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I've reached a point where I've accepted the fact that most of my former friend's actions/statements were due to either fear of abandonment or fear of engulfment, and I also acknowledge my role in fueling the fires of those fears, though I had no idea I was doing it, as she was only diagnosed a week before she went NC with me. 

However, there are still some things I struggle with, and that is the role my former friend's environment and situation played in her most recent struggles versus the role that her BPD played, if it was maybe a combination of the two that ultimately led to her going NC, or if her environment/situation issues are directly related to her BPD, creating a "perfect storm" of chaos.    

To give you a brief background, in early June, my former friend tried to commit suicide for the second time in four years and was diagnosed as having BPD.  I'd like some insight from others, especially those who maybe experienced a similar situation.  My friendship was short, but I'm sure people with long-term relationships have also experienced these things.  Below, I'll list what I see as environment/situation issues, followed by BPD characteristics that may have contributed. 

I guess what I'm trying to figure out is whether this is likely a pattern in her life, whether things are worse for her depending on the situation, or whether I just experienced the "natural" progression of having a close relationship with a pwBPD. 

Environment/Situation - Recent college graduate; student taught last fall (that makes it harder to get a long-term position, as she was searching for a job in the middle of the school year); short-term subbed in her subject (English) for three months; short-term subbed in another, completely different subject (Art) for a month; ended a relationship in early January and began a new one less than two weeks later; moved in with her boyfriend three months after they started dating (her fifth living situation in a year); began cheating on her boyfriend the night before she started moving her stuff into his place; started cutting again right around this time, had to deal with her parents moving from a state eight hours away to a state the whole way across the country; began smoking pot every day; and reached the end of the school year and still had no permanent teaching position/had not even applied for any.

BPD Characteristics - Intense idealization of me for about three months, followed by devaluing of me for about three weeks and then discarding of me; fear of abandonment ("Why don't you ask me to go places with you?" and getting angry when I had other plans); lack of object consistency (kept reminders of me with her, such as t-shirts she borrowed from me, and texted me constantly when we were apart, but went NC with me after the school year ended and we hadn't seen each other for over a week and had little opportunity to see each other, as she lives an hour away); mirroring (attempted to be the friend she thought I wanted, took on my interests, didn't wear her nose ring or show me her tattoos until I expressed that I think both are cool, took more of an interest in LGBT issues); projection (implied that I need psychological help, told me that I have no coping skills); fear of engulfment (canceling or changing plans at the last second); and triangulation (painted her boyfriend as a terrible person and then once pretended to be him when she texted me and insulted me).

"I guess what I'm trying to figure out is whether this is likely a pattern in her life, whether things are worse for her depending on the situation, or whether I just experienced the "natural" progression of having a close relationship with a pwBPD."

i think its likely the latter. sure, the diagnosis probably stirred her life a great deal, but our ups and downs in life dont usually call for terminating relationships; sometimes we need some space, but i dont think thats what youre describing. ups and downs are a pattern in everyones life, and obviously some people react less than ideally, they escape.

hope this helps.