Dear Prudence,
I need advice on how to deal with a friend whose selfishness is really, really getting to me at the moment. She has always tended to be one of these people who has to “one-up” you when it comes to hardships in life—e.g. you say that you didn’t get much sleep last night, and she’ll laugh and say, “Yeah, I’ve had insomnia since I was 10, so I don’t even REMEMBER what a good night’s sleep feels like!” I once complained about ableist discrimination I faced at my work (I’m partially deaf) and instead of sympathizing or even asking me what the outcome was, she turned it into a conversation about the discrimination she faces as someone who needs a walking stick. There are many, many examples, but you get the idea.
Aside from this habit, she is a great friend in many ways—she put me up when I was homeless once, we laugh a lot together and bond over some niche shared interests. But her selfishness is becoming a real problem. I recently messaged her about a very serious crisis I’d been dealing with —I was violently sexually assaulted at work, my partner has fallen sick, and my mental health has been devastated as a result of the above. I sent her a message saying what was happening and indicating I needed someone to talk to about it. She didn’t respond for three days (unusual for her) and then replied with a lengthy message about her own current mental health crisis, which she made sure to emphasize was worse than mine (“I don’t have a partner to support me either and actually needed hospital”) and included not a single question about the things I had told her about my situation. I was too angry and upset to reply. My question is, what on earth do I say?
—She Always Has It Worse