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humorist-workshop
I want to help my sister!
Hello. I am a younger sister and my elder sister is 3 years older. We are in university. My sister is friends with these two girls (let's call them x and y), they have been close friends since grade 8 and up till now.
2-3 years ago X and Y moved back to their home country (They live in the same country, different cities) and now my sister chats with them online, video calls and texting. My sister has been diagnosed with slight depression and she wants to put on a brave face all the time. Every time she seeks comfort from X and Y, they say things like "well, I have it worse since my mum did not want me" or "at least you did not have to commute going to university. You do not know what it is like."
They dump their trauma on her and she is left to console them instead.
My sister does know what it's like to carpool and she had to travel by 2 buses to go to her university every day for 2 years. She does not say this to X and Y.
The problem is that they are aware of how my sister has self-esteem issues and they know she is not made of steel but still I have never seen them sympathise with her. They always bring in their problems when my sister wants advice. When they do not feel like explaining the advice, they reply to her texts with "hehe" or something stupid like that.
X and Y are also close friends and my sister had a rough friendship with Y in high school. Both of them were immature and growing but they have gotten over it, my sister feels guilty and has apologised many times and so has Y. But still, sometimes Y makes comments like "wow you were a monster back then. (regarding my sister's anger issues that are now resolved" or "I am still scared of you ahaha!"
My sister showed me the texts where she had texted how sad she feels after our relatives called her bad names and X ignored that and only sent a celebrity picture captioned "isn't he cute?"
My sister did not even know who he was and was unsure if she should ask because then X would get mad at her for not remembering. Y got mad when my sister said I introduced her to a game. Y scrolled up all the way to messages in Jan and shared them saying "see I said it first not her." Whenever my sister calls them out on their bad behaviour, they tell her that she's wrong and that she is too sensitive and that she twists things and in the end, my sister is always the bad guy.
When my sister watches movies with her university friends, X gets mad saying she does not spend time with her, but every time they scheduled a movie, X falls asleep or always chooses the movie and gets upset when my sister tries to pick or just says "I have to take care of my brother." or any excuse. Back when we were teens, she texted X and X hadn't replied for hours. Randomly, I asked her (with no ill intent), why X hadn't replied and my sister said "oh. she just falls asleep."
I hate to see my sister being frustrated with the people who are her friends. we moved a lot in the past years so most of my friends are online and I know how hard it is to make online friends (I have friends from pc games and such).
My sister, X and Y share so many memories together, I do not know what happened. I want to know what to say when my sister comes to me to tell me the things they said about her, her personality, how she has never been able to fit in. They make silly taunts that affect her and she tries to act like she does not care.
I want to know the word to say to console her. I know I can not fix this friendship but I want to support her.
so sorry this is long, but I would appreciate some encouraging words to say to help her out.
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Want to answer more questions in the Relationships category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Friendship?
If your sister has been "diagnosed with slight depression", this suggests that she has been seen in counseling. She should continue, both to deal with the depression, and there, she can also discuss and explore these relationships that aren't particularly healthy for her.
All you can do is express your concern and encourage her to see her counselor about this, or to find one.
She and her on line friends go way back, and it may be that she doesn't want to move on for this reason. But it sure sounds like she needs to do just this. A counselor will help her through these changes and growth.
Good wishes, Dr. Stephanie
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The only way to help her is to be direct and blunt that these people aren't friends and never were if they continue all the time to ignore her issues or dump all of their's onto her an do nothing when she asks for help or tells them how she feels. Friends don't act like this online or off. She's better than that and deserves better.
I know you have just moved and it's been hard on her not to have people around. She is however, spending too much time online worrying about people who are very toxic. She needs to let them go and remove herself permanently from the situation and heartache they cause her.
I think what she really needs to do is find a hobby she enjoys for one thing that gets her out of the house and away from needing online friends from the past. She needs to join clubs, do parks and rec programs or better yet drama classes or something that helps make her able to find friends and keep them in real life.
The other thing she is in need of is a therapist to work on these feelings, show her how to stand up for herself and discover her true worth and how to handle people like these. They can also work on her social skills and figure out why she can't get on with others. These people she converses with are only going to continue frustrating her and harming her self-image.
If you can find outlets where she can meet new people and develop friends in real life and move forward and leave these so-called friends behind it's the best thing you could ever do to help her.
