BPDFamily.com

Hello,

I have been living with my best friend for almost a year now. She suffers from BPD, depression and PTSD. Over the past two years she's made four attempts on her life and is almost constantly cripplingly mentally unwell.

I love her to absolute pieces and am so glad to be her friend, however I am becoming more and more overwhelmed with the task of supporting her.

She has recently been hospitalised following a suicide attempt. She regularly sees a psychiatrist and psychologist and is part of a Dialectical Behavioural Therapy Group. In hospital her treating psychiatrist told her that her treatment plan would include antidepressants and a mood stabiliser, if these were ineffective they might perform ECT.

After her discharge from hospital she has told me she is feeling the worst she has ever felt and is almost daily making suicide threats. I constantly ask her to tell her psychologist these things and engage the professionals but I fear that she omits a lot of things in her sessions, or that she can manipulate them.

This leaves myself, and a close circle of her friends (she does not communicate with her parents), with the burden of trying to keep her alive. I feel increasingly stressed by this and I find myself unsurprised at the thought of her hanging herself or jumping in front of a train.

I feel so hopeless for her as she's been in this state since she was 14 and she sees no way out.

I also feel very under appreciated because she rarely thanks me for the things I do for her (washing, cleaning her room, buying her gifts, listening to her and supporting her). And I feel upset when she unfairly gets annoyed at little things that really shouldn't be a big deal. But then I immediately feel terrible because I know how much pain she is in and how lucky I am to be mentally well.

Basically I just don't know what to do anymore. I feel so overwhelmed and so hopeless for her.

Not exactly looking for answers, just some stories of how other people have gone through similar things and how they've coped.

Thanks.

hi BPDbestfriend92 and *welcome* i'm so sorry for your situation and i hope you'll get good support here. we have an active community of members and a wealth of resources for people who are dealing with BPD from every angle. on the right hand side of this board there are readings which have been prepared by experienced students of BPD; please have a look over there sometime.

it's not uncommon to be caught between the decent urge to help friends and the need to take care of ourselves. i have been in the situation where i had to take care of myself, to take care of another. you are in a high-stress situation. what support do you have? do you have family or a counselor with whom you can talk things out? how do you and her other friends share responsibilities? please keep posting BPDbestfriend92!