a serious dose of that. Are his family aware of just how ill he is? Because if someone's going to make an intervention like forcing him to get help, it should come from his family rather than a friend. If his family are not taking his illness seriously, then maybe speak to a mental health support group for further advice about how to help him.

This is an illness, it's not apathy or not wanting to change. Depression seriously messes up your brain chemistry. I agree that someone who has mental illness needs to take responsibility for it and it's only them that can do what it takes to get well (whether it's taking medication, doing therapy, or whatever) but there is a point in mental illness where you're too far gone to be able to do that, and that's why doctors will section/commit people against their will. He says he doesn't trust doctors... this refusal to get help, whether the doctor thing is an excuse or the main reason, is a serious issue... but it doesn't mean he can't be helped.

Even if you don't want to hang around with him any more (understandable if his illness has gone beyond what you can cope with), don't just leave him without trying to alert someone else who cares about him to his very poor mental state, because he's going to be even more isolated and it's like he's in a deep, black pit he can't get out of on his own, and people leaving him or giving him ultimatums isn't going to motivate him to get help, because his brain chemistry is already too messed up to do this. He'll just stay in that pit. Someone needs to know he's in there, including people who can get him out (psychiatrists etc). Contact someone in his family that he's close to and tell them how worried you are about him and that he needs help and won't get help by himself (because of his illness). If they don't take you seriously, or if they also don't know what to do about it, then contact a mental health charity/support group for further advice, and take it from there.

I've had many of these in my time. My best friend was also very toxic (in different ways). I was being treated very poorly. Being used and abused I guess you could say. I always let things roll off my back and tried to accept her for how she was and just thought that it's just how she was and how she treated people, until she started treating me extremely poorly going behind my back and doing things that a person just shouldn't do. It took other people outside of the situation to open my eyes and tell me that that's not how a relationship with a best friend should go and to this day I haven't talked to her since. It's been about a year or little over.

My point being is that once you do cut ties it sucks and you do miss certain parts of the friendship but as of now I only find myself missing old fun memories not necessarily her as a person. I no longer have her toxic self in my life and it's shown to be much better off for myself. People can't always be the best version of themselves every minute of every day it's human to make mistakes and be in a bad mood once in awhile but when it becomes a habit and it starts to affect the people around them they can't blame you for not wanting to be involved in it. Sometimes you have to look out for number 1. And you shouldn't feel bad for looking out for number one after you've tried multiple times to be the good friend and help out, you at least tried. There's only so much you can do.

If you can't change the people around you, change the people you are around.