Roommate’s Breakup Blues

It’s been a little bit stressful here at the apartment lately. I feel really bad for her, but Sofia has been bringing the mood down. I think she feels closest to me out of everyone living here, so she keeps coming to me with all of her problems, and while I love to listen and help, it’s just getting to be too much! 

Recently she broke up with her boyfriend and she isn’t taking it well. When they were together, I barely saw Sofia at all. She spent pretty much 24/7 with him, which is kind of funny because I learned in class that it’s common, and called “dyadic withdrawal”. Now that they’ve broken up, it seems Sofia is treating me like her therapist, and I don’t know how much I can do for her. I try to help as much as I can, I’ve been doing some stuff around the apartment to lighten her load to relieve some of her stress, like doing the dishes on her dish chore night, buying an extra bag of candy for her when I’m out, stuff like that. 

It feels like I’m always there for her, but from my point of view she isn’t really there for me at all. I listen to her worries and everything, but it feels like she isn’t really listening to me when I talk. I try to share what’s exciting in my life and she just doesn’t really respond to it at all, which kind of sucks and makes me feel like she doesn’t care about me as a person, even though I know she does. 

It’s starting to feel like she’s withdrawing from other people too and relying on me so much that I’m also seeing less of other people. I don’t think it’s helping her at all, she seems so lonely now, but she won’t listen to my suggestions to go out and either talk to her existing friends more or to meet new people. She’s just so down lately and nothing I’m doing seems to be helping. I’m not really sure what more I can do...