How to help my friend

[NerdGirl]

Well, I sort of have a feeling that the answer to this might be that she's beyond my help, but you are all pretty insightful people so I thought I'd ask anyway. And if not, at least it might help me sort out what's going on if I write about it. I have this friend whom I will call Tara. I've known her for about 4 years. Another friend, Jim, and I are probably the people she is closest too and she tells us pretty much everything. She had just finished her undergrad and was working as a lab instructor and research assistant in the department where I was doing my PhD and Jim was doing his master's, so that's how we started hanging out with her. Jim describes her as "completely lacking in self-awareness" and "the least assertive person I have ever met", and I would have to agree with those descriptions. She has a long history of alienating people and not taking charge of her life and behaving inappropriately in various situations.

Examples of inappropriate behavior include the time she stayed for a few days at another friend's apartment and left nutella smeared all over the bed she was sleeping in without telling her host or attempting to clean it up, the fact that she shows up to teach wearing a dirty tube top and a miniskirt that are about 6 sizes too small for her - no exaggeration there - with her underwear hanging out all over the place and having not showered in a week (she's not poor (well, no more poor than the rest of us) and can afford to bathe and wash her clothes), the time she was semi-legally subletting an apartment from someone she didn't know and when she moved out, she left moldy food all over the fridge and cat pee all over the carpet, and the time she, Jim, and I were walking somewhere and we walked in front of a nursing home and she started yelling obscenities because "she has free speech and old people can't tell her not to swear."

An example of lack of assertiveness is the time that Jim and I picked her up from the airport and dropped her off at her sister's (in a pretty bad thunderstorm), and while we were in Jim's car waiting for her to make it inside okay, she tried the door and it was locked so she just went and sat on the sidewalk. We rolled the window down and were like, "Why don't you call your sister if you can't get in?" Well, she didn't want to use her cell phone minutes because she didn't have any money and she was just going to sit and wait for someone to get home. In a thunderstorm. So Jim gave her his phone and made her get back in the car and call her sister and wait in the car until she got there. Later that month she was evicted from her apartment because she didn't pay her rent because she had spent all of her money on the plane ticket for that trip.

As you might imagine, a lot of people don't like her and go out of their way to avoid her. I don't particularly like spending time with her, but she's my friend and I don't just drop people unless they're being malicious to me personally in some ways, which she really isn't. Two years ago, she moved to a new city to do her master's. It happens to be the same city that I moved to this month to go to med school, so now I'm in the same place as her again. She has been diagnosed with depression and is supposedly in counseling and taking medication, although she drinks a lot sometimes and she isn't supposed to mix alcohol with her medication. Jim and I have both been quite blunt with her when she "asks for advice" (really more like sends us emails about how she's such a victim and nothing is her fault and everyone is screwing her over), and I don't think we are enabling her, but she also doesn't listen to us. There are two things (well, two main ones) going on in her life right now that I am very concerned about.

The first is her school situation. She doesn't get along with her thesis adviser at all. She's at the end of the two years she had for her master's and she is not done. She hasn't done any work all summer. She gets stuck on things and emails me begging for help, so I'll email her back with questions to clarify what the issue is or ask to see her files so I can help debug things, and then she won't get back to me for two weeks because she was "too depressed to think about it." Incidentally, her adviser has a reputation for being very hard to work with, and another grad student at our old university knew she was going to work with him and knew first hand how bad he was and didn't warn her because "he doesn't like to talk bad about people." I'm not too impressed by that because I don't think it's "talking bad about people" if you warn a friend about a train wreck waiting to happen. If all but two of his grad students have had to quit working for him, did he really think it was a good idea for someone with Tara's personality to try to work with him?

Anyway, as of this morning, her adviser sent her an email saying he is looking for a new adviser for him because she has done nothing (she really has no results, which is partly or mostly his fault for how he set up the project, but she's sure not taking any responsibly for finding a solution at all), and she's panicking about that. But panicking for her doesn't translate into any kind of action. If I were her, I would be asking for help anywhere I could get it and working my butt off. But she just says it's too stressful to think about the problem, so she's just left on another vacation she can't afford. I have offered (and have been offering for the last two years) to help her in any way I can short of doing her work for her (my senior thesis was very similar to what she's doing, so I have the potential to be very helpful), but she just says she can't deal with it now. I've told her she needs to think seriously about her future and what she wants to be doing and the she should either make a plan for how she is going to get done, or consider taking a leave of absence if she really is so depressed that she can't work. Her response to that is that I don't know what it's like to be depressed (actually I do). Jim has said similar things to her.

