A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:Hello.So I have this friend. She was great in high school. Fun, friendly, happy to go out all the time and try new things. Well, she ended up with a few boyfriends (none which lasted very long and hurt her terribly) which made her go back to her church and devote herself to God.So whatever, she's Christian. It didn't bother me. What bothers me is the immense personality change my friend has gone through:1. She told me she was possessed by a demon and was purified by the church.2. The church she belongs to, she says, is the same one where the guy made his followers drink Kool Aid.3. I jokingly told her we should go to a palm reader (it was like, 10 dollars, and we had nothing to do) and she went on and on about how they work with demons and they had tried to convince her to do the same thing4. Our other friend, let's call her E, and E's bf wanted to tag along because she had been talking about great her church was (in the beginning) and she flipped out saying they were trying to sell her soul to the devil and how they were actually talking to demons disgused as angels. Soooo... E and E's bf were like, "Okayyyy we're not going to go then."5. She told us God talks to her personally. Like, he told her to go back to school, not to have sex until she's married, etc. She goes out SUPER LATE at night, we're talking like 1am-3am, and E and I get worried and advise her not to.. she says, "I have Jesus with me."I think a little faith is great and all but I feel like she's not the same girl I knew from high school. She's so weird and goes on to tell us about the Bible and etc, when E and I try to bring something else into the conversation she'll go on about how God told her this and that about so and so topic.Any advice on how to handle this? I just want my old friend back. :\
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female
reader, Honeypie +, writes (28 April 2014):
 Unfortunately you can't really do anything about this. I hope for her it's a phase. Having faith and being religious is good, being brainwashed is not.
My guess is there is more to this then just a bad relationship. There is a reason she feels such a strong need to be "saved" from herself. Part of me thinks mental illness part of me, thinks past abuse.
I would (if you still can enjoy spending time with her) do things that sh can "approve of" without going into her "religious mode". She needs friends. She needs a little normalcy. I would, however tell her that she needs to keep her speeches about religion out of the friendship, YOU have your beliefs, she has her - if she wants you to respect HER views, she needs to respect YOURS.
How does her family handle this?
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