I Was My Best Friend's Worst Enemy (And Didn't Know It Until She Broke Down)
The Text That Started a Two-Hour Nightmare
"Hey, how are you?"
Four innocent words. Sent by my friend to her crush at 2 PM on a Tuesday.
By 4 PM, my phone had buzzed 47 times.
Not from spam. Not from work. From my best friend Saumya, having a complete mental breakdown over... a text that hadn't been answered yet.
And I answered every single call.
I Thought I Was the Hero of This Story
For two hours, I was Saumya's personal anxiety hotline:
- Ring – "What if he thinks I'm desperate?"
- Ring – "Should I have said 'hi' instead of 'hey'?"
- Ring – "It's been 20 minutes, that's too long, right?"
- Ring – "What if he screenshots it and shows his friends?"
I reassured her every time. Told her she was overthinking. Said he was probably just busy.
I was so proud of being such a supportive friend.
I was actually ruining her life.
The Moment Everything Changed
Six months later, I found Saumya in our college library. Not studying, not reading. Just... staring at a blank page.
"I don't know who I am when I'm not useful to someone else," she whispered.
Every time I had "helped" her through an overthinking spiral, I had taught her that her thoughts were too big for her to handle alone.
Every reassurance had been a message: "You can't trust your own judgment."
Every "don't worry about it" had been: "You need me to think for you."
I actually shared the full story in a separate post when I first began processing this moment with Saumya. If you’re curious, you can read that here.
The Uncomfortable Truth About "Good Friends"
Sometimes being supportive is actually being harmful.
You're not helping them build resilience. You're teaching them they can't cope without you.
I wasn't Saumya's friend. I was her emotional crutch.
And crutches, no matter how well-intentioned, keep people from learning to walk on their own.
What I Should Have Done Instead
- "I notice you're calling me every few minutes about the same worry. What do you think is really going on here?"
- "You're catastrophizing again. Let's take a step back and look at the evidence."
- "What would you tell me if I came to you with this same worry?"
The hardest thing I learned: Good friends don't enable. They empower.
The Plot Twist Nobody Saw Coming
Want to know what happened when I stopped being Saumya's 24/7 anxiety hotline?
She got better.
Not overnight. Not without struggle. But she learned to sit with uncertainty. She developed her own coping strategies. She started trusting her own judgment.
Today, Saumya texts me memes instead of panic attacks.
She makes decisions without polling everyone she knows. She goes hours — sometimes whole days — without needing reassurance about completely normal interactions.
Our friendship is deeper, more authentic, and infinitely more fun.
The Questions That Will Change Your Friendships
- Do you have a friend who always needs reassurance about the same issues?
- Are you solving their problems or helping them build problem-solving skills?
- When they call in crisis, do you calm them down or help them understand the pattern?
- Are you their friend or their emotional customer service department?
If these questions make you uncomfortable, good. Discomfort is where growth lives.
Why I'm Sharing This Story
I shared the full, raw story of Saumya's transformation (and my own) in my podcast because I know we're not alone in this.
We all have that friend. The overthinker. The one who needs constant reassurance. The one we think we're helping by being endlessly available.
But what if we're not helping? What if we're hurting?
What if the most loving thing we can do is stop enabling and start empowering?
Your Turn: The Uncomfortable Challenge
I challenge you to identify one relationship where you might be enabling instead of empowering.
Maybe it's the friend who calls you to make every decision.
Maybe it's the sibling who needs you to solve every problem.
Maybe it's the partner who can't handle any conflict without your mediation.
What would happen if you responded differently next time?
Not with cruelty. Not with abandonment. But with loving boundaries and empowering questions.
What would happen if you trusted them to be stronger than their struggle?
🎧 Listen to the Full Story
🎧 The Mind's Traffic Jam – My Friend Saumya's Story
Have you been the overthinker or the enabler? Share this story if it made you think differently about friendship, boundaries, and emotional growth.
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