BPDFamily.com

I have just found out that a couple of professionals I work with are committing fraud. I have known and trusted these two for years, though we have never had more than professional relationships, never been friends. We human beings are programmed to live in communities of about 40 people in which we really know the people around us. We meet around 10,000 people in our life time. To survive meeting and being around so many people, we are usually more trusting and open with the people we are close to and more guarded with the people we have less contact with. Growing up in a large extended family, many of my relatives were one person in public and abusive to those closest to them. I still am too trusting though a lot wiser in taking the time to see people for who they really are and am less taken in by the false image some people try to sell to outsiders. I have a few wonderful friends who are honest and genuine. As time passes, I value more the friends I do have. It is still heartbreaking to be betrayed yet I move on faster than in the past, spend less time on feeling hurt and no longer make such great efforts to fix broken relationships. I am a work in progress. I will always be sad to have to learn so many hard lessons because of the terrible role models I have had in my family, most of all being raised by a mother with BPD and a father with strong narcissistic traits like many of his relatives in the large extended family.

I'm in my early 50's and looking back, I've had less "real friends" every decade.  Hundreds in high school, dozens in my 20's, less than 10 in my 30's, and only a handful today.  I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing though since we grow and seek new experiences with those closest to us.

Pook075,
Part of the wisdom of growing older is we understand ourselves better and see more easily people for who they really are. I think back of my earlier years when I had so many superficial relationships. Now I seek friendships in which there is genuine healthy connection. The problem with the flying monkeys of my large extended disordered family is ongoing, and particularly painful in the summer months when I see a lot of these people. It still hurts to have people be mean to me for no reason other than they have heard terrible things about me from the flying monkeys and they are threated by my determination to not support the ongoing abuse of certain family members while they continue to put on a pedestal some really horrible family members. Thank you for replying to my post.