Ex friend has BPD, has painted me black & harassed me for months

[Oarfish]

Not a story about a family member, but I couldn't find a tag specifically revolving around platonic relationships. I do not wish to go into extreme detail, so I won't, but I'm feeling a bit at-my-limit from the stress right now. A few months ago, a close friend of mine with BPD experienced a traumatic event, and instead of directing anger towards the person who hurt them, they chose to ostracize me while splitting and cut me off from our shared friend group. Essentially, I'm being used as an emotional punching bag, and I have been ever since then, I assume because I'm an easier option to pick on. I've blocked them about everywhere, but they are still talking about me, even making several "vent" animations revolving around them physically attacking me. They've spread (easily disproven, mind you) lies about me, my friends, and my significant other. It hasn't gotten any better. They are still actively watching my social medias and talking about me behind my back, as well as vague-posting about me on their public accounts. They're using essentially every ad hominem in the book to make me look bad. It's sincerely affected my life in a very negative way, as well as my friends who were also affected & directly fed lied to by them. I'm logically aware that I'm in the right, I did nothing but try to help them the best I could through the rough patch they've been going through, but they are still going on and on about how "terrible" I am. That I was pushing boundaries that were never expressed to me until it was too late. That I somehow knew about said boundaries, even though they never communicated this and opted to instead have their friends try to inform me (when even THEY didn't know what the hell my ex-friend wanted.) I really just do not know what to do at this point. I have severe anxiety and a paranoia-related disorder, and it's eating me up inside probably far more than the average person would experience. I don't know what I want from posting this, I guess just need some reassurance from heavily targeted by them. I really, really do not know why I'm taking the brunt of all of this anger. They're particularly upset that I'M upset, as well, as if I don't get to feel my own grief about both the awful thing that happened to such a close friend, in addition to having to deal with them berating me constantly. One of the last messages I was directly sent by them before I cut contact was just a 5-minute long voice message consisting of them gaslighting me, screaming at me, going on and on about how awful I was to her, and it hurts. It really, really hurts. I spent the first week after it happened crying nearly every day, blaming myself for things I could have not foretold, blaming myself for upsetting them even though I was only trying to help them & provide resources for them that could potentially help with their situation. I basically sacrificed all of my free time just aimlessly stressed out, trying to make my best guess as to what I was supposed to do, all while being stonewalled and backstabbed by them because I didn't respond in the exact way they were expecting me to. Sorry for rambling a bit, I just really need to get this off my chest because I believe their BPD is severely unchecked to both their and my own detriment. I guess I just need advice or reassuring words. Sorry if any of this is out of pocket.

[Older sister]

I am so sorry you’re going through this. Being in a BPD’s orbit and drama inevitably causes bewilderment, estrangement, and consequently, real trauma. Your intentions were good, but this will never be acknowledged. When hurt, BPD individuals are not logical and can be very dangerous.The  mental distortions involved are hard to fathom.  Others in the BPD’s circle seem to be acting like ‘flying monkeys.’ You are in shock, and you will cycle through the stages of grief. This will take time, as you will be unpacking everything and what you need to learn to protect yourself in the future. Is there a way to avoid that particular circle of “friends?” Have you considered blocking the lot of them on social media and advising your other friends to do the same? Finally, do you have someone you trust to talk to, (possibly a skilled counselor?) Please read through this site, and you will see that you are not alone in this experience…

[TelHill]

So sorry this is happening. Something similar happened to me with a family member (not my bpd mother).

I told the truth about the disordered person and it made my life more difficult rather than clearing the air. I was verbally attacked for being a liar and unstable. I blocked everyone and stopped giving any information about my life to the culprit and the flying monkeys. A lot of the flying monkeys used Social Media so I deleted my accounts.

It was horribly painful, and the pain gave me the impetus to keep going. My usual behavior was to be a people pleaser but this was beyond anything I’d ever experienced. It stopped me from giving in to the bpd person to calm the waters.

Eventually the bpd person will pick a new target. It may be someone else in the friend group. You may want to reach out to those in your friend group when the dust settles to suss thing out. There are other people out there who are free from causing drama and fireworks for no reason.

I look upon the bpd person in my family as an adult mean girl(like the movie), regardless of gender and act accordingly.

[zachira]

You are lucky you are not a family member as the group will have to pick a new target if you are not around. Keep in mind that the flying monkeys are a lot like the person with BPD in that they have very low differentiation, mostly  lacking in their abilities to see themselves as separate people from the group.

[Oarfish]

I'm so sorry to hear that, from both of you. I greatly appreciate your advice. Kind of a weird update, but they ended up publicly posting every screenshot interaction of ours in this big document. Me and my friends saw it, and it's... very incriminating to their own argument. It's literally just page after page of me being supportive, checking up on their mental health, and providing them resources. It's honestly baffling. They quite literally proved that I was telling the truth the entire time and that they're trying to make everything sound malicious on purpose, even though the "evidence" provided is a stark contrary to that. I'm a bit at a loss for words. Don't know how to react to such a blatant self-destruction like that.
I have already blocked them and their "flying monkeys" and have for months. Worth mentioning, said monkeys also have BPD. Shocking, I know. Me and my friends have speculated that they're kind of the "ring leader" of sorts for the group, as the person who's been giving me trouble is the one putting forth all of the aggression and was the one to force them all to break contact with me. At this point, it's really just them trying to poke at me publicly despite that, and it's backfiring miserably. Thankfully, I have my wonderful friends and husband on my side who fully believe in me and can see through their antics. At least part of it is funny to look back on (they tried to tell everyone my husband is "racist" for using the N word despite him quite literally being black, I'm guessing they just didn't know that part and blindly went for that as an ad hominem...) All in all this is just very, as Older Sister put it, bewildering. I appreciate you guys.

[kells76]

Hi Oarfish and another from me.

Thanks for sharing the update about your situation. I really get it about how draining it is to know that falsehoods are being spread about you (my husband's kids' mom is uBPD and her husband is uNPD, and they blamed H for many issues to our small community).

It's really meaningful to have a spouse and friend group who believe you absolutely and who you feel supported by. I don't think my H and I could've survived without the support of our marriage counselor who was also part of our small community -- he knew all the players and knew what we were up against.

This was interesting to me:

they ended up publicly posting every screenshot interaction of ours in this big document. Me and my friends saw it, and it's... very incriminating to their own argument. It's literally just page after page of me being supportive, checking up on their mental health, and providing them resources. It's honestly baffling. They quite literally proved that I was telling the truth the entire time and that they're trying to make everything sound malicious on purpose, even though the "evidence" provided is a stark contrary to that. I'm a bit at a loss for words. Don't know how to react to such a blatant self-destruction like that.

Have you ever read Dr. Xavier Amador's book    I am Not Sick I Don't Need Help? While focusing mostly on schizophrenia, he introduces concepts that can help "make sense" (in a way) of irrational behaviors in other mental health challenges such as BPD. A key idea is that anosognosia inhibits the sufferer's ability to understand or see at any level -- they have absolutely no awareness of -- symptoms and behaviors that are highly apparent to others.

While that may not be exactly what was going on with the pwBPD in your life, the concept of anosognosia can help remind us that mental illness is mental illness for a reason -- it's unfortunately characterized by self-defeating, irrational behaviors, even if those behaviors "make sense" to the person somehow.

Hope those resources are helpful, and feel free to update us more, and get more support, any time; we'll be here.

kells76