My friend won't talk to me cause of depression

[franklynlb]

Basically, my ex who's also my current friend wrote to me a few days ago. We both have depression, and he's the only person i feel safe to talk about my issues. Looks like i've been doing this a lot more than he can cope with and told me he doesn't want to talk to me until his depression is handled with, cause i'm just making him more depressed when i talk about my problems. I don't want to be selfish or pushy. But i'm not sure how to feel about this. Am i a horrible person for still wanting to hang out with him? His logic is more than fair to me, he doesn't have to put up with my stuff, and he's mentioned this before and tried to tone it down a lot, but i seem to still be stressing him out without meaning to or realizing i'm doing it. This feels awful. I don't want to add to his depression but i still want us to be friends...

 

[BeansOfRequirement]

Treat his behavior as something completely out of your control. This is bending the truth a bit since we, in reality, can affect people a lot; but we'll suspend disbelief here. He doesn't respond to a message? Nothing you can do. He ghosts you? Nothing can be done, his call. That's the way I'm dealing with some shit, at least.

 

[timf]

He is at least honest with you about his limitations. If you consider your own support network forums, friends, family) you might want to lean on several people so that only one does not need to carry the whole load.

For the long term you may wish to allocate a little time being there for someone else. Many times helping someone else provides encouragement and relief for yourself that you would not expect.

 

[Life_and_Death]

im currently dealing with the same thing with my friend. i just told him ill stop talking about my problems. i couldnt really think of anything else to do aside from leave. im sorry i dont have any better advice

 

[Manaaja]

That's a common problem. There are often two kinds of people. People who already deal with so much crap in their lives that even when they want, they can't take other people's issues on their shoulders. And people who have never experienced hardships, and thus belittle and dismiss your problems.

I know how you feel. I too have a friend who's dealing with a lot. We used to message, and I promised myself "The next time we message, I'm gonna tell him good news!". Well, he probably thinks I ghosted him.

I wish I could offer you a solution, but I don't know what to suggest. It's okay for you to want to be friends with him, you're not a horrible person. One thing you could do is talk about bad stuff to everyone else, and only good stuff to him, but I don't know if you have anyone else to talk to. And of course sometimes it's almost impossible not to mention bad stuff if you're being really depressed.

I really like your avatar btw. It reminds me of some characters I've loved over the years.