When a friend is having a difficult time with their mental health, it is nice to help them to the extent that you can.

What would you do if you decided to move out of the apartment, and they had a breakdown, begging you to stay?

That is what happened to the young woman in this story, so she finally put her foot down and said she was leaving no matter what, and now her friend is always crying.

AITA for how coldly I’m going about leaving my roommate and our living situation?

My (25F) roommate (26F) has been struggling with her mental health, and it’s been giving me immense caretaker burnout.

Is it really her job to fix this?

When I try to help her, she would come up with excuses why those things wouldn’t work. So I recently told her I’m moving out.

Here’s where I know I’m TA, and I don’t need judgment passed on this one: I told her during a bad time, and in a mean way.

This happens to the best of us.

I let my emotions and my pride get the better of me.

I yelled at her mid-crashout (both hers and mine, frankly), gave her the resources to a crisis center, and told her that that was the last thing I was doing for her, because I was moving out at the end of February.

At least she apologized.

I spent the weekend cooling off. Most of all, I just felt shame. I texted her to apologize, telling her that she didn’t deserve the stern way in which I treated her.

While I was clearing my head, I resolved that, in order to take care of myself, I’m not budging on my decision to move.

I think this is a wise decision.

I’m not letting her affect my emotions, and I’m only sticking to the responsibilities that I legally have.

I ended up in a peaceful place about all of this.

That is plenty of notice.

I told her on the 1/11. I’m paying for February, but I’ll be outta here by 2/1, so she’ll need another roommate by March. That was about 48 days notice.

She asked if I might be able to work together with her until the summer, so that if her mental health got better, I’d stay.

Good, stand firm.

I told her that that was not on the table.

She kept on saying she wants me to understand how much I hurt her. That this is the biggest crisis she’s in now, that her parents had to cancel their vacation to deal with this emergency.

She needs to take responsibility for herself.

She told me that I shattered every bit of progress she’s made, and when I told her I do understand, she said, “Do you?”

And frankly, yeah. I do. I know exactly how much this hurts her and grasp the consequences of it.

Taking care of yourself is the right thing to do.

She thinks that I don’t understand because despite knowing how much this hurts her, I’m doing it anyway.

Engaging with her distress in any way always turns into an unhealthy back-and-forth.

Leaving will likely be good for the roommate as well.

I think that that whole conversation, I said nothing else besides, “No,” “I understand,” and “I’m sorry.” I apologized again for my harshness, but that’s it.

Beyond that, it’s in nobody’s best interest for me to engage with her emotions at all.

Well, there’s an obvious guilt trip.

Anyway, she ended the conversation by saying, “Just a heads up, I’ll be crying a lot, and it’s 100% about this.”

I told her, “Sounds good.” And that was that. I resumed packing.

Yes, this is very clearly the situation.

My personal take is that she’s trying to work my guilt into a codependent dynamic. But I’m burnt out and exhausted, and I need to get out of here before I waste myself away trying to help her.

I think that I gave her ample time to find a roommate (48 days). I can barely stay a second longer.

She has done more than she should have.

But what are my duties here? What do I owe to her out of human decency, beyond legal obligations?

AITA?

She would never be satisfied. This roommate just wants her to be there to support her, and that is not fair.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

This commenter sums it up nicely.

Exactly, the roommate is way out of line.

She needs to get professional help.

Guilt trips are never healthy.

Don’t let this woman ruin your life.

Always put your own mental health first.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.