# are my mentally ill friend and I making things worse for each other?



## zag (Apr 17, 2016)

if I need a trigger warning for this let me know, not sure how all of that works here!

so for a while now my close friend (Let's call him Q?) has been a major reason that I don't feel completely alone. He's been struggling with anxiety, depression, etc as long as I've known him and although my other friends are supportive he's the only person who I feel like really understands what I'm going through.

However, we were hanging out making dinner tonight after both of us having a bad day and things got pretty scary. I was feeling really blank/having strong feelings of unreality and Q was sort of monologuing to himself while cooking, pretending to be a housewife (we tend to do these sorts of goofy skits together and it's usually a light-hearted thing). I wasn't responding like I would normally and he got increasingly frantic and cartoony. I started freaking out a little bit (chewing on my sleeve, nervous laughing, etc) and then he started acting super erratic, smearing food on his face and laughing uncontrollably. At this point the whole room was spinning and I felt like I couldn't move or breathe, super strong feelings of unreality. A roommate got home and started trying to talk Q down, which he hated. I couldn't handle Q's yelling and left immediately.

I feel terrible for leaving and now I'm wondering if Q and I should avoid hanging out when one of us is feeling really bad? I just don't know what to do about this situation and don't want to lose him as a friend.


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## 2011 Again (Jan 29, 2015)

Yeah I mean look, there's such a grey area with every situation. I wouldn't drop him as a friend but when 2 anxious people are having anxiety attacks while with each other, it's a total recipe for disaster. Nobody is thinking rational, and the anxiety will like feed off itself to create more issues than there already are. It's actually always helped me to have someone who kind of slaps me in the face so to speak when IM having one to remind me how irrational all of this is


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## meekah (Sep 28, 2015)

i hate when that stuff happens


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## Alex617 (Sep 23, 2015)

I had a friend a long time ago who now I realise had dp/dr and deep existential thoughts. We did mind-altering drugs together. I feel he opened up my mind to whatever I'm experiencing now, in a way I feel he killed me as I can never be the happy go lucky person I was before he put certain ideas in to my head that caused me a lot of anxiety. I wish I never met him to this day.


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