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LeGrandFeu
1 1,663 M Little Steps 6
PathStep 2 Compassion hearts68 Forum posts5 Forum upvotes11 Current upvotes11 Age GroupTeen Last activeAugust, 2026 Member sinceJuly 22, 2026
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My depressed friend has withdrawn from me for almost a month even though nothing was wrong in our friendship
Depression Support / by LeGrandFeu
Last post
 August 23rd
...See more Warning: this text is quite long, but i couldn't make it shorter. Sorry!! Me and my friend met around 5 months ago at university. As none of us have other friends we quickly got very close to each other. I consider him as a best friend, i don't know it he does too. Over time, I would learn that he would struggle a lot mentally. He never explicitly told me that he deals with depression, the signs are clearly there. He would for example, forget to eat, or wouldn't feel time ticking. He also hates himself (he loves to call himself a "certified negative person"), feels unworthy, and think it's his fault if he ended up in such situations, like being isolated socially. I also figured that it seems like he does not have a good link with his family, so i sometimes feel like i am the only person that cares about him in his world Also, I learnt that he ghosted all of his previous friendships. What I mean is that before university (in high school), as soon as summer holidays start, he claimed that he would vanish online and cut ties with all of his friends. That's all the information I've got, but I assume it's his depression that makes him feel he is not worth keeping friends or that he is overwhelmed. Despite all his mental health struggles, our friendship grew a lot. We met in March (i am gonna give dates cuz i think it'd be helpful). Within a week i got his contact so we could chat online and interestingly we started chatting every day and he would very quickly start to share with me his hobbies and what he likes to watch (maybe a sign that he needed connection, because normally you don't share your whole life after 10 days of meeting someone for the first time lol) We were in holidays at the end of March which led us to spend an hour chatting. It was like if we were friends for several months even tho we had met only several days ago. Time ticks and we keep building our friendships until summer holidays started (in the beginning of June). Not gonna lie, I got scared I would be ghosted like he did with all his previous friends, but he interestingly stayed (like he broke his usual pattern with me). Our friendship kept growing and we truly started to become close friends. We chatted every single days for hours, built jokes only us two would understand, we would share all that we'd be doing, he'd get interested in my hobbies. Basically what two close friends would normally do when bored in summer, lol Things would go well.. until I was about to go on vacation for a week for my family, from July 25 to August 1 (for those who will see this post a while after i posted it, i am writing this on August 18) I announced that to him around a week ago as I knew I would go offline for 7 days. Nothing wrong when I announced that, but from 3 days before I left I noticed he weirdly started to joke about ghosting a lot. The first times he would joke I would ask him by curiosity if he was joking and he'd say "of course". But then it kept going and when asking again if he was joking he'd say "im 60% sure i am joking". He has a very dark humour but it started to feel like his humour started to get mixed with the reality. Like if he was subsconsciouly telling me he was about to go. Despite this weird fact him and I would keep chatting for hours till the last day, where he did tell me "see you in a week". The friendship was completely okay, contained no red flags and it was still appearing that he enjoyed my company Though, on the day I left my hometown to go to the beach, he deleted his account of the main app where we would chat. I didn't overthink too much as I thought it was just his normal pattern of deleting apps as much as they ain't needed anymore, and thought he was simply gonna create a new account as soon as I get back home. Things just worsened over time, though. A day before I got back to my hometown (on July 31) he unsubscribed from my YouTube channel and deleted all the comments he had posted there. From this day I really started to feel like I might get ghosted, so I send a message on the secondary app where we would talk (it didn't mention anything of his actions though, i was just trying to get news) but he ended up withdrawing from that app too before I sent the message. On August 2 I decide to send him a long email and sends him a SMS asking him to check his mailbox. It was a long message where I would be praising him and remind him how much of a good person he is. Let me remind you that I was genuinely scared to lose him so this could've been the last message that I would ever send. He surprisingly replied: he stated that he needed to rest and apologised for suddenly disappearing, as well as adding a joke only us would understand. I got this reply 16 days ago and it is the last thing i got from him. Since that his behaviour would appear vert unstable: deleting and re-installing apps, blocking me, unblocking me... especially on the main app where we used to talk, where he went, in a span of a week: re-installing the app -> blocking me -> unblocking me -> reblocking me -> deleting the app again It could be him trying to get out of his