The tile probably does make me sound like the a**hole, but let me just explain it all. 

          My friend (14F), I’ll call her Ashley, went through a state of depression during the end of the last school year. I (14F) was very close with her up through that but then when I started 8th grade I realized that I actually didn’t like being around her. The bad things hadn’t started yet though. 

       A couple months ago Ashley came over to my house and told me that she had started doing drugs. Not cocaine or anything, but weed and experimental things like cough syrup. Also, weed is legal where I live, but certainly not for minors. It’s not for medicinal purposes or anything, either, she just does it for fun. And okay, yes, if I’m being honest, I don’t know that much about drugs and how safe they are, but I just don’t want to associate myself with anything that could end up hurting me or my future. 

        So I didn’t do weed with her when she invited me and now I’m beginning to subtly push her away. At least I thought it was subtle. Ashley  said before that she didn’t expect me to pick up the phone when she called. I think she knows I’m pushing her away. She was already very clingy and used to call me every day to ask to hang out, so she still called a lot, just without an answer. 

I’m worried that if I directly tell her that I don’t want to be her friend that she would go back into a state of depression, because she got close to hurting herself last time. She missed about a month of school because of it. I’ve begun going to therapy too because all she is is a negative energy in my life. 


To sum it up: I feel awful about trying to leave my friend who went through intense depression  recently but she started experimenting with drugs and I don’t want to put me or my future at risk. She’s also manipulative naturally and I still wouldn’t want to be her friend even without the drugs. AITA??