"Today was a terrible day because..."

[Neo Emolga]

Update: Sally just messaged me again with how my story is ruining her life. I haven't replied.

The thing is, I can help people with their problems. I can't deal with being blamed for it.

I don't know what to do. I'm really scared.

Cut her out of your life. She's toxic and you've already tried using reason with her. To me it sounds like she's got major mental instability, but don't feel like whatever she thinks or does is something you're responsible for. What she really needs is a therapist and probably a lot of medication before she decides to carry out these murderous fantasies in real life.

So yeah, block her on messagers, cut whatever connections you have with her, and don't respond to her. If she starts making real life threats, get the police on her. Don't change your ways because of her issues. If she doesn't like you, that's her problem, not yours.

[Scytherwolf]

Cut her out of your life. She's toxic and you've already tried using reason with her. To me it sounds like she's got major mental instability, but don't feel like whatever she thinks or does is something you're responsible for. What she really needs is a therapist and probably a lot of medication before she decides to carry out these murderous fantasies in real life.

So yeah, block her on messagers, cut whatever connections you have with her, and don't respond to her. If she starts making real life threats, get the police on her. Don't change your ways because of her issues. If she doesn't like you, that's her problem, not yours.

I'm definitely thinking of doing that. The weird thing is she's been really nice to me in the past (though...it's been a really long time since she did anything nice for me). But I really can't put up with this anymore. I'd probably be able to deal with it if she wasn't blaming me, but well...here we are. I really hope she's not a violent person in real life. Luckily she lives quite a ways away from me so I think I'd be safe from that.

The weirdest thing about all this? Back in 2013 when she first found my story, she refused to read it because it was mostly adventure and she says adventure is "boring." So she skipped over the adventure chapters and skimmed the rest of it looking, I assume, for any violent parts. (I assume that because when we'd talk about new stories I was writing, she would suggest to me all these violent ideas. That was seriously the ONLY thing she focused on.) But when she found the violent part she hated it and now blames me for all her mental problems.

[Scytherwolf]

Update #2: I told Sally I wasn't comfortable talking about this and to please not talk about any issues related to me or things I wrote/drew/whatever.

She ignored that and told me she wanted to kill herself because of this. Because of me.

Now I'm really panicked. I'm afraid if I cut off contact with her she'll do it. I'm really afraid now.

[Neo Emolga]

Update #2: I told Sally I wasn't comfortable talking about this and to please not talk about any issues related to me or things I wrote/drew/whatever.

She ignored that and told me she wanted to kill herself because of this. Because of me.

Now I'm really panicked. I'm afraid if I cut off contact with her she'll do it. I'm really afraid now.

She's using emotional abuse on you. Don't buy it. It's been done to me before and usually those using it are trying to leverage emotional control over their friends (victims really). I'll admit, it freaked me out too the first time I encountered it and I just dropped everything and did exactly what they wanted to my own detriment. I became like their personal servant because I didn't want to be even partially responsible if they really went ahead with killing themselves. Bad idea. Once that happened, then whenever some little thing didn't go their way, they then tried it again several times. After that I said enough is enough and that's where I cut things off because I had with them. Turns out they didn't ever kill themselves.

Tell her to call a suicide hotline (1-800-273-8255) if she's really serious about it and leave it at that. Let that be your final word to her and don't try to extinguish the fires she's created because that's not your job. Let those suicide hotline operators handle it because they're the experts on talking people out of it, so don't attempt to try it yourself if she's seriously considering it. And don't do what she says now that she's thrown this at you because that's exactly what she wants. You owe it to yourself not to let yourself slink back into this abusive "friendship" with her because at this point, it will only be one-sided in her favor.

I still think you should cut off contact, because this will do nothing but cause ongoing stress on you for however long it lasts. It happened to me and I don't want to see it happen to you because that's not a fun road to be on. I know, you don't want to be apathetic in case she really is serious, but don't surrender to her either and stand your ground. If she's serious, then all you can do is tell her to make that call, and that's all that can really be expected out of you. She needs serious psychological help from a professional, and that's not something you can attempt to do yourself because that may only make things worse. It's far better if someone not personally involved in the situation talked to her.

