Friend with uBPD - time to cut ties?

[disorderedsociety]

So I've known this guy for about 8 years, went to high school together, etc. I think we bonded over having similar childhoods. He stays in a shelter on the west side of town but I still keep in touch with him to see how he's doing. He's currently on Prozac, supposedly having just started community college (he's 25.)

He'll pop up out of nowhere every few months and contact me wanting to hang out and the last few times have been iffy, we wound up in the club district of Dallas and I ended up paying for us to drink. That night he encountered a guy (he's gay) that he I'm guessing liked, who didn't want anything to do with him, at the bar, and proceeded to have a really negative attitude toward him and call him names. After that night, 5 months, not a word.

Then he comes up out of the blue like "hey how are you?" Wants to come over, stay the night, doesn't even ask me if he can stay over but I say ok well go ahead with whatever you're doing and let me know when you're close by. So then he wants me to pick him up at the train, pick up his bicycle and two bags between stops. He tells me, middle train car on the front side, then he's all the way in the back. He gets off the train having missed the window to continue to his destination where he's taking a survey for cash, has a fit about missing it, punches a wall. I'm about 20 feet away observing silently. I ask him if he's done, it doesn't really catch on. He continues to stand there with a negative cloud around him, so I walk off and smoke a cigarette. 5 seconds later he's calling, I take the elevator back up and see what he wants to do. The next train comes and all of the sudden he's like oh ok! So he fumbles for his key (which I can tell is in his left pocket,) pulling everything out of the other pocket, and I'm like, dude your key is right there and he ends up handing it to me then and hopping on the train. I take his bags and bicycle to the lockup area where I seal it up with his lock. He then calls me saying that he think someone can potentially get his book bag out from the 5 inch gap between the bike capsule and the ground and I assure him its highly unlikely someone will want to steal his books. He continues to go on about how important it is to him, etc. and I start to feel another twinge of guilt; that was when I told him I don't want to talk about it, as its a non-issue. Then he hangs up on me.

So I sent him a message saying, "I think its best if you just continue with what you were doing. Let me know when you're headed back so I can drop off your lock key."

Then a lengthy reply guilt-tripping me about how worried he is that a thief will somehow pry a book bag out of a few inches of space and take a bunch of paperwork.

I think its time to cut him out. He probably only contacts me when he's run out of supply, and I'm not doing it anymore. I really have every reason to believe he has BPD, after all my mother and my ex-fiance have it too.

Oh and I'm reluctantly going to get his book-bag, just to be on the safe side. I told him we can't hang out. 

[disorderedsociety]

Oh and Facebook status update on his part, after telling him I can't have overnight guests:

"Really wants to die. Someone please shoot me and end this s***"

EXACT same thing that my ex would say. "I just wanna die. Kill me." but in a serious way.

WHY am I the one that has to deal with this? I feel bad cutting them off but then when I do they go and quickly find a replacement so if my friend can find someone else to dump his crap on so be it.

I guess they don't go out without a fight!

But the way I see it is, I've changed my romantic relationship template. I'm now changing my friendship template.

[gameover]

Doesn't sound like a very fulfilling friendship.  And I think you're probably right to remove yourself from that situation.

In the months before I met my BPDexgf, I cut a lot of 'friends' out of my life when I realized that they were either super codependent and were just using me as a crutch against being bored or lonely or I just wasn't getting a good return on my investment.  Haven't regretted it once.

The nice thing about friends is that really all you need are a handful of real, solid friends, the ones that'll have your back through whatever and maintain themselves naturally without you have to do anything.  That said, one of my very best friends has BPD for sure--and while I wouldn't let him date my sister  , he's always good for an adventure and is super perceptive.  But he's never dragged me into his issues and we probably wouldn't still be close if he had.

[disorderedsociety]

That seems to be an issue for me, finding friends that are actually friends. I knew that this wasn't the best friendship ever, but I considered him my best friend because of how long we'd known each other. That said, the friendship has always been filled with arguments, miscommunications, etc. Just recently did I realize he has a lot of the hallmark traits of BPD and it only stands to reason that someone I met in a more vulnerable stage who helped me escape abuse at one time would have a tie to that same "persona" of people pleaser / co-dependent that I'm cutting off the oxygen supply to, so to speak (its like purging weakness from my soul.)

However now that I've established boundaries, I feel lighter and more capable of allowing real relationship into my life.

[gameover]

disorderedsociety,

Glad you're establishing boundaries.  They do feel good, especially when you see what happens when you don't have them.

Sounds like you had a bit of a hard-scrabble upbringing?  I definitely did, and in the past it's formed the basis for a lot of what I perceived as 'friendships.'  I can really connect with people who had it rough--and I used to feel a little bit alienated from people who came from happy, stable families, and from money in particular.  Part inferiority complex based on the advantages they had, part superiority complex from making it through things they'll never have to.

But what I've realized is that most of my really good friends come from really stable family backgrounds.  And this dynamic works.  I'm kind of the 'out there' friend--they enjoy my spontaneity and crazy stories from my past.  But they keep me grounded.  And overtime their family units have become like family to me.  Generally they can sense that I've missed out on the type of connections they have and make an effort to assimilate me into their healthy dynamic.

However now that I've established boundaries, I feel lighter and more capable of allowing real relationship into my life.

This is key.  Like I mentioned above, your friends don't have to be like you.  If you open up to new people and their unique experiences you'll be surprised about the kind of awesome impacts they can make on your life.  But to meet these people there's a good chance you'll have to open yourself to new experiences and really put yourself out there.

You can be friends with anybody as long as you know that you can walk away.