Compulsive lying, denial, and constant victimhood

[SometimesLess]

This has to do with a very likely BPD person who was a very close friend, bordering on an emotionally romantic relationship.

It all started on a social network. She wanted to write a book about a PTSD condition, and I contacted her with some basic information about how day-to-day life works for people like me. I wasn't the only person she spoke to, but I think I became her favorite. She didn't want to be called by her birth name as she said she was a very private person, so I called her by her writer penname. She seemed to take a fast liking to me, and almost overnight, we were friends. She had me beta-reading her book as she wrote it, which I was happy to do.
   
She was bright, witty, intelligent, and seemingly well-put-together. We had so much in common. We even liked the same poets. But after just a few days of talking, the tone took a tragic dip. Life was cruel to this person, I learned. She suffered near constant “paranoia.” Sometimes she experienced intense hallucinations where she thought she was walking on dead bodies. People on the bus were frightening. Sometimes strangers at parties would feel up her leg, and she could only stand there in terror. Her roommates were terrible people, screaming and swearing and making her clean the house when she was too exhausted. I wish I could have seen at the time that she really did make herself the victim of every environment she was a part of. Instead, I was appalled by her misfortune. Who would do that to somebody this cool? And that's when my Little Inner Rescuer came out. I wanted to help this person. I HAD to! No one else was!

She told a lot of weird stories. A bat once flew into her mother's hair because it thought her hair was a nest. She had over 100 friends, but was afraid of people. She never liked going to parties, but went to a ton of concerts during college. A group of men dressed up in pirate costumes asked her to go on some sort of sexual adventure with them. The list goes on and on. I mean, I'm not a complete fool. I knew these stories were probably lies, but when I questioned a couple here or there, the apparent untruth was just a “misunderstanding.” She used the “wrong words,” and gosh, she was just so terrible and explaining things sometimes. What she REALLY meant to say was this. Weird for a writer, but I excused it. It didn't seem that much of a problem. Additionally, she didn't like to talk much about her past because she said it triggered her "paranoia brain."

She told me a few months in that she had Paranoid Personality Disorder. Of course, she wasn't actually diagnosed with it at the time, but she talked about it almost constantly, which as I understand now, directly contradicts how paranoia tends to work. She wrote stories about it, happily referred to herself as a “crazy person,” “loony and proud,” and a bunch of other silly things. It was literally part of her identity, aside from being a writer, and a lifelong, meek hermit.

About 8 months or so into the friendship, things got really weird. Suddenly, this person was jumping from crisis to crisis. Everything was terrible, but if I ever tried to give suggestions to help, she'd scold me for being too “pushy.” On top of it all, this drug-free woman was suddenly drinking alcohol. It broke my heart, and I begged her to never do it again. Yeah. She did it again. Why did I still come back? I have no idea. But that was supposedly the very last time. To this day, I have absolutely no idea if that really was the last time.

Following this fiasco, the poo hit the fan. Because of a close friend I knew, I broke the 1st rule of BPD Friend/Partner Club: "Never tell a suspected BPD person that they might have BPD." Mmhmm.
   
After that, she became obsessed with disproving BPD to me at every turn. She would frequently bring the condition up just to talk about how she couldn't understand people that thought that way. Coincidentally, all of her endless crisises just kind of... .stopped. Now she was cool and distant most of the time, and seemed VERY motivated to get that personality disorder diagnosis. She went to two psychologists, and wouldn't you know it, both diagnosed her with a mixed, confused soup of personality disorders, yet neither thought BPD was even a possible central player. Honestly, I have no idea if she ever even saw these people, and if she did, I can only imagine what she told them about herself.

Then, I guess the lightbulb went off. All of these dumb, nonsensical stories she'd told me all lined up in a row in my mind, and I realized fully and completely that I was being conned. I looked at her Facebook timeline. Not long before she met me, she was a gregarious, social butterfly. She enjoyed and did all of the things she said she never had. She went by at least two completely different monikers, possibly three. Different people knew her by different names, and her personality seemed tailored to her name at the time.

I brought this up to her, and I'm not even totally sure what happened in her brain. She just sort of freaked out, tried to show me a very select collection of posts that directly contradicted things she had told me (I had already seen far worse), tried to feign ignorance and amnesia, and kind of... .shut down. I felt terrible for her, honestly, and I didn't push very hard for a little while. She came back later to say that sometimes she used different names with different people for “paranoia” reasons. That still didn't make much sense. This didn't seem like a phase or an identity-protection tactic.

