BPDFamily.com

I have an ex-friend (cut regular contact eighteen months ago) whom I have reason to believe is a diagnosed borderline with a substance abuse problem (alcoholism). She has been in episodic crises for more than twenty-five years, with four failed marriages and numberless dramatic breakups.  In the last ten years, her crises have amplified in severity, and her ability to cope and function declined.  Orders of protection, failed criminal prosecutions, sustained unemployment, et cetera. After her last-but-two major crisis, she left the region and moved across the country, living from handouts and out of her van. After she came to a stop, she found some apparent stability and established a network of new friends and appeared to alleviate her substance abuse problems.
She met yet another man and was swiftly engaged to be married last autumn. This situation is now in the (familiar) process of disintegrating violently. Except this time, there is a very young child involved.

As far as I know, and I have known her a very long time, she had never been involved with a man with children before. I know she took it upon herself to become a caregiver - almost a mommy dearest - to this toddler. I was frightened because I knew her volatile history, but I kept my peace hoping that she had changed with sobriety and intensive counseling. However, the violent anger that marked her life before her cross-country exile remain, and I think the safety of a small child is now in question.

What should I do? Should I contact the man or his family to provide background information for a persuasive protective order? Should I contact local child protective services? This is keeping me up at night.

Hi roscoenewyork,

*welcome*

I'd like to welcome you to bpdfamily, I'm glad that you decided to join us. I can understand how distressing that would feel when we know what our pwBPD is like with the mask fallen off, you sound like a caring, compassionate person. I called protective services on my exuBDw when we split, they may say something different in your area, but they said that unless something has happened to the child, they can't intervene.

Thanks. I got into contact yesterday evening with the father of the child and gave him contact information for some of the people whom my ex-friend has terrorized. He said he had filed an affidavit in support of a protective order for his ex-wife (whom my ex-friend was apparently bombarding with frightening messages), and that he would be seeking his own order today.

It is depressing to think that repeated, self-inflicted personal catastrophe cannot make a single dent in the armor of this disorder, and summoning compassion for the people in its thrall gets progressively more and more exhausting.