"She Drives Me Crazy, I Can't Help Myself"

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What was your first thought when you read the title? If you're my age you probably had a flashback to being a kid in the 80s and hearing the "Fine Young Cannibals" on the radio. However the aforementioned song gives one the idea that "she" drives him crazy in a good way, like a crush. My topic is about a different type of crazy - alas. I have this newish friend who I came into contact with a few months ago. She lives states away, so we are just online friends who email or talk via phone. She's smart and good company. However she's also very needy. She claims to be very sensitive to needs of others but in my experience she isn't. Drama follows her, and she doesn't see her connection to it. She'll contact me with lengthy emails, sometimes detailing stories that I don't have all the information on and want my advice. If I ask for more information, she snaps at me. Usually she is quite worked up, and starts yelling and crying. I know she isn't mad at me, instead is mad at her situation. But all the same it's hard to take and takes energy that I sometimes don't have and time that I don't have. So I do what it is I do, and wait to contact her until I have enough energy to answer her because after all, it would feel rude to me to just go "hey that bites, have a nice day" after she's written me a pages long email. If I write to her, I usually hear from here within minutes, sometimes hours. It's like she's just sitting there waiting until I write to her. I usually write to her a couple times a week but it's starting to feel like I HAVE to instead of something I WANT to do. If I don't answer right away I get more and more messages like * Are you ok? * I notice you put up a picture on social media, but you didn't answer my 12 paragraph message, uh..... * You aren't answering me! * I don't know if you're ok, because you have stopped replying to me And by right away I mean if she hasn't heard from me in 2-3 days. So, I tried telling her briefly that I'm busy and that I like to give her messages both the time and attention that they deserve. And she kept it up. So I wrote a lengthy message detailing how I have work, my mom, my own energy levels, commitments, etc. We will see if that works. Have you had a situation like this? How did you handle it? I want to be her friend. I feel bad for her. She can be nice. But I can't put up with the constant neediness , clinginess and expecting me to drop everything and talk or write to her for hours every day. What would you do?