Venting tried standing up for myself and it went very poorly

[author]

I'm a terrible person and I wish I didn't care about anyone

My friend is suicidal. Possibly hypocritical of me, but I don't want her to die. I talked her out of it once through text messages at work. It was a very panic-inducing ordeal but I thought she'd at least be fine for a while after, especially because I've been helping her move. But today at...

sanctioned-suicide.net

For context. The TL;DR is that this friend called me saying she'd kill herself while I was at work, and then hung up when I said I needed 5 minutes to get to the break room and left me on read for the rest of the night as I messaged her several times asking if she was still alive and okay. She had said she called me instead of her husband because she "felt less bad about bothering me than anyone else".

The other night we hung out, and she kept saying the f slur over and over. She's bisexual so I tried to shrug it off as her reclaiming, and I said it once in return but it made me a bit uncomfortable so I stopped. However, she started saying slurs for trans people - and she is not trans. I'm trans. I had to tell her that she was saying slurs, and she claimed she "didn't know" and that our other trans friend was "totally fine with it". She also made a joke about pimping her husband out to me. I was extremely uncomfortable. She was also using me to move from her apartment, and did nothing to help the entire time because she decided reading her old journal out loud to me while I packed her boxes and moved stuff and cleaned up the garbage was funnier even as I asked for her help.

Basically for my safety (and to make sure I wasn't overreacting) I waited a day to tell her how uncomfortable I was with how she's been treating me, and I decided to include the fact that I can't help her with her suicide attempts. She then exploded on me, demonized me, kept putting words in my mouth... It was genuinely awful.

For anyone who cares to read this nonsense I'm gonna put it in the attachments. I combined the screenshots together so that I don't have to send like 10. Hopefully I can also manage to embed the image correctly so that it's not huge but you can click into it. I'm Blue and she's Pink because I literally just spun my color wheel randomly and it landed that way. Green is our mutual friend and Orange is her husband.


I just feel like I'm going insane. Like, I can see how my first message might have been a bit insensitive due to me being frustrated, but I honestly feel like I'm being demonized very strongly for my feelings. Her saying I can tell her when I'm uncomfortable and in the same breath saying how I feel doesn't matter? That I shouldn't tell her? My head hurts trying to wrap it around all of this. I tried so hard to be diplomatic. I tried so hard to just be firm instead of rolling over like a dog because I'm sick of being treated that way.

Despite everything I'm still scared that I'm wrong and I said something heinous and I can't even tell what it is. I WANT people to tell me when I'm doing something wrong but everything she's bringing up doesn't feel like something I actually did. I just wanted to have an adult discussion with her but I feel like I was the one who mainly ended up apologizing, and all of her apologies were "I'm sorry but". I keep going over the conversation like that'll help me understand what I "did wrong". I've been in this situation before with someone else who accused me of things I never did or said, even when there's messages to prove it, so I can't tell if I'm conflating the two situations or if I'm actually justified in feeling like I'm not fully in the wrong here.

I feel bad but I don't really... want to be her friend anymore.

 

[MephiticShadow]

I read the whole message thread and I concur you definitely did NOT call her a chaser. You said the joke sounded like chaser shit. I can kinda see where she's coming from with the your feelings don't matter in that moment of life and death for her but at the same time I don't think telling her later that you were terrified for her safety and wanted to know she was ok is out of line I think that's completely reasonable and anyone who cares about a friend would feel that way. I think she wants to pretend she can respectfully hear your side but I don't think she can she went full aggressive mode much more so than you. Just seems like everything you say she wants to turn around on you

 

[CedarLine]

I can understand that you're frustrated OP, no one deserves to feel the way you've been describing.

I might be wrong, but some of what you've shared worries me. It sounds like you've asked to be respected more than once and aren't really getting that. It sounds painful and unfair.

Do you think it might help to take a bit of space from this person? just to give yourself room to breathe and think clearly.

You mentioned you've been in a similar situation before. And I just wonder if there's a pattern that might be worth gently exploring. Sometimes we gravitate toward what feels familiar, even when it doesn't treat us well.

 

[NormallyNeurotic]

I am a bit less lenient with this stuff sometimes, but your friend pulling the"I have a black friend" defense in regards to the slurs shows me that they are absolutelynot ready to take accountability for any action they make, and likely won't be even after this. It doesn't matter how damn suicidal you are, that's weird.

It reminds me of a discussion I've had with some racialized people who made great points about how some semi-privileged people (marginalized, but less so than others), WANT to say slurs because it makes them feel good. It feels edgy, taboo. They get a little thrill by feeling like "I'm allowed to do this because I can use (blank) as an excuse."

Like the young Gen Z autists claiming that the R slur is recclaimable by them (even though they still use it as an insult all the time anyway), or the issue with some queer people saying the F slur in between every word in conversation. Your friend sounds like one of those types, and trust me when I say that those types aren't exactly emotionally mature...

I actually kind of want to go through the screenshot you posted and point every instance of deflection, privilege, and gaslighting, if you'd be interested in a full breakdown of why this person is definitely not worth your emotional space?