Tired of Probably Depressed Friend

Hi,

Long story short, two of my friends and I self-harmed at the same time. I got through it (a different two friends inspired me to stop), then I supported one of my friend to stop herself, but a year on the other friend still self-harms.

For months she was adamant that she would stop self-harming “at some stage,” which was tough to hear because we wanted her to stop hurting herself the way we did. All three of us are concerned that she’s depressed. She says that she’s thinking about going to the GP about it and she’s thinking about going to a counsellor, but she never does. My friend and I have been nothing but supportive, sending lists of resources (e.g. Pieta House website) and saying we’d even go with her to wherever she needed for moral support if she wanted it and we’ve given her alternatives to self-harming. I’ve spent countless hours giving her support and advice, even when I was lying in bed falling sleep I got up when she rang because I knew she needed me, but I’m drained now. I find that I have no more support left to give her, and after a catch-up with my other friend, she’s saying the same.

We try to be supportive but all she ever seems to say for the past few months is how horrible and terrible her life is. She’s overly dramatic about how hard everything is and it’s getting hard to support her when she really needs it now. She makes mountains out of mole hills and after months of this it’s just become very, very annoying. I feel like I’m wasting my time offering her any advice because she won’t take it. If I go to her with something silly or my own problems (like I found out the guy I liked was actually manipulating me recently), she just makes the conversation serious, depressing and all about her troubles again two minutes later. She exaggerates everything (even when she complains about situations that I saw first-hand) and it’s just annoying now.

It’s like with very minor problem she comes to me or my friend (or both) and she just makes everything sound so tough and dreadful like she’s the only person in the world with problems. She tells me about her self-harming and at first it was okay because I was trying to support her in stopping, but lately it’s like she’s bragging about it and she sees that it really annoys me when she does that. If I have a problem with her I’m afraid to bring it up in case she just cuts herself again (recently we were texting and ended up having a fight. While we were texting, she tweeted about how she lasted two days without cutting, but that had gone out the window now and how she didn’t need any of this stress right now). It’s like she always has to have the worst life, and as bad as it sounds I’m just sick of listening to it.

Has anybody any advice?