I have a friend that recently attempted suicide. This was as a result of numerous things coming to a head after years of depression and unhappiness. As soon as she told me that she was in the hospital for ingesting over 30 pills, I got out of bed, got dressed, and went to sit with her at the ER. Another good friend of ours came as well, and we sat and talked with her until she was discharged at 6:30 in the morning.

During that time of sitting and talking, we obviously asked her why she did what she did. She had been smiling and laughing, joking with us in that room right up until we asked the question. She said that ultimately it was because of a fight she had had with her FWB (Friend With Benefits) and a fight that she had later with her grandmother.

I will not go into too much detail, as I want to respect my friend’s privacy, but her relationship with this guy, her FWB, is critical to this blog post. What she said basically was that he had called her a drain on his resources and had, up to this point, been kind of rude towards her. Obviously, my other friend and I jumped up in her defense and let her know that we supported her and that the guy sounded like an idiot.

Once the nurses ran final tests and made sure that my friend was mentally sound to go home, she was discharged and taken to my apartment where she stayed for a week and a half. Mind you, before she left, a case worker set her up with appointments with a therapist/psychologist of which he insisted that she attend. Anyway, during that time spent at my place, she and I talked extensively about the FWB and how many wrong things he had done to her in the time that she knew him. Everything she told me cemented in my head more and more that she needed him out of her life.

I told her this. Multiple times. I noticed that the entire time that she was at my place, she was on her phone, talking to god knows who. She would ask her dad if she had gotten any messages at home from her FWB, and of course he told her no. I told her to take that for what it was, as a sign that she shouldn’t text him first. There was no need, and she didn’t need to explain her hurt to him. And also, the entire time that she was there, I insisted that she go home so she could make it to her appointments.  I even got onto her because, from my bedroom, I heard her cancel an appointment with the mental health professional.

Many of you who read my blog regularly know that I am all about mental health. So of course I wanted to make sure that she was back on her A-game. She got upset at me, though, because she insisted that she was fine and that she had learned from her attempted suicide. My boyfriend drove her home so that she could actually make those appointments and do other stuff at home that needed to be done.

She came back two days later because, again, she had a fight with her grandmother. When I asked her how she got to my house, she told me that she had asked her FWB to bring her. Rightfully, I got onto her a bit. I insisted “I thought you said you were done asking for his help. I thought you were done asking him to help you with stuff since he called you a drain on his resources.” I was only looking to help, so when her brother came to pick her up from my place to take her home, I asked him to help me talk to her. Now, her brother does not have a way with words, so he just made things worse, but he agreed with me that she needed to forget about the guy who hurt her to move on.

When she got home, she sent me screenshots of their messages (her and her FWB’s) stating that they were going to meet up and talk about what all had happened. I gave my advice and insisted that she shouldn’t have to tell him why she was hurt. She shouldn’t even give him the time of day. Albeit when they talked through things, he apologized for all that he had said. However, when she asked my opinion of everything, I had to be very frank with her.

I told her that she shouldn’t have tried to talk to him. She should not have answered him when he messaged first, and she should have just left him alone. He had hurt her in a way that cut so deeply, she felt the urge to take her life, and still she wanted to spend time with him.

Now, what I should have said earlier in this post is that I have been her friend now for 10 years. In that time, I have seen her struggles, I have been a person who was there for her when she needed a place to stay, and I gave her years and years of advice on how she could better her life. When she first told me that she was going to have an FWB, I was worried. She is not the type of girl who can find happiness unless she has a meaningful relationship that would go somewhere. So obviously, this was not the type of relationship I felt she should have. But I tried my best to be supportive of her, as I felt a friend should do.

So now, recently, I noticed that she was saying that “at least [she] has someone sticking by her side through everything” and I know she is not referring to me. I haven’t talked to her in a few weeks now because I have been upset. I have been a refuge for her and have tried to make her happy as best I can, but now she is acting like I just stopped caring because I gave my honest opinion.

Do I think we can reconcile? Sure. But she has to understand that, because we have been friends so long, I feel that I can tell her how I feel about certain things. I accepted it when she told me that I needed to cut ties with my first ex because he was bad for me. I accepted when she told me it was a mistake to try and be friends with him after. And I accepted when she insisted that he was no good for me anymore. So why can’t I do the same for her? Why must she post passive aggressive posts on social media, rather than come to me and talk about it like the adults we both are? Well, I am going to make that first step, because I value her friendship.