Issue number two is perhaps even more concerning than issue number one. She met a guy online about three weeks ago, and is now having unprotected sex with him (by which I mean they don't use condoms because he doesn't like how they feel, and she "sometimes" remembers to take her birth control pills, but not at the same time every day). She doesn't even know his last name or really anything about him. Add to this that there is a syphilis outbreak in the city we are in, and that's pretty scary. She told me this a couple of days ago, and she said she isn't sure if it's a good idea to not use condoms, but that she's a woman and she has needs and he doesn't want to use them so she doesn't have much choice. I told her that she absolutely does have a choice and that I wouldn't sleep with someone if they wouldn't agree to do it in a way I was comfortable with. Her response to that was that I'm Mormon so I just don't get what a need it is for her. She says she doesn't think she'll get pregnant because her periods are too irregular and that he claims he was tested for STDs not too long ago.

So, any thoughts? Is there anything I can say or do to help her not be so self-destructive? I just have no idea and she's heading for a train wreck. If nothing else, she's going to be out of a job soon and I am not letting her move in with me if she gets evicted. I just have no idea how to help someone who refuses to take any responsibility for her life.

[TheAnswerIs42]

Wow. That's . . .really awful. There are obviously a few screws loose there. Does this girl have family that you know of? That might be one route. Otherwise, this girl seems bent on self-destruction. In some sick way, she seems to be chasing it, in fact. The reason I mention family is because someone with authority over this girl needs to force her to DO things to fix her life. You suggesting and pleading to help isn't getting through. But I have no idea how to fix such things in an adult. Yikes.

[Marduk]

Every last thing you have said points to a need for professional help. I don't doubt that she has clinical depression. Many people react to that by seeking pity and engaging in other self destructive behavior, such as medicating with sex. The only help you can really offer her is to do your best to insist she finds some sort of counseling as soon as possible.

[NerdGirl]

42 - She has family, but they are generally in worse states of mental health than she is. Her dad is living in a garage with 14 cats because his house burned down after he had canceled his home insurance, her younger sister (who owns the dad's cats but won't take care of them) is getting married this week to a guy she barely knows and has been living with in a van because she quit her job to be more at one with the universe, her older sister more or less has her life together, but has a daughter with a life-threatening heart condition which takes up most of her mental energy, and her mom is very self-absorbed and disinterested in my friend's personal problems, but encourages her to have as much sex as possible. She does sort of listen to her older sister, though, sometimes. Like her older sister bought her a cell phone because she was wandering around sketchy parts of the city at night by herself and has made her promise that she'll carry it for safety.

Duk - She's been in counseling a few times, but generally quits because she doesn't like the counsellor. And then she stops taking her medication because she spent all of her money on other things and can't afford it. She doesn't believe that there's any way to overcome clinical depression. And I know that some (many) people deal with it all of their lives, but there are still things you can try to do to manage it and be able to function. But she doesn't believe that so she gives up on counseling and everything else because she's convinced nothing will help. I've told her about how I was diagnosed with depression a decade ago and counseling helped me and that it took several years of counseling for it to help me in an effort to convince her not to give up on it, but she says I must not have really had depression, because real depression never goes away or improves.

I think you guys are right that all I can really do is just keep trying to get her to get help. Thanks for reading my long tirade, though. It's just sad, because she could have so much going for her if she could just work on getting some life skills.

[TheBlackSheep]

I think she's got more going on than depression, personally. And I don't know that there's anything you can do other than continuing to be the supportive, wonderful friend that you are. That being said, you may want to set some more limits for your own benefit. Don't stress yourself out answering her emails or trying to push her into things she obviously isn't going to do. You can't fix her. Hopefully she will get the help that she needs before she flunks out/develops further alcohol abuse problems/gets pregnant/gets a STI/any of the other myriad things that could happen but that are not your fault.

[Katya]

Yeah, I'm not surprised that her family's equally messed up, since it makes more sense that she would have learned a lot of these behaviors from example. (Or not learned better behaviors from example, if that makes any sense.)

I definitely agree with The Black Sheep that you need to set limits for yourself on how much you do for this girl. You could easily overextend yourself trying to "fix" her, and it may also be doing her harm for you to do so much for her instead of letting her live with her own choices. If I were you, I would boil down the most basic thing she needs to work on into one sentence (maybe "You need to take responsibility for your own actions"), and then repeat that sentence at least once to her every time she comes to you with a problem. If she hears it a few thousand times, it might eventually sink in.

[Imogen]

She sounds like she has a very serious mental disorder in addition to her depression. if no one in her circle has considered it, she may need to be in a psych hospital. if she is too depressed to even shower, that's a problem. not taking her meds is a HUGE problem, especially if her problems are this severe. she can be held against her will if necessary. but this is something her sister would need to be responsible for.

as for the unprotected sex, she's being an idiot and letting this man take advantage of her. if she won't listen to you because you're a mormon/virgin, pass this message along from me: "buy a vibrator. it's better than a man and won't give you a nasty and possibly incurable disease or saddle you with a child you don't want."

