confusedfriend
Fewer than 3 Posts
Offline
What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Friend
Relationship status: Was very close friend, now, no idea
Posts: 2
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« on: March 07, 2020, 09:57:28 PM » |
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Long post alert. My question is, can you ever regain friendship with someone with BPD once you have lost "favourite person" status? I know that every person &situation is different,& don’t want to generalise, but have never dealt personally with this before, &am at an absolute loss as to how to continue from here.
Basically, I have a friend who has many borderline coping mechanisms, &possibly the full disorder, middle aged. For about a year, we were very close; we went to conferences together, she'd text me pics of family holidays, present hauls, etc, &frequently wrote things like "we have such a special connection", &“I actually don't know what I'd do without you". She's not someone who writes that sort of thing often, so I guess that my friendship did mean something to her then . I was certainly able to support her through a lot of personality/political clashes at work,(we work for two separate, but linked organisations, &she does, unfortunately have a reputation of being very erratic and difficult to work with, which obviously makes things really difficult for her).
About six months ago, I was caught up peripherally in a situation which I think she viewed as a betrayal (I know that sounds like a cop out, but there was absolutely nothing I could have done differently). On the weekend following this, I got several texts about how devastated &distraught she was by this. I apologised again &again(which I probably shouldn’t have, as there was nothing else I could have done), &tried to be really supportive via text(she wouldn't answer my calls), & by the end of the weekend, things seemed OK. She had a difficuot, conflicting week at work the next week, &everything between us seemed back to normal. She'd share, I’d support, it seemed like we were good.
Then she "disappeared". She totally disengaged. If I asked how she and her family were, the answer was always "great", even if she posted differently on Facebook. She wouldn't catch up anymore and basically has ghosted me. I have told her multiple times since how much her friendship meant to me, and tried to find out what I did wrong, also, tried to explain what I think may have been the triggering event (this has all been by text or email, as she won’t catch up anymore). She steadfastly denies there's a problem, just constantly stating that she's busy.
A month or so ago, she blocked (not just unfriended) me on Facebook. When I tried again to find out what I’d done to make her so angry, she said that she wasn't angry, just busy. That seemed a strange reason to block someone, so when I called her on that, she said that she likes to keep work and personal life separate. This is the first time that she's ever admitted there's a problem. There’s a lot other people whom she has never ever seen outside of work (including the one who triggered the betrayal event) whom she hasn't blocked, so it’s clearly a problem with me.
Of course there's much more detail, but this is getting much too long. Though it may be worth mentioning that before our friendship imploded, I had some depression struggles, &she desperately wanted to be there for me, telling me I had to be honest, &that I needed to open up to her. I don’t know if she feels bad for not being able to be there, but I’ve told her that I don’t care; her friendship means much more to me than needing her to do things for me (I’m not a very open person in any case, & am v fortunate to have an amazing support network). I don’t know if my struggles have triggered things from her past.
My quandary is how to progress from here. It seemed like she needed my support for a while there, &I don't want to take that away. She does seem to have moved onto a new friendship group over the past few months, so maybe I just need to move on too. I don't want what happened between us to impact on how she trusts others, &really went her to continue to feel supported, but don't know if that’s in any way wanted. There have been a few brief moments over the past few months that make me think she doesn’t want to totally disconnect, but in general she’s been very distant. I guess it comes down to I don't want to trigger her, &make her feel horrible by continuing to push and try to support her if that’s not what she wants. But at the same time, I most definitely do not want to abandon her.
If any of you the the time to slog through &read all this, thank you so much, if anyone has any advice, thank you even more
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