Around the same time, I also entered into my own long-term relationship, and while Amber was still high on my priority list – I would message her to plan visits or try to organise city mini-breaks for the following year – I started to realise that I was slipping down hers.

Gone were the days when she would help me plan my birthday every year or when we would meet up ‘just because’. Now, it was only when issues arose in her romantic relationships or at work that she’d reach out – then, she would be glued to my hip, waiting on me to tell her which direction to take in her relationship, spending hours trying to deconstruct situations where she would leave feeling empowered. She always left feeling better than she came, and then off she would go. And I wouldn’t hear from her again until she was sad.

It hurt and I started to feel used.

While it was painful, according to Dr Harper, it isn’t a particularly unusual dynamic – there are hundreds of different interpersonal patterns we all have with our friends, and not all of them are healthy.

“Friendships can’t be balanced and reciprocal all the time,” she explains. “But if you feel repeatedly unsupported by your friend or you routinely leave an interaction feeling unfulfilled, then it might be time to reassess where this friendship sits in your life.”

She agrees that the reason the dynamic felt off-balance in our friendship was because there was one person having their needs met and the other person wasn’t – me, in this case.

“Honouring our own boundaries and needs can be a hard thing to do,” Dr Harper adds. “But looking after other people’s needs at the detriment of our own isn’t healthy. Your needs are just as important, and just as you show up for others, you have to show up for yourself too. It’s OK to realise that this friendship dynamic will continue unless one of you shifts it. It’s OK to redefine where a friend gets to be in your life.”

Ultimately, our friends are not our therapists, and it’s not healthy to give so much of ourselves to someone else if it’s not reciprocated. Being kind to yourself can sometimes mean letting go of something that no longer serves you, even if it’s the person you swore you would take a bullet for. In the end, I confronted Amber, who apologised via text but made no effort to change her behaviour, prompting me to resign from my role as charging station, hype woman and energy giver.

I still have an amazing batch of friends who I adore. I am there for them, and they’re there for me – the dynamic is healthy and it’s balanced. And, perhaps most tellingly, I don’t feel depleted when we hang up the phone.

*Some names have been changed.

“I only existed when she needed comforting”: the problematic rise of the ‘charging station’ friend