Long story short. Friend with history is body and mental issues (mainly depression). I moved to a different country, so we talked less. For the past two year things went very one sided. I would text her and get reply much later. Never able to meet when I was in town.
Then, nothing. No answers at all. Text or calls. Friends tell me similar story. I keep texting sporadically, sometimes calling. After months I get a response. She’s crying and saying shes sorry for not replying, that’s she’s not well in general and needs time. Problems with work, relationships, family and some tragedies all in short time.
That was months ago. Part of me thinks to give space, but another is worried because she’s avoiding our common friends too. The only way to reach to her or even know how she is would be through her family, which is very intrusive.
Any advice?
Edit: fixed “In moved to a different country” to “I moved to a different country” as somebody misunderstood due to the typo
People in those situations need to know they aren’t forgotten by their friends as much as they need time and space to sort themselves out. It’s hard to say what’s appropriate. Trust your own judgment m
I love how often I find nuanced comments like this in lemmy comments. Reddit would have told this person to hire a private investigator to kidnap this person and drag them back into the social life they were distancing themselves from
Send them a text and tell them you’re thinking about them. If they ask for help and you can help them then by all means help them.
This advice is from a self isolating man that needs help.
This is the correct answer.
It’s the only answer. Worst case she ignores you. Best case, you save her life.
Just don’t think you need to do more than that. You can’t help people who don’t want help.
Do you need any kind of help a stranger from the internet can provide?
Yeah I need a job with my very specific skill set or entry level that isn’t sales that is also remote.
Well, unfortunately I can’t be of assist with that. I barely manage to keep my job.
What country?
Also, if you’d like to talk, I will listen.
USA. I appreciate the sympathetic ear, but unfortunately my emotional problems stem mostly due to lack of income.
I’m in Europe, so I’m sadly unable to help. Best of luck!
A gentle reminder that you know about them and are available but putting no pressure on them would probably help them. Unsure if it will cause them to open up more, but if your goal is making sure they are ok, I don’t think reaching out would be a bad idea.
Send messages once a month or so letting her know you’re thinking about her. If she responds, great! If not, that’s okay, send 'em anyway.
I have a tendency to forget about anything that isn’t directly in front of my face. I love talking to and hanging out with my old friends from school, but I don’t often think to send a message just to say hi, and sometimes I realize that I haven’t talked to any of them in over a year or so.
It never hurts to send a “Hey! How’s it going?” message when you haven’t heard from someone in a while. I know that even though I’m really bad at sending them, I’m always happy to receive them!
Speaking as someone with recurrent severe depression, my closest friends are the ones who harass me with their love. That said, I would never want someone to try to reach me through my family. Her situation might be different.
Depression is very isolating, it can make you feel unworthy of being around people because you can’t be fun, and you get anxious about making “mistakes.”
My favorite people are the ones who randomly show up, drag me out, ask me for help with something (introvert cheat code,) and buy me games without asking so we can play together.
If she’s an adult, she’s capable of telling someone to back off if it’s too much.
From my n=1 data:
The self-isolation could come from not being able to be there for you as well and feeling unworthy of your friendship because of that.
Express your love, indicate there is expectation of quid pro quo, just say your heart and door are always open.
I would suggest Send memes or funny images if you can. Sending messages might feel more stressful, they might think they need to answer. Images have no expectations of respond.
Even books or podcast things like " I know you like this topic, and when I saw this book I thought you might enjoy it "
I think you can reach out via txt, just format your message to subtly acknowledge that a response is unnecessary. So, instead of wording your message normally as something that would begin a back-and-forth, word it more like an old fashioned letter, or something else where a response isn’t expected. Can talk about whatever, updates on you, your thoughts about this or that, hopes she/her family are doing better, etc etc. Then just end with an old sounding “hope this finds you well” type of thing. Just avoid non-rhetorical questions or anything that pressures her to return contact. When she’s ready, she can write you back.
I can’t really give the best advice. A while ago I went through some things and decided to avoid all my friends. I remember, decpite my decision, I really would’ve loved if one of my close friends reached out. Idk about your friend though, everyone is different. If I were you I would definitely reach out. Make them understand that you really care about them.
Start making timelines.
If she doesn’t respond like say, 3 honest months from now? You could say it’s a dead friendship. Mental issues destroys people and it is not always a wise decision to try and like, feel like you’ve gotta force a way in because that could make it worse. It could make someone pressurized and that pressure could build up in them to enact and it might not be the kind of action you’d want.
But two years though? That’s kindof tough to gauge really, I’ve had people like that and honestly they just get quietly discarded. No parting words, nothing. Some people just need all of the time in the world, literally and it’s sad when it happens when that’s the choice they’re going to make for themselves.
Whats much later? People need to give me a week and then can start worrying although if I have a crazy busy weekend that would be the reason I did not get back within a week. Honestly fridays are kinda dangerous as I tend to work on stuff based on oldest first so that I don’t get to behind. Granted priorities and situation. My wife will hear back in less than a day but it could be in person.
Before this much later could be days, and we all just joked about how slow she was to answer in general. Just how she was… That + distance made it so that I didn’t realize something was off for some time. Then I reached to common friends and heard similar stories.
We are late 30s-40s, so with work, kids… It’s way too easy to just move on and “forget” that you haven’t heard from somebody in months I guess.
