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What should I do if my friends ignore me and become tired of me trying to seek help from them?

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Lia Tan answered

So when I was in high school, I had a lot of friends like this. You're going through a tough time and they just don't want to hear about it or are sick of it. This can be due to several things so let's explore your options.

The first one is that you have had this problem for so long and you're just not listening to what they have to say. One way to identify this is to try to do some reflection. First off, have you been having a problem for a long time or one that keeps occurring? Second, think back to your past conversations with your friends and try to think of what kinds of topics did you talk about. Were they always somehow related to this continuous problem you have? And third, were your friends really supportive in the beginning but then started to ignore you or have they always been like this? If you've been having a chronic personal issue that you always bring up and your friends who were once willing to listen aren't in that position anymore, then chances are that you are irritating them and you either should really stop and think about your problems to try and truly solve them or you may need to seek more professional help if you aren't able to find the solutions you need.

The second reason may be that they're just bad friends. If they were not supportive at all or only a little bit supportive in the beginning, there's a pretty good chance that these friends are either immature or awful friends. Whichever it is, it'd be best for you to stay away from them because they would continue to treat you badly and make you feel terrible for having problems.

The third reason could be a combination of the two. Looking back at my high school experience, I would say mine was a mix and I'm assuming most cases are like this too since I highly doubt that this is completely your fault or completely theirs. So what happened with me was that I had recently came out of a not-so-great relationship that really set off my depression. During this time I needed people to talk to and so like many teenagers, I turned to my friends. Some were supportive, some weren't. What ended up happening was that most people got really sick of me feeling down all the time and even though technically it was mostly my depression taking over, I did realize that I could try to control about how much I talked about that past relationship. Talking less about it actually helped a little with appearing less depressed and it opened more room for other conversations to happen. Being stuck talking about one thing and one thing only can get really old really fast so even though it was hard for me, I knew that I had to make some effort in this if I still wanted to be a likable person. However, that of course didn't solve my depression so I ended up seeking professional help and it was probably one of the best things I've ever done for myself. But of course, it would've also been nice if my friends could've been a bit more understanding about my depression and how that breakup was pretty traumatizing to me. I had mean friends who told me to "stop whining and get over it" or "this isn't a big deal so shut up" (ironically, one of the friends who said stuff like this wants to be a therapist) as well as others who were ridiculous about it and said things like "at least you've had a relationship" or "you should've been thankful that you were once in a relationship". Ultimately, I had friends who completely dropped me, ignored me, and/or blamed me for the way I was feeling. Having friends invalidate your feelings regardless of the why they do it is a sure sign that you need to get better friends who care about you and are hopefully not emotionally immature.

The point of all this? Analyze your own situation and depending on which one it falls into, take actions accordingly. See what kinds of things you can do to make the situation better but also realize that not everything is your fault. Anyway, if you ever need anyone to talk to I'd be happy to listen! Good luck and all the best!

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