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Oh no, nothing to be sorry about, glad you wrote this all out in detail as it sure helps with knowing if truly a one time or couple events or if theres a long history. As I see it, X and Y were taunting her already before they left the country and became internet friends only. When we are teens, myself included, we choose certain people to be friends with or they choose us, but our choosing skills are very inexperienced. Yes, we may have had friends in grade school but that was before we began to start changing and growing up into the adults we'll one day be. However as we become a bit older, we have mature bodies but our brains are behind in growth to maturity. That doesn't happen til mid 20s, and thats a long time to go, thinking you are old enough to know whats best and whats not. But I was that age once and know its a time when we all want to be liked, have friends and yet we more often than not, do all the wrong things or hang out with those who are acting toxic, because they simply can't help it. When we get older and reach our twenties, there should be some maturing mind wise and therefore, those we had as friends in HS may not longer fit as friends, they outgrew us or in my case, I outgrew them. I haven't had the easiest life, with first husband being verbally abusive and therefore myself sick often with stress related illnesses. He wouldn't leave me, I was the one he loved to release all his stresses on, toxic relationship after a family who were loving and teen years staying out of trouble. Now I have grown even more away from friends. I tried sharing what I was into, my current interests, my current beliefs and such with my closest friend when she found me on facebook. She did not like anything that made up the current me, trying to show in tone of her voice how she did not approve, didn't understand or was seriously alarmed. I only knew her in middle school before Dad gained custody in a divorce and moved them several states away. So what I am saying is that more likely than not, HS friends will never feel the same after HS even if good friends back then, because the either some have not matured and still act like kids, or worse, toxic and then some do mature and simply stop associating with because there is no longer anything in common. What I don't get is people like your sister who are friends with people who treat her like the opposite, like an enemy. I know the solution is simple, drop them as so called friends and make some new real friends. I'll get back to how she can. But what needs to be clear is what an Enemy is in the dictionary. One of the words to describe an enemy is antagonistic. The descriptions under antagonistic will show you how what x and y do falls under antagonistic/enemy. Here are the descriptions: adversarial, adversary, antipathetic, hostile, inhospitable, inimical, jaundiced, mortal, negative, unfriendly, unsympathetic. All of this is what they are doing. Friends do not do these things. So in HS they were acquaintances but not friends. they are still not friends. Now why does she stick with them. She doesn't think she can find new friends. The twenties are a time when people who were shy, quiet, low self esteem, low confidence, start to break out of their shell and slowly change. By time we are in our thirties, we have grown into much nicer mature people. There is hope for x and y that they will eventually change but not soon enough for your sis. Perhaps she can enjoy them if they can make it for some HS reunions. You mentioned your sis having diagnosis of slight depression. I have never heard it spoken that way. Either the person has clinical depression or situational depression. Both are depression but the causes and treatments are different. Clinical is when the feel good hormones your brain needs to deal with bad issues that come up, are seriously low, (another word for that is depressed) or totally empty, which isn't bad if your body is able to create its own new hormones. Clinical diagnosis means the person is unable to create the hormones needed and must take a form of them artificially created as a medication. A clinical depressed person can't ever be off meds because they can't create their own. This is the smallest number of patients because all the others are misdiagnosed as clinical when they have the situational one instead. As you might guess, some situation or on going situations are what have caused people to use up all the hormones they naturally create. The level of stress in their life uses up these hormones faster than the body normally creates so you have to use something as a booster to get the hormones created quicker so they are there to use. I am wondering if the constant moving to her is part of the stress that uses up lots of hormones. Perhaps it is other problems at home, with the parents. A dysfunctional parent adds stress to a child's life. Add in two toxic friends and it is easy to have situational stress. This means if she wants to be able to deal with her stresses, instead of removing them, she needs these hormones in a hurry if truly situational depression. I think that might be what was meant by 'slightly depressed'. You can't solve her problems. You can only make suggestions and hug her when she is upset. We can't change other people when they are doing the wrong things. Change for the better must come from within, a want to become a little better every day, a want that bubbles up from inside you. I know this because that's what it was like when there were any good changes in my life. If your sis is actually not clinically depressed, then i have a list of things she can do, easy stuff,that will start generating the needed hormones. I use several of these, engaging in things that will build up the needed hormones after I go through something stressing like a couple bills we don't have funds to pay, the car breaking down, you know...unexpected life stuff that has to be dealt with but uses up your stored up hormones to handle it. And if there aren't enough, you need to replace before feeling better. So check on that and get back to me if you need that simple list. Also if sis feels she wants to find new friends, now is a good time. She's an adult and won't have to move often with the parents but have her own life, plant herself somewhere and grow and make new friends. It isn't easy to start for those who haven't dealt with themselves yet. I couldn't make friends until I learned to be less self conscious and gain self confidence and then I saw things work out and fall into place. So if she wants, or you know she needs the self confidence, I can share something I read in a magazine once and tried myself and it worked real great. It was easy, just working with my thoughts and visualizing something. Lastly, I have info to share on how to talk to someone you don't know but want to befriend. How to start conversations which was also extremely hard for me in HS and earlier. I knew I had to deal with it right away as I would soon be entering the adult world and my lack would get in the way of succeeding in anything, getting friends, getting and keeping a job, having to deal with people in service related jobs, dealing with neighbors and in finding someone for a partner to love who is as interested in you as you are in them. I have all of this to share or can share just the part you think will help. If you need to contact after I have already wrote back, you can't share the ask for info where you rate my response. Thats only info for me to read, I can't respond to it. So go to advicegivers, look me up 'dragonflymagic' go to my column and write me from there to ask. Mention a little of the original question so I know whom I am speaking to.
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