[Scytherwolf]

She's using emotional abuse on you. Don't buy it. It's been done to me before and usually those using it are trying to leverage emotional control over their friends (victims really). I'll admit, it freaked me out too the first time I encountered it and I just dropped everything and did exactly what they wanted to my own detriment. I became like their personal servant because I didn't want to be even partially responsible if they really went ahead with killing themselves. Bad idea. Once that happened, then whenever some little thing didn't go their way, they then tried it again several times. After that I said enough is enough and that's where I cut things off because I had with them. Turns out they didn't ever kill themselves.

Tell her to call a suicide hotline (1-800-273-8255) if she's really serious about it and leave it at that. Let that be your final word to her and don't try to extinguish the fires she's created because that's not your job. Let those suicide hotline operators handle it because they're the experts on talking people out of it, so don't attempt to try it yourself if she's seriously considering it. And don't do what she says now that she's thrown this at you because that's exactly what she wants. You owe it to yourself not to let yourself slink back into this abusive "friendship" with her because at this point, it will only be one-sided in her favor.

I still think you should cut off contact, because this will do nothing but cause ongoing stress on you for however long it lasts. It happened to me and I don't want to see it happen to you because that's not a fun road to be on. I know, you don't want to be apathetic in case she really is serious, but don't surrender to her either and stand your ground. If she's serious, then all you can do is tell her to make that call, and that's all that can really be expected out of you. She needs serious psychological help from a professional, and that's not something you can attempt to do yourself because that may only make things worse. It's far better if someone not personally involved in the situation talked to her.

Yeah, I just talked with my sister about this and I'm going to cut off contact. Right now I'm trying to write a final message. I didn't want to cut off contact before because it didn't seem like she was being "mean enough" to warrant that but I can't deal with this...It's not the first time I've been blamed for something horrible like this and the first time I stayed too long. It's time to leave.

I can see now this is a case of "You're the cause of all my problems so you need to do exactly what I want or else it'll get worse and it'll be your fault." I'm not doing that again. I'm done. It's time to end this.

[Scytherwolf]

Well, after thinking it through for a day, I wrote what I wanted to write and my final message to Sally is ready to go. I'll send it in a few hours.

To my surprise, today Sally had sent me a message apologizing for her 'outburst' (but of course...not for...blaming me). And told me she needed to "talk things out with me" about my story and that working it out "could take a long time."

No.

I am not going to talk about how my story is all wrong with someone who thinks their anguish is my fault. In my message I told her she needs to find someone else to talk about that with. Not me. If it were any other problem, I would help. But I can't put myself through this. I admitted some things to her that I hadn't before (not in any detail of course, but just that I had had a really traumatic experience in the past with someone blaming me for similar things, and that this thing with my story was undoing a lot of the progress I'd made in trying to overcome that) and that I just couldn't do it. I tried to be as nice as possible. Sally may have blamed me but she was never super mean about it.

But I want friends who like to spend time with me and see me as a positive thing in their life. Sally clearly isn't that.

But yeah...if she thinks I/my story is the problem, it's time to back out. I hope it all goes well. I guess I'll see tomorrow.

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

@Scytherwolf Having read the posts, I think Neo is correct and you have definitely done the right thing. Sally really needs help and there's no point letting her drag you down with her. Stay strong! :) Maybe this will be the wake up call she needs to get help.

[Scytherwolf]

@Scytherwolf Having read the posts, I think Neo is correct and you have definitely done the right thing. Sally really needs help and there's no point letting her drag you down with her. Stay strong! :) Maybe this will be the wake up call she needs to get help.

Thank you, Sarah. ^-^ This has been super stressful for me. So far she hasn't tried to contact me with other accounts or anything, so I think it'll be okay.

I feel bad about blocking her, but well, I think I did all I could. I said I was willing to help her with any problems other than this thing about my story, but that wasn't enough. I'm really sad this happened. All I did was write a story. I didn't mean to cause anything like this.

[Noblejanobii]

This is technically a rant from Thursday but I've been so stressed I've barely been online as a result of this.

