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I made the big mistake of being emotionally attached to someone with Borderline Personality Disorder.

G

_Gawain_

Member
What a nightmare.

I've been very lonely most of my life for reasons that anyone on this forum can probably imagine and I'm also an anxious wreck specially this past year so when I made a friend for the first time in a long time last year I felt like things were looking up.

She mentioned the BPD from the start and I had some experience with a family member with the same diagnosis so I thought I had an idea of what I was getting into. Narrator's voice: he didn't.

The levels of attention and affection from her were intoxicating, they can make you feel like you're the most important person in the world,

Of course, it was also a challenge from the start, one wrong word, one imaginary offense and you better be ready for hours of some very animated talks about it.

Still, I had never been afraid of anything like that. In some way I enjoyed the emotional intensity, even the negative one.

Until I asked her for a couple of weeks away to recover for a bit, it was supposedly fine but when they passed it was as if she was a different person, from the closest friend imaginable to some mild acquaintance.

And when I asked why things had changed so drastically? she simply kept saying they hadn't, it was all the same. Something blatantly untrue.

Now it's been a few months of doubled loneliness for me, what I already carried and sort of detox I'm having to do from all that she gave me and it's made things all much worse for me.

I'll probably fully cut the friendship once (if?) I feel a little less anxious, she probably won't like it, but it seems for the best.

She's honestly not a bad person, nowhere near as toxic as other cases, she has done all she could to get better but sometimes that's just not enough. The mistake was honestly mine, thinking somebody in my condition can ever properly manage something like this and not following my instinct that from the start was telling me there was something not right here.

Sigh, I only wanted to make a good friend. Unlucky.

Now if you excuse me, I need to go back to my loneliness induced constant anxiety attacks.
 
Ah stonewalling some say that's abuse in of itself. Passive aggression and, hate to say it, but gaslighting..
 
She will probably be very apologetic and perhaps even genuinely so. She can't help it. It's up to you if you want to go back to that, you're already in the process of detoxing from it..
 
Sorry to hear that. I had a similar experience. It was intense. Don't beat yourself up so much though. It's hard to be rational when it comes to relationships, and the BPD-ASD combo is thermonuclear.
 
I think she may have just taken the request for a break very personally. No matter what words you use, telling someone you need a break away is going to hurt. It may have been needed, due to your emotional state or her actions creating stress, but either way it sounds like she lost her trust in you. Often times there is no recovering from that.

But tbh I think it is simplistic and probably wrong to create a rule that ASD and BPD are at fault and will not work. It reminds me of some astrology maxim like a Taurus should never marry a Pieces. I just made that combo up but such advice exists.

I believe the personality of the individual is a much greater factor then the conditions we are diagnosed with. The next BPD person you meet could be completely different.
 
Tom said:
I believe the personality of the individual is a much greater factor then the conditions we are diagnosed with. The next BPD person you meet could be completely different.
Click to expand...
You're correct, but with Borderline Personality Disorder the personality is the issue :)

I know what you mean, though, so half joking.

I meant that the combination is thermonuclear because with ASD comes anxiety and probably attachment issues because of bad experiences or lack of experience. With BPD, there is a lot of emotional instability in relationships and the tendency to idolize a person one second and then ignoring them.

With ASD, there is the tendency to take people literally. So imagine a person you like being into you with complete certainty and obsession on Monday but on Tuesday the same person ignores you or dumps you. Then on Wednesday they are back to Monday mood and act as if Tuesday never existed. It induces a brain short circuit.

In any case, yes, we should judge each person individually and not by their diagnosis. Point taken.
 
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