[UnluckyStuntman]

As always, I agree with Black Sheep 100%. You can't fix this. I hope your friend seeks professional help before things get worse.

as for the unprotected sex, she's being an idiot and letting this man take advantage of her. if she won't listen to you because you're a mormon/virgin, pass this message along from me: "buy a vibrator. it's better than a man and won't give you a nasty and possibly incurable disease or saddle you with a child you don't want."

Imogen, I'm sending you a mental high-five right now. And while I may not agree that vibrators are better than men, I'm just loving that you said anything about vibrators at all. You pretty much just made my day.

[krebscout]

This sucks. I'm sorry, NG.

I assume you've tried explaining to her that irregular periods don't mean anything, fertility-wise? Mine were always irregular. And now I haven't had one in three years, because I got pregnant twice in a row. But obviously she doesn't always think about things rationally...

Pray for her? That's about all we can do, right? I'm sorry.

[Dragon Lady]

Also, pray for yourself. Sounds like you need support and guidance, too. Sometimes we get caught up in trying to help someone else that we forget to help ourselves. Pray to know what to say and what not to say; what to do and what not to do. Pray to know when and where to set boundaries. Pray to keep your sanity. Pray to have the strength to be supportive, but also pray to have the strength to let go when you need to. Because you deserve all of God's help, too.

[NerdGirl]

Okay, so I never really came back and said thank you to all of you for your advice about this. I kept planning to come write a long detailed response, but it turns out med school is very time consuming. But I really do want to say thanks for everything you guys said. I'm managing to not feel guilty about not being able to fix her life and about distancing myself from her. I think I've accepted the fact that my presence isn't going to make her any less depressed or any less self-destructive. Not that I'm never going to see her again or anything, but I feel very okay about limiting my time with her. I think that is something I have struggled with in the past - I am going through a period where I have very limited free time, and I've gone through periods like that in the past, and I sometimes feel guilty about spending my limited personal time either just alone at home doing nothing or with friends who don't have horrible problems and are actually fun to be around. I actually have quite a long list of friends who are similar to this particular friend, and they are just so demanding that I feel like I need to go and "help" them when what I really want to do with my 2 hours before I have to go to bed is lie on my couch and watch all some of the shows I've taped. But you guys are right - I can't help her if she is not willing to help herself. I can't fix things. If she is determined to be self destructive, all I can do is encourage her to get professional help, but I can't do it for her. Anyway, thank you for your posts. She's not doing any better, but I'm feeling a bit better of my inability to do anything to fix it. And I guess I'm going to have to get used to not being able to help people who won't help themselves if I'm going to be a doctor.

[Wisteria]

Heh. This reminds me, just slightly, of my roommate who moved out at the end of July. She's a girl who seems to have a genuine interest in serving and is (mostly) active in church, works in the temple, etc. But she has big depression and anxiety problems and has lots of other health problems like having celiac and having random, grand mal type seizures that no one's been able to figure out yet. I've had depression myself, so I know how that goes (not something I'd wish on anyone), but this girl used her health situation to be very subtly demanding and manipulative to the point where she was just a huge energy suck. She is also pretty passive-aggressive and once my roommates and I realized that we all felt the same way bout her, like we were walking on eggshells around her and had to fit everything to her desires (which she often confused with her needs), then I think we were all a little relieved. I talked to a couple people a lot about how I felt bad about not wanting to live with her, and how I felt like my house wasn't the haven that I wanted it to be with an energy suck inside. But my roommates and I are all the kind of people who are generally categorized as the strong one, the service-oriented one, etc, which made it hard for us to say "we can't function at full capacity with you living here." Which was why it was a huge relief when she decided to move out on her own. (Of course, after that, she rescinded temporarily and claimed that when she said she wasn't renewing her contract what she mean was she would move out as soon as she found a new place, which, with her record for responsibility, might have been another full year). It was really hard, but we held her to her word, especially since we already had a girl who was taking her place, and we're hoping that she learned at least a few things about responsibility and not using her health as a huge crutch to get the world to pity her while she lived here. As it is, I'm amazed at the difference in the atmosphere at my house. The new girl, who was a mutual friend of all of use, actually has some pretty bad health problems herself, she's in the process of most likely being diagnosed with lupus and arthritis (and she's 25), but she is the polar opposite of the first girl in terms of her attitude. She is very undemanding and we feel energized after talking with her. It's really funny how guilty I felt about wanting my home to be my refuge, where I come to recharge and not a place of negative energy. So, NerdGirl, I'm with you and I don't see anything wrong with spending a couple hours relaxing.