I Tracked Every "Emergency" Text From My Friend. The Pattern Made Me Sick

847 crises in 2 years taught me the difference between helping and enabling

Last Tuesday at 11:47 PM, I got a text that changed everything.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me after everything I’ve been through. I thought you were different.”

It was from Rachel, my best friend since college. The crime I’d committed? I told her I couldn’t meet up at midnight to talk through her latest crisis because I had a presentation at 8 AM.

This was crisis #847 in the past two years. I’d been keeping count.

As I stared at that text, something finally clicked. For a decade, our entire friendship had followed the same script: Rachel would have a problem, I’d drop everything to help, she’d ignore my advice, the problem would get worse, and somehow it would become my fault.

That night, I did something I never thought I’d do. I blocked her number.

And for the first time in years, I slept through the night.

The People Who Take Everything and Give Nothing

There’s a type of person who will slowly drain the life out of you, and the scariest part is how normal it seems at first. They don’t show up with warning labels. They show up as friends who “really need you right now.”

I call them energy vampires, and they all follow the same playbook:

Act 1: The Hook They come to you with a problem. They’re vulnerable, they’re hurting, and you – being a decent human – want to help.