Do you rely on your friend for emotional support?

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I have a WP friend we've emailed for nearly 6 1/2 years now YA! I'm always telling her about family drama and being depressed by it etc. She gives advice and is supportive over the issue but I HATE I'm constantly falling back on asking for advice on how to deal with my life issues. I wish I could "emotionally support myself" as I'd like to call it.

Can anyone relate. Luckily I don't have her number I'd be calling at all hours of the day sometimes my days are THAT BAD!

Yep, I can relate.
Sometimes is nice to have someone to vent a little, but when it becomes a coping mechanism it isn't so useful.

Yes I can relate to that. Whenever I've developed a close friendship with someone, or have been in a relationship, I start to lean quite heavily on that person for emotional support. And because I never have more than one or two friends intimate enough for me to really share real troubles with, I think the pressure gets to be too much for them. I know I've historically driven people away by going to them too much with my worries and problems.

It's hard to resist leaning on someone when, 1) you're a person who experiences a lot of stress and anxiety in the first place, and it's hard to cope with all of those feelings by yourself, and 2) you often don't have anyone at all to lean on, so when you finally have someone, the floodgates open!

I've never forgotten a time in my life when I was attending talk-therapy regularly, and because of how that helped me, I was also managing to develop a social life and a circle of friends.

I'd just lost my family (death plus estrangement), I had just gone through a traumatizing marriage breakdown, I was all alone, and my therapist was really helpful in getting me to get on my feet again. But one of her tenets was that it's healthy to develop deep enough and good enough friendships and relationships that those friends are the ones who can help you through troubles and upsets (and vice versa) rather than only have a therapist for that outlet.

Well, when push came to shove, and I was being hit hard by depression and grief, my friends basically didn't want to deal with me, and said "Talk to your therapist, not me." My therapist was saying "Talk to your friends, not me."

These days I have nobody much at all that I can really tell my troubles to or go to for any kind of emotional support or even other kinds of help. I have some acquaintances but it's not a close enough friendship for that deeper stuff. It's just as well. I just cope with my own worries as I've had to before, although it's no picnic without at least feeling like someone has your back.

She has emotional issues of her own and has been in a "dark cloud" this past month herself! I try to give support and advice to her on life issues whenever I can. I hear exercise helps (which I'm doing) but it is only temporary (the emotional "good feeling" that is.) Glad she supports me all these years and hopefully many years to come. Hope my drama issues don't break up our friendship or I'm going to her "too much."

I've dealt with therapy about every 2 weeks in the past but it was counseling sessions that really didn't help much at all. IMO I need something MORE than just talking to someone every 2 weeks about my family drama which is sort of why I have her. Had a bad day email her about it OMG! bad day drama for example.

Very well said. Right now i have very few close friends and don't really lean on anyone. I love my hubby dearly and we are very best friends but i can't lean on him for emotional support. He is one of those aspies who is mostly unemotional, so much so that he can't understand when i am unless it coincides with an emotion that he feels too. He is not selfish or unfeeling...our views and values are usually in sympathy with each other when it comes to how we view the world in general.

But when i am in turmoil for no reason--just my anxiety acting up--it is like he is watching the Wizard of Oz on tv, seeing from afar, while i am Dorothy in the house being whirled to Oz. Maybe that doesn't make sense but it is the best way i can describe it.

I have a few friends who can understand the feeling of being Dorothy, but none are in a position to be constantly leaned on. It is probably best for the sake of our friendship. If we were too close, i would likely have burned them out.

I agree that therapy isn't enough -- that's what my own therapist said herself, that basically though therapy has its place, the situation you're "supposed to" strive for is to have a strong enough set of people in your life who love you enough to be there for you in time of trouble. Therapists aren't supposed to be a substitute for that.

Yet I found myself between a rock and a hard place because when I finally thought I had friends I could get emotional support from, they basically told me to go offload at my therapist, while of course my therapist was talking about transferring reliance on her as emotional support over to reliance of friends for emotional support.

I started realizing maybe NOBODY can be a source of emotional support -- which isn't very comforting I know.

I do notice that other people do seem to find people who care enough to be that, and it sounds like your friend is that way. It's hard because we do need a lot more from those who love us, I think.

probly.an.aspie -- I'm sorry your husband can't be of emotional support to you; even though he means no harm by that inability, it's hard to know your nearest and dearest person can't help in that way.

I don't like to rely on people for emotional support.

I do rely on people passively, though (on their side--they don't explicitly provide emotional support).

I don't directly ask for emotional support. I get my emotional support through talking about history and such.

And through at least trying to help others.

I know what you mean--i watch the "BFF's" at times or the groups of ladies who go out together and share things and laugh together...and wonder why i have never been part of one of those groups. I have been on the outside edges of them, by virtue of being related to someone or knowing someone who is on the inside.

KraftieKortie, i found your answer interesting. I never really thought about it, but my desire for emotional support is different than what my mom would say if you asked her the same question. If i am stressed or need support, a hug might be good but i would rather be distracted by some unrelated topic. If someone tries to get me to "talk it out" i will either be really annoyed with them and walk away, or cry and embarrass myself.

My parents were in a serious accident a few yrs ago; one of mom's closest friends died at the scene. There were 5 of them riding in the same vehicle, all seriously injured. Afterward, in the ER, my mom was talking a mile a minute, hugging everyone who came in to be with them, etc., and my aspie dad did not want to talk to anyone. He did not shut down--he was the calm aspie in a crisis--but he was not ready to talk about the accident for weeks afterward. My mom pushed him harder to do so than i would have. I understood why he didn't want to talk yet. He felt more emotional support by not being prodded to discuss it. Later, in small bits, he did talk about it and did ok long term.

I tend to react to things more like my dad than my mom. Drama and gushy women and lots of tears give me hives.

Birdinflight, i sometimes wish too that my hubby could offer more emotional support...but i would rather have things as they are than for him to be overly demonstrative. In the long run, that would be harder for me to handle. I am used to facing my demons alone. Sometimes i just don't know how to let someone else in anyway.

I don't really have anyone, most people are too busy for my issues

I guess my VR vendor would be the closest thing, she is a very kind woman who has done a lot to help me

I would like to find a therapist but I haven't had good experiences thus far