Significant other doesn't necessarily describe the person that I'm talking about. She was my best friend for 6 years. She had only been diagnosed with BPD 2-3 years ago, but the diagnosis did provide an explanation to the emotional issues that she had been going through, I guess. She was going to a therapist up until about a year ago, then she stopped taking her medication, started to develop an eating disorder, and refused to talk to her therapist (as this was right after the pandemic and she said that over the phone therapy didn't work for her).
We've always had a 'rough' relationship. There were so many fights with her that I just couldn't win. Up until this very last time, we fight, and we make up after we've both had time to cool down. I’ve always thought of her as the one person that I would never fear of losing because whatever we were to say to each other we always make up in the end. It was the joke that we had together; No matter what, we’d always come back.
I’m not going to lie and say that there was never anything between us in the past. I was a questioning teen, not known who I’d actually liked because everyone around me always just called be gay because of the way that I acted. When I had admitted that I was questioning she helped me a lot as she was going through the same thing (kind of). We had 'experimented' a few times with each other (as teens do), then the proposal of an actual relationship was brought up. It’s being so long I honestly can't remember who brought it up or what we said about, it but it didn't happen. We were friends for a little while after that until I got a boyfriend and we started fighting more and more until I called for a break. After almost 4 months of not talking, we started again, and the relationship was back. Then after going to her for relationship advice, I broke up with my boyfriend. At first, I was ok with it because I thought it was what I wanted, but by the time I realized that I had made a mistake he already had another girlfriend. Granted this was 2 years ago now, I still get bitter about it too. Mostly because the reasoning for me breaking off the relationship was because she told me too.
After the first boyfriend, I didn’t date anyone seriously for a year (mostly because I was holding out hope that he’d come back to me). The first person I dated after that was a sort of mutual friend, but she didn’t like it. I mean she said it didn’t bother her, but I knew it did. She just didn’t say anything because she wanted me to be ‘happy’. The way that she acted when I was dating him was kind of possessive. As in she’d get mad if we showed affection in front of her, she’d get grouchy if she thought that he was getting more attention from me than she was. She’d call me ‘Hers’ because ‘she loved me more’ or ‘shed known me longer’. Although that wasn’t the first time that she had said it, but it was the first time that I heard it and actually though about the meaning. The first thing in my mind? I’m not your property. I’m my own person, you don’t get to dictate who, what, or how people are in my life.
Over the past couple of months, we had been spending a lot of time together. We went camping for 2 weeks alone in the summer, before I had to leave for college (even though it’s only a 3-hour drive from home). She came to visit me about 2 months after I left, stayed about 2 weeks, then went home. She was the one who picked me up for Christmas break and dropped me back when it ended. But she didn't leave when she dropped me off, she said she wanted to stay because she missed me when I was gone. She had ended up staying for almost 2 months before we both went home for a visit. The fact that the apartment I’m renting is a studio one bed and barely 300 sq/ft didn't make us living together easy. We would fight almost daily, whether it be about her doubt in our friendship (worried about how I didn't 'love' her and that me leaving her was inevitable) or me getting pissy about every other little thing. Whenever she would say that I was definitely going to leave her id always tell her I wouldn't. I remember telling her the last time that if I were to not be in her life that she would have to be the one to kick me out. But after those fights, it would get better, we were be better and happy. Until another fight started then the process would go round and round. I guess when you spend so much time with someone you start to find things to get annoyed about. I don't know.
The same weekend that she had gone home after staying with me for those 2 months my ex (the first one) had broken up with his girlfriend of almost two years. She was the one who told me. Hell, she had texted him before even telling me that that they broke up so that she could be sure that it was true. Unfortunately, her grandfather had passed away. She had come to get me from school so that I could be at the funeral (at her request) and while I was back at home my ex and I had agreed to meet and talk about. Long story short him and I were basically already dating by the end of that day (but not at the same time because we wanted to wait until I moved back home at the end of the semester). The second I was alone I called her almost screaming with joy because of how happy I was, but as a reply I just got disinterested replies and sad sighs. Later that night (and by late, I mean 2am) she texts me saying ‘I like you more than friendship’ and ‘it hurts me when you get close to other people’. I was beyond confused at this point, like why would you get me back together with my ex if you wanted to be with me? My hypothesis? She felt guilty about him and I splitting up in the first place (because I had told her that she was the reason I broke it off in the first place)
After that text was sent, it was like she changed. Like she expected me to reciprocate those feelings even though I explicitly explained to her that I’m actually straight only weeks before this happened. Then it kind of became awkward for me? Like, I didn’t know what to say to her or how to act because I didn’t want to give her the impression of liking her any more than she though I actually did. Then she started to text stuff like ‘You’re going back to school soon so you won’t have to worry about hanging out with me’, ‘You choose other people over me, I don’t want to be an option’, ‘I feel replaceable to you’, and ‘I think we need a break because I feel left aside’.
After I had gotten back to school after the funeral is when it got worse, and it didn’t help that the conversations we had were all over text. She had kept saying that I led her on because of how much time we spent together when she was living with me, because we shared the same bed for 2 months (even though it was the only one available), because we had planned on moving into an apartment together after my final year of college. My response? ‘That’s just how we’ve always been so I didn’t think it would cause any issues with miscommunication about the feelings I have.’, ‘I’m sorry I can’t love you the way that you want’. After that the conversation gets heavier, with accusations being throw both ways. My replies become shorter and more distancing, with every one text I sent, 3 came my way implying me selfish because of my insisting need for time and space was making her sad and depressed. My last message to her: ‘I’m not responding because it’s making my mental health worse. Which is why I wanted time. We’ve been fighting too much. We’ll talk again when I move back to home if that’s what we both want. I love you’ After that I stopped replying because I knew that we weren’t going to get anywhere in any fight while we weren’t even physically close.
The texts continue on for a few days after that, saying ‘you’re supposed to be my person’, ‘I want to talk to you’, ‘You don’t Have feelings for me at all?’, ‘It shouldn’t be your decision to take time It should be mine’. The anxiety that was racking in my brain because of the dozen texts coming through my phone every day was so overwhelming I couldn’t concentrate school. I started to fail my classes, so I blocked her. Don’t get me wrong, probably not the best idea at the time. But what was I supposed to do? Get a new number? I was planning on talking to her after only a month, I was hoping that the time would let us calm down and think more because I definitely knew that I needed to think.
I had been there when the last Girl that she got 'attached' to left her without an explanation. She became obsessive enough that the police had to intervene because she would constantly find ways to contact them, usually by making fake accounts on different media platforms. But that's just my view, as she has hers. But we didn’t end like that. We ended because she contacted my almost boyfriend and told him her story of events on how I led her on and how we were in an ‘unofficial relationship’. A story that must have been ugly and cruel, because whatever she told him, he never wants to speak to me again.
The funny thing about this entire situation is that I’m sitting here typing about her, and not the man I lost. Because I’ve already lost him before and I was broken, but fine all the same. But Her? She’s been my best friend for years and I don’t know what I’m going to do without her in my life. But after what she did or said I’m not going back to her like I usually would. Every time that we would ‘take a break’ for no matter how long we’d always come back together like the pieces of a two-piece puzzle. But now I’m sure that she’s shattered those two into a million and she'll never get the picture right.
Im here basically looking for anyone who's had a similar experience, if not, some advice on how to handle this situation would be amazing
