Toxic friend or not? TW of abuse! No detail, just mention
I’ll try to make a 22 year story short as possible!
Basically we are as close as sisters, having grown up a street down from each other from ages 2-20! I love her dearly, but can’t seem to get along with her anymore.
We’re 24 and 25 and still live within 30 minutes of each other! Which is great but we are so different from each other, and that’s okay - never been a problem. Just as an overview: She never finished high school, is a party girl (alcohol and some drugs) likes to see lots of men, etc. I’m more boring and “square” lol. Married, 2 kids, house and all that. Not everyone’s cup of tea, and she’s not into that yet. She’s a great, kind, loving and genuine person who does right by those around her. That’s all that matters.
Our differences were never even a thought until recently. I truly care about her and respect her. We’re still best friends and it hasn’t made any difference to either of us until the last several months.
When we were TTC and got pregnant with our second child she just changed. Like... in a toxic way. This isn’t the toxic part but she kinda started going wild, getting into stripping (didn’t bother me) and then trying to get into full time sex work. I told her that’s her decision but that I didn’t want to be involved or told stories about it largely because of my own trauma. Here’s the hard part: She has no respect for that. She’s always telling me about things, bringing it up, sending me pictures and even asked me to take nudes of her for her “site” since I’m a photographer.
She started expressing she wanted a baby for herself. I told her that’s great and I hope she finds a great man and starts a family! She said she has no intention of that. She said she didn’t care about her kid having a dad and decided to be untruthful about birth control to the men she was seeing and hope to get “knocked up” (her words) by one of them. Then drop them. She didn’t care if they were around and expressed that quite adamantly.
My donor dipped when I was 2 and I never saw him again. I was verbally, emotionally abused and repetitively sexually assaulted (why I don’t like talking about sex and men) by my moms now ex husband. She knows this. I told her how much not having a dad can hurt and affect you as a child but she quite literally said that “that doesn’t matter” to her and “it’s not a big deal”. So all the trauma and potential issues you are knowingly burdening your metaphorical child with doesn’t matter and aren’t a big deal? Right. Okay. I felt like I got punched in the gut having my “sister” be so careless like that. She’s said it multiple times to me and I feel so freaking triggered and hurt by it.
Not to mention she just rehomed all her pets she adopted because she doesn’t think she has the mental stability to take care of them. Which in my mind is just another reason to not try and get pregnant and be a single mom?
Gosh I love my sister friend but I had repetitive panic attacks for things she’s said or sent me. She doesn’t seem to care. I feel like she almost wants to hurt me at this point. But I also feel like a shit friend by dropping her because no one acts like she is when they’re in a good place. Then again I’m about to have a baby! Not to mention a daughter which is scary for me after what happened to me.
Sorry that was so long. I just need to vent and find some advice on how to protect myself and somehow still be there for her.
Achieve your health goals from period to parenting.