I broke eventually. I wrote up everything I knew, all of the lies, all of it. I gave it to her and said that after 2 years of confusion, I thought we needed to part ways. She flipped out, said that she was “tired of having to explain herself” and “thanks for the memories, I guess” and blocked me from everything except Twitter. I returned the favor but blocked her Twitter account. It's been killing me inside ever since. I'm really struggling sometimes to the point where I'm questioning my sanity.

I've been doing the No Contact thing for 2 months, but I stupidly checked her writer blog a day ago and saw that she wrote me a poem. It essentially boiled down to “I never lied or did anything wrong, I'm not the bad guy, and even though you really hurt me, I would never do the same thing to you.” Ugh.

Wow, that was long. I even cut out so much! Thanks for letting me vent, guys. This place is incredible.

[fromheeltoheal]

Hi SometimesLess-

Welcome!  I read your story and I'm a little unclear: we the two of you ever together physically, or was it an entirely online relationship?  You sound like you have an understanding of psychological issues, and have put a lot of thought into this friendship; what is the goal moving forward?

[SometimesLess]

Hi SometimesLess-

Welcome!  I read your story and I'm a little unclear: we the two of you ever together physically, or was it an entirely online relationship?  You sound like you have an understanding of psychological issues, and have put a lot of thought into this friendship; what is the goal moving forward?

Oh, gosh, I'm sorry about that. I had to edit this down quite a bit and I think a bunch of detail was lost. I'm a bit frazzled to boot.

No, this was mostly an online friendship. I do have an understanding of psychological issues due to my own condition (PTSD), and via my friend with BPD, so I did have that background to some degree.

My goal, I guess, is just to try to get over this crazy roller coaster of confusion and move forward. I need to work on my own issues as to why I got so tied up in this whole thing, try to develop some deeper compassion for what I know she must be feeling, and try not to let this experience color my future friendships.

Thank you for saying hello, Fromhelltoheal, and I apologize again for being confusing!

[fromheeltoheal]

My goal, I guess, is just to try to get over this crazy roller coaster of confusion and move forward. I need to work on my own issues as to why I got so tied up in this whole thing, try to develop some deeper compassion for what I know she must be feeling, and try not to let this experience color my future friendships.

Yep, good for you, that's what we're all doing here.  When you say "work on your own issues", do you have a plan?

[SometimesLess]

My goal, I guess, is just to try to get over this crazy roller coaster of confusion and move forward. I need to work on my own issues as to why I got so tied up in this whole thing, try to develop some deeper compassion for what I know she must be feeling, and try not to let this experience color my future friendships.

Yep, good for you, that's what we're all doing here.  When you say "work on your own issues", do you have a plan?

I probably need to see a therapist, honestly. It's done a lot to my head. Until I can get one lined up with my current health care provider, I know I need to stick to the No Contact thing. Going to her blog was a mistake, and probably a sign that I'm having trouble letting go.

Honestly, I'm just so grateful for the chance to get it off my chest. It was a deeply confusing 2 years with near constant contradictions that made me question my own memory, which already isn't fantastic, and even though it was mostly online and through Skype, it was one of the most intense relationships of any sort I had ever had. Never known anything like it, even with my other BPD friend.

Thanks, Fromheeltoheal. 

[fromheeltoheal]

I probably need to see a therapist, honestly. It's done a lot to my head. Until I can get one lined up with my current health care provider, I know I need to stick to the No Contact thing.  Honestly, I'm just so grateful for the chance to get it off my chest.

Yes, getting it off our chest, and being heard, is very therapeutic.  And while you're working on seeing a therapist, what would you tell them that you can tell us?

It was a deeply confusing 2 years with near constant contradictions that made me question my own memory, which already isn't fantastic, and even though it was mostly online and through Skype, it was one of the most intense relationships of any sort I had ever had.

Very common to feel like that coming out of these relationships, especially when it's online, which is somewhat disconnected to begin with, which adds to the confusion.  And relationships with borderlines are inherently unstable, and if we were subjected to gaslighting as well, we can begin to seriously doubt ourselves and our sanity.  Was there a time, before you met her, that you felt especially grounded and centered?  Do you remember what that felt like?