Varying reactions from friends: need help deciphering

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Rhapsody
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08 Feb 2024, 10:42 pm

I've been dealing with a lot of complicated friendship/more than friendship things lately and I haven't known how to deal with it. In order to help gather my thoughts I made a reddit post in a specific forum dedicated to my problem to ask for advice and get ideas of what questions I should ask my two friends and how I should frame it. In the post I mention that both of my friends are anxious, prone to depression, and have mental health issues in general and that I want to be as respectful as possible and avoid hurting either of them, but I need help doing that because I'm stupid and blunt. I got some really good advice and came back to my friends to ask them questions.

One of them was really good about it. He clarified what he meant, and what he wanted, and he was perfectly fine with me using reddit and doing a lot of research before I came to him with my questions.

My other friend was not. She initially reacted well to the questions, but then hours later comes back and said "I found your reddit post" and she was furious with me for 1) saying she had the mental health problems she had when describing my issue and 2) asking strangers on the internet instead of coming straight to her with any issues

She accused me of infantilizing and mistreating her by asking other people first to get an idea of what questions to ask, and that she's upset by "how I see her" because apparently mentioning someone has mental health issues and you want to be respectful and help them the best way possible means that I think she's some kind of basket case? She says I'm two faced, and took everything she said out of context and put it in a bad light, because I simplified the issue I was having on reddit and didn't tell the whole convoluted story, and that I've been lying to her when in reality I'm just conflicted about the entire scenario and have trouble identifying my own feelings.

I don't really understand why she was so mad when he wasn't. Can anyone help me? Thank you!



AprilR
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10 Feb 2024, 8:14 am

It is understandable she is angry, she must have felt that people on the internet might judge her, even though it was an anonymous post. It is a difficult situation.

But i know you did not mean to hurt her, you might explain that you have a hard time understanding others and your own feelings and sometimes asking for others advice helps you understand your situation better and in a more objective light. You can explain that you did not want to confront her directly since you were afraid of upsetting her without wanting to. Also i recommend you apologize, bc even if it was anonymous you shared something private about her to others. If she has anxiety and mental health issues it is understandable she would feel upset by this.