It’s not easy to maintain the closeness of relationships of our youth but Abigail Dean will always make time for the friend she grew up with

In early 2006, when I was 17, I was admitted to a well-known psychiatric hospital in the UK, an institution most associated with models and footballers. I was neither. I was a schoolgirl who had suffered from either a chemical imbalance in the brain or a series of poor life decisions, depending on who you asked. For two months I was to live in a small pink room with immovable furniture, and attend every therapy on offer. I revised for my AS Levels in the communal lounge while people watched television or wept over the evening meal.

On my first day there, snow fell furiously across Derbyshire. My parents live on a big hill in a small village, and were snow-bound. Visiting hours inched around. I resigned myself to two hours of self-pity, listening to the hum of reunions from the surrounding rooms. But 30 minutes before the doors closed, in walked my friend, Ruth, who had got her driving licence just the month before. She was carrying a week’s supply of the worst gossip magazines of the late noughties and a craft kit for homemade cards. I would not spend the evening alone.

You are right to feel uncomfortable, rather than flattered, by such extreme imitation. Short of cutting her off completely, there are ways to gradually disentangle yourself

I met X about 10 years ago, at the gym. She’s not a very close friend, although I think she would like to be. For the first few years I thought we had so much in common – places we’d been on holidays as kids, our attitudes and our taste in music and clothes.

It has taken me a while to realise that I can’t believe anything she says . She copies everything I say or do . Every time I wear something new, she says: “I’ve been looking for a coat/dress/boots like that. Where did you get it?” She turns up a week later with almost exactly what I have. I simply don’t answer any more.