He was in an accident recently and is in a coma. Since she's been fired from her third job in a year, she spends all her time taking care of him. I feel sorry for him but he is an asshole and all she's done is enable his abuse. I have a hard time feeling sympathy with this but I know she's on meds for depression and then I feel guilty.

I'm afraid that I'm not very good at listening to people with problems. I know that life is rough but too many people that talk about their problems have, in many ways, enabled their problems. The people who just have a rough time and get on with it, don't usually go on and on about what a bitch life is. I know that when I talk too much about some problem I feel like I'm boring people because they have their own problems. When I get impatient with people who complain I feel guilty, because I'm afraid I'm not sympathetic enough, but it's hard to know when sympathy is in order and when they just need to be told to shut up and get on with their life.

I also have this problem with helping the needy. Helping children is not a problem. I know they need help. It's the adults that I'm ambivalent about. I know there are adults who need help also. I've needed help and I've been grateful that I got some. Not as much as I wanted, but then who gets as much help as they need.

It's hard to know when you are helping and when you are teaching people to be helpless. Too many people, like my friend, seem to spend most of their time either being used by people or using people or, usually, both at once and their problems are never their fault. It's always someone else's fault or their disorder's fault, or whatever, but never their fault. Maybe I've gone too far in being independent and don't have as much connection with other people as I should, but I'm more comfortable with that than expecting other people to take of me. Still I'm worried about condemning people who handle problems differently than I do.

The worst part of being around people who are complaining a lot is that I find myself complaining so that I'll get some of the sympathy or be briefly in the limelight. We all want to be noticed, even if it's for our problems. Often we feel that the only way we will be noticed is if we have problems.