The melancholy of closing tabs

[prixmium]

Today has been kind of difficult. My best friend has made absolutely huge strides, both in being honest with me about something when it is bothering her and with improving her life to be about more than her job. Out of respect for her privacy, I'll explain in the vaguest possible terms that she has a good job with good pay which may be bad for her mental health for several reasons. I'm so proud of her and frustrated on her behalf. She has been having a difficult week, and she's worrying me.

I'm trying to be more symbiotic than codependent. I want to avoid overreacting for both our sakes, but it makes my heart hurt to see her plummet from whatever had seemed to buoy her for the past couple months, eveb through hardship. I think she sees her depression, anxiety, or any other negative feeling as an inconvenience I'm trying to clear when I try to help, but I just want her to feel better.

For this and other reasons, such as not knowing what I'm going to do back in America, I feel a little bit like my own motivation I've been fighting so hard to regain is wilting.

I don't want to be happy when someone I love is miserable, and I'm scared.

I just went through my mobile browser and cleared a lot of tabs. I keep tabs open for later a lot, and it always makes me sad to close them upon realizing whatever I planned to do with them is really hilariously unimportant after all.

I read a tumblr post a long time ago: "one day, you and your friends went outside to play for the last time and nobody knew it."

There are ways to argue that this conclusion is an overreaction and simplification of what really happens. But whatever pang of grief that idea evokes is what I'm feeling right now.

Comments

[mxcatmoon]

The fact that you care enough to feel guilty when your friend is going through a rough time means you're a loving individual and great friend, but I don't think she'd want you to be miserable on her behalf. Having two depressed people instead of one helps no one, but I'm sure you know all this. It's hard to tell our emotions how they should behave: they rarely listen. I feel for her -- as you know, I've been there with a good-paying job that destroyed my mental (and physical too) health. It's a tough position to be in. I hope things get better for her.

[prixmium]

Thank you for your kind comment. ♥ I know that she doesn't want me to spiral down with her, but that is one of the reasons that she is reluctant to communicate honestly until it is almost-too-late.

I think that she is doing better today. She messaged me in (my) the middle of the night to indicate that she had come up with a gameplan for coping with what was really bothering her at work and that things seemed to be going a bit better. Still, I worry about her as one does.

[mxcatmoon]

Of course you worry, because you are a great friend. Gameplans are great. Much better than flailing about stressing out (which is what I usually do, lol).