I had my fair of moments of being a ‘crisis’ friend, the friend where the world was always ending and no advice would fix it, the friend who would ask for advice but wouldn’t actually do it, and would text you three days later with another crisis they would refuse to solve. 
As I enter the second half of my 27th year I reflect on moments where I have been the crisis friend, and now what it means to self-regulate in a crisis.

But most importantly, which friends of mine who are yet to learn this and do the needed self reflection. The friends who will call you multiple times, even when you’ve told them you’re in a meeting to tell you about their 4th bad date of the week. The friend where everything is urgent, every woe is life ending, their job is awful and everyone is wrong except them. I feel a wave of exhaustion come over me as I write this.

It’s either this or I text my friend to tell her I cant keep up with her erratic life style anymore. She’s disappointed at me because — I didn’t have the spare room ready for her — for her impulsive trip to LA over New Years — for a trip she booked spontaneously with the intent in staying in my currently non-existent spare room. She wanted us to go to a party I explicitly said I didn’t want to go to, I’m not a fan of New Years, and LA parties. I used to, when I lived in crisis. We were very much crisis friends together, we met because of crisis. I am prefer my life now with a much lower BPM.

I haven’t text her back since she said she was disappointed. I don’t know how to tell her I can’t keep being that friend for her, and that, she honestly needs to be the reward she seeks in life. Every nano connection between every human is hyper-therapised these days, and it’s so terribly easy to pull out the ‘respecting boundaries’. But what if it’s just what it is?