Do your friends own you?

You love your friends, and you want to be there for them when they are having a rough time, and you of course want to be there when times are good, that's just human nature. Do you ever get the feeling that your friends own you though? Everybody, even if they don't think they do, needs time for themselves. I'm not just talking about time that they can do what they want, I'm talking about time where they can be completely alone. It's good for us, it gives us a chance to think and examine ourselves, and learn more about ourselves and how we operate. It is difficult to get any time to yourself in this age of technology however. Even when you are alone, half the time we are either on Facebook, where we are still communicating with each other, or our phone keeps buzzing with incoming text messages. You may not feel like your friends own you, or you may. Some friends just text once in a while when they want you to come hang out and do stuff. Some friends text you when they are bored and they need your imagination and your presence to help ward off the boredom. It's nice to be needed and wanted, and its a good feeling when people always want to hang out with you and talk to you and get your opinions and advice on stuff. This isn't exactly what I'm talking about when I say that your friends may think they own you though. I'm talking about those friends, maybe you have one of these, or maybe you have a couple, or maybe you are lucky enough not to have one, but I'm talking about the ones the dangerous ones. The friends that need you the most, or constantly, the ones that say they are always there for you, but disregard your feelings, and can't see how you feel about them because they are so wrapped up in how they feel about you. If you have a friend that gets upset with you when you hang out with other people, whether they are present or not, that is a dangerous friend to have. If you have a friend that gets upset with you every time you don't answer a text message, everytime you aren't there for them when they need you, that is a dangerous friend to have. Some of these people are harmless, but some of them may come from emotionally unstable backgrounds, and they do in actuality need you, or at least somebody, and they have temporarily latched onto you. They can be great friends to have as long as things are good and they are getting what they need and want from you. Which may be all of your time and attention and leave you with none left for yourself. Watch out as soon as you try to put a little distance between you and this friend though. You will feel guilty at first, because you don't want to turn your back on them. Then you will reach a point where you may get so exasperated that you just want to be away from them and don't know how to get away. So, now we come to the part where you save yourself. Unless you are a professional psychiatrist, or a counselor of some sort, you probably aren't going to be able to help this person. In fact, your continued presence int their life may even be hurting them, depending on how much they are relying on you, because eventually you will keep letting them down and it will damage them even further since they are already emotionally off balance. So, back to how to get rid of them. Ignoring them is not going to work. It's going to hurt them, and they will find some way to get back at you for it since, the reason they have latched onto you probably either stems from previous abandonment issues or emotional abuse and that is just furthering it. So, this is unproven, but my theory is that people who act like this, and are depressed and emotionally damaged like this generally have remained so because of a lack of God in their lives. Everybody goes through things in this life, that's part of our fallen world, but it really does boil down to how you react to it, and those who have God in their lives are time and again proven to be able to rise out of the ashes of their broken lives because they know in their hearts that this is just a trial and their true life is yet to come, when they will not have to deal with anything unpleasant ever again. If you start to talk to your "friend" about finding a counselor or a church and having God in their lives, one of two things will most likely happen. 1: they will start listening to what you have to say, and they will in turn, change into a person that is emotionally stable, with hope and strength in themselves and will be transformed into a person that is trustworthy, and cabable of carrying out a healthy relationship with themselves, you, and others. 2: They will eventually stop talking to you because people don't like to be preached at and hopefully they will find God on their own, or through somebody down the road when their hearts are more receptive to listening. Either way, you avoid the danger that these people can bring to you and themselves. Now, i'm off to prove my theory...