DEAR IZZIE,
My best friend “Mary Anne” and I have known each other since the second grade. The summer before grade 10 her Mom died suddenly. Mary Anne was devastated.
School started and she started distancing herself from me and hanging out with a bad crowd that got her into drugs and alcohol. By the time June rolled around she’d been kicked out of most of her classes because of all her absences.
It’s another year now. About a month ago she called me and said she was really scared. She said she was hooked on weed. Her behavior hasn’t changed any and I’m really freaked out. I’m afraid of loosing my best friend. What can I do to make her stop?
SIGNED, SCARED AND LONELY IN THE MIDWEST
DEAR SCARED,
The thing about addictions is that you have to be ready to admit you have a problem. It sounds like Mary Anne has reached that point, but she can’t kick this addiction alone. If you haven’t already you should check out a Narcotics Anonymous meeting near you. If she won’t go with you, go alone.
You also need to talk to Mary Anne’s Dad about your concerns. They’re probably his too or he might have no idea what’s going on. Either way, you don’t need to do this alone. Talk to a trusted teacher or clergy person and ask them if they’ll go with you to talk to Mary Anne’s Dad. Her Dad should book her into an inpatient program that will deal with all of the issues, including her grief over the sudden death of her mother.
Good luck!
DEAR IZZIE,
I’ve been talking to this girl I’ll call “Rose” online since last June. It’s totally platonic. We became really close really fast and told each other everything. If pressed to classify the friendship I would definitely consider her one of my best friends.
All this changed around New Year’s. We stopped talking as often, and I thought nothing of it because by this time we both had jobs something we hadn’t had the previous year. But by March we didn’t talk at all. She had a lot of stuff going on and I totally get that I wasn’t there for her the way I should’ve been.
I keep informed on her life through her online journal. She hasn’t de-friended me on MySpace or anything although I have been doing the slow walk of shame through her top 20, every few months I move down further. The thing is, right now the onus is totally on her for us not talking. I have AIM, MSN, Y, ICQ, and MySpace messenger. I’m even considering getting the new one from LiveJournal. I have countless e-mail accounts and for that matter, I’ve e-mailed her. She hasn’t responded, but in comments on her Diaryland, she’s responded that she’ll be back soon and we’ll talk soon and she loves and misses me. This seems like a contradiction to her actions and I’ve always been taught actions speak louder than words.
I’m really confused and really hurt. I get that during this time I haven’t always been what you would call understanding, but if you want to get nitpicky, neither has she. I’ve worried about her. I still care about her and would still consider her a friend.
Am I out of my mind for thinking this way? Should I just send her a message ending this all? Is it as ridiculous as it seems?
SIGNED, CONFUSED IN ONTARIO, CANADA
DEAR CONFUSED,
No, you’re not totally out of your mind. People end things at different times, depending on when they feel ready to let go. I can’t tell you that you should end it, only you can decide that.
The thing about online friendships is sometimes they can feel more intense then they really are. This may or may not be the case here.
People leave things mid-sentence so to speak for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they do it to prevent someone they care about from getting hurt, sometimes they do it because they’re coping mechanisms are so overloaded they just freeze and sometimes they do it to end things, like relationships. Without knowing Rose I can’t tell you what’s happened here.
What I can say, is if Rose did this with the intention to protect you or because her coping mechanisms got totally bogged down, she should understand that anger was one of the emotions you experienced and needed to release during this “down time”.
Good luck, and write back to tell me how things go.
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