I don't normally do resolutions, but this year I owe it to myself to listen more.
I recently came to a realisation that a long distance friend may also be BPD, but I dismissed the red flags, of which there were many.
The friend was very different to the ex, I would say she is much higher functioning and fits more the queen/witch profile, whereas the exbf was low functioning and more waif/hermit.
In hindsight there were many more upfront red flags with the friend (or were they just very different?) than the exbf.
BUT... .I didn't
listen to those red flags, so this 'friendship' lasted a lot longer than the relationship with the exbf. Interestingly the exbf attempted to use this friend to triangulate when I first ended the relationship with him. I bet they were interesting emails,
.
The friend changed to very LC with me after staying with me one Xmas/New Year. During that stay there were a couple of things that may have changed her attitude towards me. One being me enforcing boundaries, and the other was me questioning her bf's behaviour (who she claimed she had no feelings for, yet the way she spoke about him said different) and highlighting that I suspected he may be cheating on her and not wanting to see her get hurt. It's also possible she felt rejected, tried not to dwell on this issue much but she used to 'joke' that if she were going to ever dabble in same sex relationships she would like it to be with someone like me. Possible that she felt rejected as I never made any moves in that direction? Also possible that she felt engulfed, as she did enjoy Xmas when she had always told me that she hated Xmas as it held bad memories for her.
It turned out I was right about the bf and he declared himself in a relationship with his other 'friend' shortly after. She was furious about that as she considered the other woman far beneath her. I don't know why she was so surprised, he was upfront that he was going away with her, and hey, she even packed some condoms for him!
I think the difference was that she was very upfront and aware of her black/white thinking (disguised as honesty), her childhood neglect/abuse, her NC with her parents, and that she used a lot of T speak as she was also upfront about having had a lot of therapy... .but her lessons from the T she seemed to use as an excuse for those behaviours, in that they were ideals she expected from others but became clear didn't apply to her.
When I questioned her change in behaviour towards me she basically told me that her 'real' friends accept her as she is, and that I could just suck it up as she didn't feel like talking on the phone. This was a woman who started out our friendship telling me that her relationships with other women never last, because women are so needy/b**chy and they all stab her in the back. Her favourite mantra is 'Fairweather Friends.' So as she'd always banged on about how honesty was the most important boundary for her I made the mistake of being honest that she may be losing friends from changing her behaviour towards people with no explanation and why that would be a problem for most people as friendships are two way interactions.
Last year I sent her a card and got a message 'thanks, can't afford stamps at the moment so I can't send you one back.' This year she didn't even acknowledge that I'd sent her a card. She's doing the usual fb posts about how she's really found out who her 'real' friends are when she was ill (she has had cancer, but I found out via fb, and it was a good while after she changed the dynamics). Whilst I have empathy for her situation I cannot support someone who won't even speak to me, other than via the odd message.
This year I really need to make a note to listen more. As stated on here by other members, they DO tell you who they are, they DO tell you too much too soon, they DO tell you none of it is their fault, and one day it will be YOUR fault.
Happy New Year to you all, let's hope it's not a 'noisy' year!