So my first batch of classes was this past Wednesday and Thursday. Go to my third class on Thursday in a decent mood and the professor essentially instilled the fear of God in my class. I spoke with her yesterday and as much as I really want to take the class because the field is super interesting to me, she wasn't kidding when she said it was going to be the hardest class I'd ever taken. I'm super upset that I probably won't get to take it but that isn't even the worst part. Since I dropped the class, in order to keep my scholarship while I study abroad next semester, I had to pick up another three hour class, and OF COURSE the only one open that fulfills the same credit is an 8 AM. And I already missed the first class since they met this past Thursday. I met with the professor of this class yesterday, and he seems nice enough, but I'm worried. I don't do well in morning classes, and not only is this an 8 AM, but it's also a quantitative methods class, AKA math. I'm worried I won't do well but I don't have any other options. I've tried begging for some overrides for other classes but no one will budge. So it looks like I'm stuck.

[Neo Emolga]

This is technically a rant from Thursday but I've been so stressed I've barely been online as a result of this.

So my first batch of classes was this past Wednesday and Thursday. Go to my third class on Thursday in a decent mood and the professor essentially instilled the fear of God in my class. I spoke with her yesterday and as much as I really want to take the class because the field is super interesting to me, she wasn't kidding when she said it was going to be the hardest class I'd ever taken. I'm super upset that I probably won't get to take it but that isn't even the worst part. Since I dropped the class, in order to keep my scholarship while I study abroad next semester, I had to pick up another three hour class, and OF COURSE the only one open that fulfills the same credit is an 8 AM. And I already missed the first class since they met this past Thursday. I met with the professor of this class yesterday, and he seems nice enough, but I'm worried. I don't do well in morning classes, and not only is this an 8 AM, but it's also a quantitative methods class, AKA math. I'm worried I won't do well but I don't have any other options. I've tried begging for some overrides for other classes but no one will budge. So it looks like I'm stuck.

I say stick with the 8AM class. I did this with a macroeconomics course to get a better professor. He made class interesting, had a good sense of humor, fair grader, and it definitely felt like I learned things.

WORTH IT.

Believe me when I say you get used to waking up early as long as you make sure you go to bed early (not trying to sound like a parent, but you don't want to hate yourself in the morning if you cheat on your sleep). Heck, I wake up at 5:30AM in the morning so I can get dressed, eat breakfast, feed my bunnies, and be ready to go to leave at work at 6:30 and be there at 7AM. Now I even automatically wake up that early even on weekends. It does mean I need my butt in bed at 10PM though. Coffee helps a bit too when it comes to mornings. In a few weeks, it'll feel normal and you won't even think about how early you're waking up.

For the Quantitative Methods class, only recommendation I can make is try to stay on top of it as much as possible. I know just about everyone hates math, but if it's a required class you need to take, there's no sense in trying to fight it. If it doesn't make sense immediately, ask questions. Don't nod your head pretending like you understand or believing it'll make sense later. The odds of that happening are too rare to rely on it. Bring it up during class because losing your chance to get clarification then and now will burn you later. And take notes out like crazy (if it means photographing blackboards or whiteboards with your phone, have at it). If you think you need a tutor or to see the professor outside of class to get things explained on a personal level, do it. Don't wait until a final exam to wish you had done these things. Doing this made the difference between me passing my Quantitative Methods class versus failing the hell out of it. Trust me when I say it was the only time I was happy to get a D-. And sure, this advice may help with most classes, but I know math needs so many extra levels of care because of how insane it can get sometimes. But it's possible to understand it, you just need to really dig to find which way works best for you and to go the extra distance if you need to.

With this other class, if she comes off like that on day one, don't do it. Run for the hills. There were classes I thought would be "interesting" and they actually made me hate the subject because the class was so hard and ended up as the Bane of the Semester (it seems like every semester involved having at least one of these). Some professors might even think this "warning" justifies them being a hard grader or excuses them to dump an obscene amount of work on everyone's lap. You don't want to deal with that, because then it even starts hurting your other classes if so much extra time and energy needs to be devoted to this one.

All I can say at this point is best of luck and I hope you pull through this and kick butt.