isolation and trying to get to talk to me again but he would get overwhelmed and fail to send me a message, or idk. I am just supposing. I regularly reach out (every 5 days on average) by sending him SMSs where i send him support, remind him he is still loved, and that he doesn't need to reply/can keep resting, and well i got no new reply. I honestly have no idea where the friendship is going. I am very scared that his depression ended our friendship and that I am joining the list of all the people he ghosted in his past. But at the same time, a few things stand out: he didn't cut our ties as soon as summer started, he still replied to me on that August 2 message, and before his withdrawal he (not explicitly) showed that he would want to stay friends with me for years. He would also include me in his future. Basically nothing that showed that the friendship was ending. I've been very sad since he left. Imagine suddenly going from chatting to the best friend you ever had in your life for hours and hours (i never got a friend like him before) to NOTHING. Holidays end in 5 weeks and I have no idea if he is ever willing to come back to me. I have no idea how is it going to go when uni will start again. I really don't want to lose him as a friend. He is such a sweet person to have around. To the ones who did something similar to their friends due to depression, may I ask you if you still wanted your friends around? If no, is it because the friends didn't really care or because YOU decided to stop the friendship? Did you genuinely enjoy it when you got supportive messages from friends ? I am genuinely scared that our friendship comes to an end cause it was such a beautiful friendship to me. He means the world to me and I have no other friends to stay with. I am not looking for a potental diagnosis of him btw, already figured a lot; I am more interested in perspectives from people who have personally experienced this kind of withdrawal. Thank you for reading, sorry this was long :)
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I am trying to help my depressed friend and it makes me overwhelmed
Relationship Stress / by LeGrandFeu
Last post
 July 24th
...See more Hello, hope you are doing well, thank you for reading this :-) I met a friend at university around 4 months ago. Since he has no other friends and i have no other friends, we became close friends very quickly. But here is the thing.. my friend is most likely dealing with depression (he didn't explicitly say it but the symptoms are there). He has a toxic family (i don't think he has great links with them) which means i am most likely the only "good" person he has around him This eventually makes me feel very bad, which made me start to propose him to hang out (especially after he would start to vent about how uncomfy he feels at home and how bored he is). I would be just asking for low-pressure activities, since i am aware of all the social anxiety he has got. But he would keep refusing. But here is a trap: he refuses to go out with me but at the same time he has already stated that he wished he could spend the whole summer with me, which made me keep asking for hanging out hoping he would say yes one day, but he didn't. I think about stopping now as I might irritate him. (To give you a clue, summer holidays started 1½ months ago and end in 2 months) This situation made me quite overwhelmed.. he lives a nightmare at home in an environment where he isn't liked, he showed signs that he wanted to get out of it, then i come getting him all the possible solutions just so that we could spend time together and get him some good days.. but no. I made some research this morning and noticed he might have got agoraphobia which would explain all this weird attitude he gets. I just feel so bad for him.. when he is in a good mood he is such a great person. I absolutely love spending my time with him. Like he is a nice person to have around. His depression distorts him basically. I could be an immense help for him. I have a lot of skills in mental health and i have been told several times that i am a good person when it comes to emotional support. But i can't help him if he doesnt take the first initiative, you know? And that's what drains me. As a hypersensitive person it is impossible for me to take a step back and i think about him the whole day. I pray for him the whole day. As soon as he sends a msg i make sure to be present for him. I am just trying to get him better even though it is a slight bit. But nothing is better than meeting irl. He just needs to say yes and i could make him get nice days. I have no idea if i wrote this good cuz I am tired and overwhelmed right now, i just want to find a solution to this, uni starts in 2 months and i want to see him before cuz i honestly miss him, as i said earlier I love having him around me. I also want to meet him cuz I miss him. But yeah.. I also need to mention that talking about mental health with him is super hard so all the things ive said about his mental health are just conclusions i made by myself. If he was more open to it it wouldve been grateful. I would love to be a great help for me but his depression builds walls that stops me. I am also scared to lose this friendship since he is my only friend. I might go through a depressive episode if i find myself lonely again. Thank you for reading! I hope there is a way to get to meet him in real life 'cause that is something that would matter a lot to our friendship. Have a nice day :)
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