Hey there Intrinsicality
I've actually been in a very similar situation to yours.
Your friend sounds a lot like she suffers from a personality disorder, specifically one or more of the cluster B dramatic or emotional disorders. Someone else has suggested antisocial, I would say histrionic but nevertheless, the point is, to put in bluntly, she is not normal.
I don't say this to be cruel but because I suspect you, like me, need to understand how anyone could behave so strangely and are doing mental calisthenics in your head to try and work it out. So my first suggestion to you would be to stop expecting normal behaviour from her and to stop trying to understand her behaviour in light of how a normal person might behave because it is futile exercise. She is not bad nor evil just unfortunate - a lot of personality disorders arise as a result of childhood trauma where the child learns dysfunctional methods of coping. And even more unfortunately, they are very hard to treat.
As for how to deal with it, unfortunately, the best course of action I've discovered so far is to discontinue the friendship with them. If this seems selfish and somehow cruel - I know and it is something I have struggled with too. But quite frankly, the mental toll it took on me to maintain the friendship was not worth it. Also, the longer you remain her friend, the more her behaviour will get to you and you may eventually find yourself despising her - which is not a great outcome either.
If you do want to try and maintain a friendship with her, then it would be best to tone down the intensity. I have another friend who is difficult to put it mildly but as I only see her occasionally, it is actually pretty okay. The other thing you have to do is set and enforce clear boundaries - something which is very hard to do after the fact. A key problem with people like this (as you've discovered) is that they tend to trample across personal boundaries so you have to be very vigilant and quite firm in letting them know when they've done so. You also have to be able to remain relatively detached when they seek attention by getting emotional and dramatic.
Basically, you have to behave very similarly to a mother dealing with a tantrum-throwing five year old, which is probably not a bad analogy considering some say people with personality disorders are those who have not emotionally grown up. Only you can decide if your friendship is worth all the management you will have to do.
Also, please be aware that people with personality disorders generally don't know how to actually genuinely care about other people. Again, I'm saying this so you won't be disappointed when she behave callously towards you at some stage which she probably will.
On a final note, I believe there is a life lesson in everything that happens to us and it might be worth your while to ask yourself why you attracted her into your life in the 1st place. I know I attracted my friend partly because I was scared to 'put myself out there' in terms of trying to make friends and facing the potential rejections - her attention getting ways meant I didn't have to make too much effort. It's something I'm working on now.
Best of luck
Leela  |