i'm kind of nervous about posting this here, but i'm hoping to get some good advice so here goes
i'm currently in year 11 and i have a pretty solid friendship group
there's about 7 people in total, but the closest of us is about 5 people
all of us are girls
i've been friends with most of the 5 since year 7, meaning that i've been close to them for quite a long time and this friendship group is known in the year group as being very close
the whole thing is quite complicated so i'll have letters for each person's name so it's easier to understand
since about a year ago, 2 of my friends (let's call them B and G) got really really close and would go off just the two of them, leaving the rest of us behind and kind of cutting the rest of us off
when they did spend time with us, it would be fine and not awkward at all, but they would keep disappearing and kind of doing their own thing which, ngl, made me and a few others kind of sad and jealous
while B and G were doing their own thing, i was spending time with the other 2 friends in the group (T and J)
the problem here is that while T and J aren't hostile to each other or anything, they are very different and have virtually nothing in common except for... me
and while i could have lots of fun just with T or just with J, having to spend time as the 3 of us, trying to find things to talk about and stuff to do together was really mentally exhausting on my part and not really that fun
i found myself changing my personality to suit both of them and i started (and other people started) to not like the way i was changing, especially when i was around T
the other day, i spent a lot of time with B and G (for the first time in ages) and we got on really really well
we opened up about the things that were troubling us, everything from our friendship group, to school stuff and to deeper topics like sexuality and the future and everything
it felt like such a relief to be able to talk about how hard i was finding it with T and J
then, both B and G told me that neither of them felt like they had much in common with T, and that (i told them to be very honest with me) they didn't really like how i changed myself when i was around T
this was something that i had been thinking to myself more and more recently, so i agreed with them
that day, i had a club which i did with B, G and J but not T (as a result of different form classes etc, we didn't purposely leave her out)
we took the opportunity to discuss our thoughts about T with J as well (this sounds like we were badmouthing her behind her back, but we were honestly just worried)
we discovered that J felt the same as us, that T didn't really have much in common with all of us and even if she did, she wasn't willing to open up or talk about these things
T has always been very secretive, and sometimes to the extent that we don't know if what she's saying is true or a lie
she likes being some sort of mysterious person, i don't know if it makes her feel special or better than us or something, but the fact that she doesn't tell us anything about her home life or her hobbies or anything makes it really difficult to spend time with her
i started thinking about what things i did with T when we did spend time together
it was the sort of relationship where if there wasn't a particular activity (e.g. watching a movie), we would just sit there in silence looking for something to say
out of everyone in our friendship group, i was definitely the closest to T yet i still don't feel, after nearly 5 years of 'friendship', that i know her at all
the four of us, me, B, G and J, starting thinking about whether we could maybe distance ourselves from T, who was having a rather negative influence on everyone in the group
she keeps complaining about her own problems but then doesn't give us enough information for us to support her or even believe her. some things she says are quite hard to believe, especially when she says them kind of smiling even though they're not things to smile about - e.g. that time she said 5 of her friends died in the same week. i'm not saying it's impossible, but i asked her how, why, what happened, is she ok, and she just shrugged and started talking about something else. like, i try to help and be supportive and she just brushes you off, it's really frustrating.
she also creates this sort of persona for herself, as some shady or dangerous person
when me and my other friends asked whether she's smoked before, she just smiled at us and shrugged. like, we're not going to attack her if she has, we just want to know. she says stuff which alludes to taking drugs and even to gangs and it seems like she's proud of it, even though it's not something to be proud of, and it's like, we don't even know if this is true.
the problem with distancing ourselves from T is that she is very isolated from everyone else as well, and cutting her out of the group would basically result in her being alone
while we don't really want to be spending time with her anymore, it's not that we don't like her and we don't want her to be lonely
T has told me that she's stopped being friends with other people in our school when she joined our friendship group, so now i feel a kind of responsibility for her isolation from everyone else
she loves to mention all the people she knows outside of school, but she never seems to be spending time with them or having fun with them and doesn't seem to know much about them when i ask her, so i think she calls all these people her friends but they're really just acquaintances
me and B and G were discussing how we think she's really insecure and doesn't want us to know that she doesn't have all these friends outside of school
it's true that she's really insecure, especially about her looks and grades, even though she's literally the smartest in the school and everything
i think this is partly due to a home life that she describes as really oppressive (again, i don't know how true this is, because i've met her family and they seem really nice and that they get along with each other. obviously that doesn't mean they're a good family, but the only negative impression i have from them is from what T has told me, and i don't know how reliable she is)
she tells me how controlling her mum is and how she is constantly compared to her older sister
even as someone who has quite strict parents, the things she describes seems like too much (constant gps monitoring of her location, as well as that time she downloaded some app without telling her mum and her mum destroyed some of T's belongings or something)
however, when i met her mum (whom T describes as a b!tch and uses other really strong language) she seemed like quite an average mum, and judging from my mum's conversations with T's mum, it seems like T's mum is only really protective and cares about her daughter
i don't really know where i'm going with this, but i'm basically trying to say that what T says and what I and other people see are often very contradictory
one of the biggest problems is T's mental health
i myself have seen evidence of T self-harming and she regularly boasts (this is one of the things i find especially disturbing) of how often she's attempted suicide. she makes some really disturbing jokes and often talks about having depression and wanting to commit suicide
if i ask what's troubling her, she'll smile and not really say anything other than vague stuff like "life" or "school" which doesn't help me to help her at all
me and my friends are worried that if she distance ourselves from her, her mental health will further deteriorate and she might actually commit suicide, which none of us want to happen
we thought about telling our head of year, but if our head of year takes any action (e.g. talking to T or to T's parents) then she'll definitely know it was us, and i know without a doubt that this will lead to a rift in the friendship
in conclusion (sorry for this extremely long, rambling post)
- friend doesn't tell us anything
- friend has mental health issues
- she has a negative impact on everyone else
- she apparently has a horrible home life that i've seen no evidence of
- (forgot to mention) she claims she's broke and that she doesn't get any money from anyone, but also spends a lot of money and seems quite privileged so i'm not sure what's going on, she also alludes to stealing people's money but i really don't know how true that is
- don't have much in common with her
- mentally draining to have to spend time with her
- don't want her to be lonely or isolated or to commit suicide because she's been excluded from the group
- want to seek help for her mental health but don't know how to
help?
sorry for this convoluted post, i'm just really anxious about this and it has been causing me a lot of stress
every time i see T, i'm paranoid that she's found out what i was discussing with my other friends
every time i spend time with T, i feel guilty that we're going to cut her out of the group
every time she makes a dark joke or talks about killing herself, i get so scared that she's actually going to do it and that it will all be my fault
every time she says anything about her life, i find myself questioning its validity and hate myself for not being able to trust her and find myself nearly hating her for making it so hard for me to trust her. then i feel guilty that i'm blaming her for it. i don't know, it's a really complicated situation
the other friends in my group (B, G and J) are a lot more fine with cutting T out of the group, but, as the person who is the closest and spends the most time with T (in lessons, in clubs, etc), i feel the most responsible and most indecisive about what to do.
i really really don't want people to get hurt because of this but i can't seem to think of a good solution.
please help me think of some good ideas.
thank you!