Anyway... I have a friend. His life is in rather a bit of turmoil, and has been for quite a long time. Mostly family issues and such, but there are a few other things too.

I'm hellbent on making things right for him, maybe not personally going in and fixing his problems at the source, but making them less detrimental, anyway.

The main trouble is, he's not exactly making it easy. I mean, he's not taking much of the advice I give him (in fact he's commonly finding excuses for it too), he's often complaining about the same problems, and when I try to compare his problems to others' (including a few of my own), he's always trying to find a way to make his life seem worse.

Now I know all you Trolls out there- and, in fact, a good many non-Trolls too- would find this guy to be rather, well, emo. He claims to hate emos with a passion. In fact he actually got very angry when I said that he could very well be emo. But what else am I supposed to say? I can't keep sugering the truth, or he'll get diabetes.

I realise he's an ass... a lot of the time. One might even say he's an asshole. But, I've seen the intelligent, caring, funny guy he is on the inside. He's just, well, strangled, I suppose, by his self-destructive side.

I guess this situation pains me more is that I've gone through a period of deep depression myself, I know what it's like to be in that well. It's dark, cold, dirty and it smells bad at times too. *shrugs* I wanna throw him a rope... just he won't climb it.

...Help?  

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Trolling for the forces of good.

This is his life.  Not yours.  As soon as you make that distinction, you will be better able to detach yourself from the situation.

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Too blunt your knife to slay this dreamer
-The Gathering, A Life All Mine

Tell him you don't want to hear about the same old thing all the time.  That if he isn't willing to try make a change in his life to stop complaining to you.

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I'm not cheap I'm broke :):):)

Obviously this perception is wrong, but effectively it's what you have to battle with if you want to help. If I knew well how, I would tell you, but alas its not so easy.

In fact what I would seek to do is be enjoyable enough to be with that the person in question has, whether he admits it or not to himself, something in life that if he really thought about it is not only not that bad, but quite good really. This will help over the long term give him a sense of confidence that other parts of life could be good and might be worth improving.

If he gets to talking about his problems, listen for a bit, but don't let him dwell on them. NEVER tell him off for talking about his problems, just gently redirect the subject, you might have to do that often, remind him that you know and that you understand his pain but be firm about the fact that there is more to life than that.

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Sacrificium Deo spiritus contribulatus
cor contritum et humiliatum Deus non spernet