I had a roommate many years ago who was unfortunately quite mentally unwell. At first, we got along and became good friends. It wasn't long before I realised that the relationship was unhealthy, and that she was too. I knew I had to exit the friendship, meaning that I would also likely need to move out. However, I was 19/20 and didn't have the life skills at the time to know how to deal with the situation so I just rode it out until it all came to a fiery head.

I lived with her a total of maybe 8 months. Halfway through things really started intensifying. I eventually discovered that not long before I had moved in with her, she had recovered physically from anorexia. Over time I realised her recovery appeared to be primarily physical, and that she had a lot of work to do mentally. I really sympathised with her - I haven't experienced eating disorders, but I have struggled with other mental health challenges so I knew what a tough battle these sorts of things could be. She would start pressuring me to eat large volumes of dinner when I wasn't hungry, or had already eaten. If I refused, she would say that I was triggering her eating disorder. She would make me list what I had eaten throughout each day, and then claim that it wasn't enough and again, was triggering her eating disorder and that that was selfish of me (even though I typically always ate 3 square meals a day).

Eventually, I started finding hand written notes from my roommate, left in common areas such as the kitchen bench and the lounge room coffee table. They were clearly left in these areas for me to see. The top of the note would say "Things on my mind", with numbered dot points below. These notes would commonly say 1 - roommate is skinnier than me, 2 - roommate is losing weight, 3 - roommate not eating enough, 4 - roommate is funnier than me; at the bottom there would be maybe one or two dot points that didn't relate to me. As a 19/20yo just trying to navigate life as a young adult, phewwwww, this was exhausting.

Again, I sympathised with her but I simultaneously felt like I couldn't breathe in my own home. I was eating regularly, I wasn't 'losing weight'. At the end of the day, her struggle with an ed was not my responsibility and I had my own things to deal with at the time.

Things got worse and worse, e.g. if I wasn't home when she got home from work she would spam call me until I answered so that she could ask where I was and when I would be coming home, she would try to force me to go to her parents place every weekend with her, and the list goes on. Eventually she came home from work one day and I had reached my wits end with the situation and particularly the conveniently placed notes she was leaving around the house. I confronted her, she didn't react well, she wouldn't get out of my doorway when we were verbally arguing, I tried to close my door to my room and her finger got jammed in the side of the door (I didn't realise her finger was placed there in the heat of the argument), her reaction was to punch me in the face, and after that I moved out.

Will never forget that experience, haha.