She's 5 years older than me and she's married with 3 kids. We have a pretty good relationship now, but she often says that I'm more like the older sister because she comes to me for advice. I'm her only close friend. She still gets jealous of me sometimes. That's the main thing that causes problems in our relationship. I have trouble wrapping my head round her jealousy because she has a lovely family and she's quite well-off financially, while I'm single and struggling with so much debt... and recently spent 4 years sick and alone in my tiny flat living on social assistance. My life is nothing to be envious of.

Anyway, her lack of self-esteem makes me sad because I know how painful it is for her. She sees herself through such a negative filter. One day, years ago, she said to me, "It's not fair that you have such beautiful hair." So, I made her look in the mirror with me and showed her that we had EXACTLY the same hair! She couldn't see that. She doesn't think she's pretty even though she's prettier than me. She's 5'9" and has a lovely figure while I'm 5'4" and stocky. She has beautiful, straight, movie star teeth, while mine are terribly crooked. She doesn't see herself the way others see her, though. She has always been that way. She gets very anxious when she feels like people are looking at her. When she was a kid she just wanted to be invisible in school. That breaks my heart.

Sorry for rambling on. This is on my mind a lot.