Messed Up Friend

[tinytherese]

I have a friend that has been through so much in her life. Her family has serious problems. Her mom got pregnant with her by a married man when she was 18 or 19. Her mom has some kind of mental disorder and has been verbally and emotionally abusive- convincing her that she is worthless. She once refused to give my friend her coat despite how cold it was outisde. She is definitely not mentally stable enough to raise a child. Her mom lost custody of her when she was 7 and she went to live with her maternal grandma. Her grandma is nutty though. Her grandpa left her and doesn't want to have much of anything to do with the family.

I met her in middle school and we became best friends in seventh grade. We became very close like Scooby and Shaggy. Her grandma made her go to this one girl's house a girl that she didn't even like after school and was basically forcing them to be friends. I once went with her there so that she would have at least one actual friend with her to keep her company. I met her mom who was living in another state when she came to visit for her 13th birthday before I knew about her history with my friend and my friend kept saying that she wanted to go live with her. She seemed really pained that she couldn't be with her mom and when I asked her why she didn't live with her I could never get a decent answer out of her. I should have been suspicious then but I wasn't. I was young and foolish, blinded with love for my best friend. That's the problem that I had and may still have to a certain extent. I trust my friends too much and in this situation in cost me dearly. She convinced me that her grandma was doing awful things to her. I still don't know if they are true or not. She was determined to be with her mom and may have been trying to use me to do that.

I suffered a lot from her situation because I cared about her so much and wanted her to be happy, even if that meant giving her up to her mom in another state. Yet I was probably being deceived by her. I shouldn't have trusted her. Shortly after my 14th birthday, my mom informed me that she had run away from home to be with her mom. I was so worried about her, not knowing if she was safe or not making the journey that was hours away from home. I also for the first time started to question our friendship and wondered what kind of a mom that she really had. Later on I was told that her mom was in fact abusive. Thankfully, she made it to her mom safely and she was gone for about a month. Then she all of a sudden she was brought back home and I welcomed her back but oh was I upset at what she had put me through. I didn't want to be around her anymore. My mom kept pushing me to still be friends with her and I reluctantly was but not like I had been with her before. We weren't nearly as close. It really hurt me to still be around her. I just couldn't trust her anymore and didn't want to get hurt again. She was put in some kind of a youth center instead of being with her grandma. I once told her that I didn't want to be friends with her anymore and it hurt her but I had to say it. She left to live with her mom when there were only five more weeks left in the school year. I still don't see why the court let her mom have custody of her. I had been so socially awkward over the years and wasn't known for making or keeping solid friends and she had been so very dear to me that this situation was a big blow for me. I thought that it had been such a wonderful friendship and I had been so loyal and this is what had happened.

I went on without her moving on with my life. She called me a couple of times a year later and then over a year after that she came for a visit. Then a year later she came frequently throughout the school year. She wasn't living with her mom anymore but a neighbor or something. That summer she was around a heck of a lot more than I ever expected her to be and I could see that she and I weren't nearly like we were in the past. We had so little in common now and with other friends that I had been with in high school we didn't need to go out and entertain each other, just being together was fun and we could talk for hours, yet with her she needed to go out and do something and I couldn't talk with her like I could with my other friends. She wasn't and still isn't satisfied in our home town. She constantly complains that, "There's nothing to do here." Her grandma kept keeping her in town after my senior year of high school. She wasn't enrolled in a college anywhere and her car had been wrecked so much and she wanted to get another one. Her grandma was going to give her a spare that she had once it got fixed up but she kept delaying it. My friend just seemed so needy, clingy, and just annoying to me. Her immaturity got on my nerves. I also found out that she had left the Catholic Church and was non-denominational now.

Her cousin started to live with her and her grandma. He never got his driver's licensce. He's just too lazy to get it and I'm not sure if he got his G.E.D. in high school. He doesnt' seem motivated to do anything with his life. His mom is schizophrenic and an alcholic. His dad left her for another woman and yet later on she let him and his girlfriend stay with her. His parents were caught with an illegal drug substance so her cousin was taken away from them.

Her grandma's house is EXTREMEMLY cluttered. How they can handle living there I don't know. Her grandma refused to let it get cleaned up though. Yet she retired not that long ago and wants to clean it up her self but won't let anyone help her do it. My friend eventually found a job and this past year started going to a community college in our home town. I know from being with her that she has a very low self esteem and sense of worth (like me but in a different way and for different reasons.) For a while she was just hanging around and wasn't motivated to do anything about her life, just clinging to me her only friend there. She kept saying that she wanted to go to school but she wasn't doing anything about it, claiming that her grandma wouldn't let her but she was really just stopping herself.

She met her dad almost two years ago. Her mom thought that her dad was someone else, the guy that she had after him who left her when she said that she was pregnant, but no it was someone else and a biological test proved it. He has been divorced twice and is on his third marriage. He is unfaithful to his wife and what is really messed up is that his wife is okay with that. "Well, I'm still the number one woman in his life." Yet he would rather spend his time with his mistresses than spend time with my friend. She has seen him before though. He just spends more time with the ladies.

I last spent time with her towards the end of May and there was a situation with her mom and half sister regarding a custody battle. Her grandma went out of state for that situation. Her mom actually told this 7 year old girl that she was fat when she totally wasn't! Honestly, she should not have custody of her yet the father of her is still around yet he doesn't seem to be a good alternative for her. My friend has talked about possibly going back to her mom but I've told her that that isn't a good idea considering her history. It seemed as if the situation was getting bad and that she, her cousin, and grandma were spending time working it out and she wasn't contacting me. Then I noticed on facebook that she was engaged and I asked her about that but she didn't respond regarding that matter. She had never mentioned even being in a relationship before and yet she regards me as her best friend. She just gets so needy and has sometimes asked if I'm still her friend thinking that I'm mad at her which I'm not. She just has so many problems that they seem to have taken a toll on her mind. She may have mental problems. This past weekend I noticed that her last name had changed and I looked and sure enough she was married! I found it so odd. Why hadn't she told me about the wedding? I asked her when she got married and she said not that long ago but for some reason refused to tell me when it happened. She said that she thought that she had told me about her getting married but I know for a fact that she hadn't. She also said that she hadn't been talking to me lately because she thought that I was mad at her which didn't make sense to me. I fear that she may have married this guy just so that she could get out of her grandma's house.

This situation is weird and I feel obligated to still be her friend even though I dont' even like spending time with her anymore. We're not like we used to be and she may not be all that mentally stable. She doesn't need any more pain, so I don't want to end the friendship for good this time.