- Date posted
- 1y
...am I a bad friend?
Tomorrow is my birthday. My best friend and I are going to be front row for my 2nd favorite band of all time. I've been planning and hyping this up since October. I'm very excited, as I never do anything for my birthday besides having off of work. I've never gone out for my birthday before in adulthood because of covid and also lack of friends. This will be the first time. My best friend (who has their own best friend) and I have been extremely close for 6 years now, and have gone to a lot of concerts together. They started a new anxiety med last week and it is making them have an extremely bad episode of depression and anxiety right now, and they told me they don't know if they should go to the show tomorrow. They said they feel they can't drive in their current condition. I said I am willing to pick them up (even though I would rather not because they live an hour away), but I'm gonna be honest... I don't want them to come along. I don't want to go alone, either. I don't have anyone else at all who I can go with, and I can't tell my friend that I'd rather them not come if they're going to radiate horrible energy the entire night. I've been so excited for this for five months, and I've been doing fairly well lately overall- working a lot on art, feeling like me, and trying to recognize my bad thoughts better-- but now I'm just super worried. I feel like a terrible friend, like I'm being extremely selfish and hypocritical. I'm worried I'll make them feel worse. When I have an episode, I wouldn't want anyone to turn me away simply because of that fact. I always want as much support and comfort as humanly possible and am terrified of people being upset with me. When I'm feeling happy and fine, however, I don't want other people coming to me with their struggles. I don't know how to handle my own, let alone someone else's. This tends to come off as me being mean and insensitive. I deal with enough, and though I always try and help others, most of the time I just really don't want to. I'd rather not be reminded of what I struggle with myself. I'm afraid it'll rub off on me somehow because I don't like being reminded of my worst. I'm such a f^cking hypocrite and I don't know how to not be this way. My thoughts keep racing, telling me tomorrow's going to suck now, telling me how lonely I am because I only have one friend, telling me that this situation is going to trigger an episode of my own as well, that it's now suddenly so uncertain. I did give this friend an 'out'- telling them that if they are too afraid to tell me no, that I am giving them permission to bail with no hard feelings out of their best interest. This made me feel both so selfish and so selfless at the same time, because on one hand, I don't want to be around that bad potentially triggering energy, and on the other hand, I was giving up the only person I wanted or COULD to go to this concert with. I said that their decision won't ruin my birthday regardless, and that I can't be the one to tell them what to do. They said they ARE afraid of ruining my birthday but still want to go. We're talking right now and I admitted that I'm afraid of making them feel worse. I've never seen this person like this either, and it makes me scared of seeing them like this, and scared of how I'm going to handle this. I took a sedative as a precaution, because I felt this feeling would fester into something worse, and it cleared my mind up just the right amount for me to realize "hey, it's not my responsibility to make them feel better. It's my responsibility to enjoy my birthday!" Regardless, I AM going to this show and I AM going to have a good time. I just feel like I'm being a horrible, insensitive, selfish friend. This is the closest friend I've ever had and though others are telling me I have every right to be upset, I still feel like a piece of sh^t. I just hope I can get hyped up without going over the edge tomorrow. When I get too excited, I have a panic attack.