Sorry it’s a long one, fair warning. Background: For anonymity purposes I am going to refer to my friend as Jenna. Jenna and I have been best friends since birth, we’re only a month apart. Her father and my father were each other’s best men in their weddings. We’ve been inseparable up until graduating high school. After high school life hit me pretty hard, it was time for me to step up to the plate and carry my own responsibilities (financially). I am a full time pre nursing student who has a rigorous school schedule, even in summer months. I also have two part time jobs and work about 30 hours a week combined on-top of school. My days consist of waking up, working job #1, rushing home, going to class, and then to job #2, 5 days a week. Weekends are spent working and studying as well. My parents are divorced, so anytime I have available I try to use towards seeing my mother (i live with my father), it usually only works out about once every week/every two weeks and that kills me. 80% of the time I am unable to attend plans with my friends because of how busy my life is. Now onto the story.

Over the past 8 months I have prioritized the most essential aspect of my life (money and school). It’s been extremely hard for me to find time in my busy schedule to even do simple things. I am the type of person who needs to have alone time in order to function. I have a group of friends who I absolutely love, and Jenna is the absolute center of it. She is always the one planning events. Jenna and I both stayed home to attend community college. Jenna and one of our other friends had plans to go visit another friend who goes to uni about 6 hours away. It would be a 3 day trip (Fri, Sat, Sun) where Fri + Sun we will be driving majority of the day, and Saturday going to bars. I declined because I am busy working and have an exam on Monday that I need to study for. Long road trips always throw my rhythm off and I really need a good grade on this exam. I also feel that it is impractical to drive 6 hours for a 3 day trip. For easter all of our friends are coming home for a brief break. This year easter happens to fall on my mother’s birthday. I’ve expressed to the friend group that I am most likely unable to hangout with anyone during the time they are home because i’m working thursday, friday, and saturday while also spending the weekend nights at my moms house to spend time with her for her birthday and my family for easter. This became an issue for Jenna. She is upset that I am not even going to try to make time to see the group while they are home and extremely upset I am not tagging along to visit our uni friend. I had reached out to only Jenna and asked if anything was wrong, I was greeted with a very long text. To sum it up Jenna had basically said that I should not spend the night at my moms and at Jenna’s with the girls instead, as well as how my reasons of not spending time with them are excuses because Jenna also work a part time job and goes to school but always makes time for her friends. Jenna also said “i just don’t think there is any excuse or explanation to be able to have the time to go shopping or go out to dinner if you can’t even find the time to see your friends when they are home on occasion.” I maybe have 2 days off a month and yesterday when this all happened, just so happened to be one of those days. I ran errands picking up shampoo and conditioner at marshall’s and saw a dress where I had sent it to my friends asking if I should buy it. I am not trying to discredit anyone’s career path but I feel this is relevant to the story. Jenna is an interior design major. I have watched her tape fabric to a paper and that is her grade. We talk about school often, what projects she’s working on, how she’s liking her classes, and also my school schedule. Like I said before I’m not trying to discredit her, but her major compared to mine is a cake walk. No organic chemistry, Anatomy & Physiology, and all the other hard classes that I have to study for. My academic performance now greatly determines my future and getting accepted into the competitive nursing program my cc has to offer. I do not have a summer, unlike the rest of my friends in the group. I am taking multiple accelerated classes over the break. My boyfriend is turning 21 this year in July and we have plans to go on vacation for his birthday. I also routinely go to Maine with my family every year at the end of July and plan so this year. Jenna has planned multiple concerts, trips and such for the summer. Majority of those events occur when I will be away on vacation both times. I did plan a girls trip at the beginning of June where I offered my own beach house for free in return of not being able to make it for other activities. Jenna is extremely upset that I will be on vacation and not available to go to these concerts, but my vacations were priorly booked to everything she suggested. And each time I am unable to attend she becomes angry and annoyed with me. I also don’t have the money to spend on 4 different concerts where tickets cost over a hundred bucks for each one, and so do others. Jenna is extremely wealthy and is not financially independent, none of my friends in the group really are other than myself. I have hashed it out with Jenna multiple times and explained/communicated how busy I am and how i’m extremely exhausted and stressed out with life and how I feel that everyone in my life is always pulling on my in every direction. The rare time I do get to myself is always spent pleasing other people, showing up and making Jenna happy, even when I am so mentally unwell. Yesterday was my breaking point. I stood up for myself and my own mental health and I explained that it is to stressful for me to find time to fit the group into the upcoming week. I expressed how exhausted I am, and how if she were really my best friend, she should want me to succeed and feel happy. I also told her that it feels she doesn’t care about my emotional integrity, stressing me out even more by getting upset that I am busy. Now here’s the thing, if I had the time I would put in the effort. But how can someone put in effort to everyone else in their life except themselves. I feel that my feelings are pushed aside and they don’t care, they just want what they want. She then shared our conversation with the entire group chat and I was proceeded to be attacked by everyone. I have been blocked by all and made the villain for trying to what seems best for myself. They make me feel like I am a bad friend for prioritizing what controls my life and future, and maybe I am, but I truly am just spread paper thin. It was expected that I was the one who needed to apologize for telling my truth and explaining that the friend group stresses me out. They all acted as if I shot a puppy. I feel she feels entitled to my time and expects me to move my schedule around for her liking, and I just cannot do that. Im sorry but I cannot hang out every single day, spend the night every night, and so on. What about me? What about how I feel? What about the fact that I am at one of the lowest points of my life? She has also expressed to me that she’s upset I have not invited her and the group over to my boyfriend’s friends house on occasion and include them. I responded that it is not my place to invite my friends who they do not know to someone else’s home, that is disrespectful. Friends are supposed to lift you up and make you positive, not drown you. But also I don’t think she understands any view point other than her own. In her mind her friends are her #1 priority, so they are everyone else’s #1 as well. But unfortunately that’s not my case, and what makes her happy is not what makes me happy. Please feel free to call me out, I want the truth, and thank you if you actually had read the entirety of this.