Difficulties coping with BPD friend

[anonymous23]

Hello everyone!

I am contacting you with regards to the friendship that I have with a friend who has BPD. She is reckless at times, engages in lots of sexually risky behaviour and it hurts me to see her like this. I do not know what to do, we always talk about it and it seems like she finds one horrible guy after another. It seems like she is repeating the same abusive cycle but just with different guys. And some of the guys are clearly aggressive, but she idealizes them so much that she cannot walk away. Moreover, she gives them so many chances, even when it is 100% clear that they do not care about her at all.
I get so frustrated about this because I cannot help but give her advice. Even though I cannot expect a person suffering from BPD  to not be engaged in risky and impulsive, at least I wish I would just shut up and not tell her anything but I can't. My advice makes our relationship tense at times because of her black and white thinking. This means that every time I do not agree with something, it becomes difficult to tell her, because if you are not 100% on her side then you are 100% against her. Also, she does not care about social rules and respecting others and it bothers me, because I care a lot about these things. I am really bothered that she understands the respect of social norms and other people as a demonstration of weakness and cowardice. Moreover, she looks up to violent sociopaths because she considers them brave, and equates them to heroes and that bothers me too. It bothers me how she cannot see that someone who gets into fights all the time is not someone who is brave but rather irresponsible, with no self-control, and who lashes out because of insecurity.  It´s so hard for me because although she is deeply insecure (she always sizes up girls, compares herself with them and ends up either idealizing or insulting them) but she masks it with a bravado and covers that up that insecurity.  It´s like I am walking on eggshells sometimes because I do not think that any conversation about these topics will lead anywhere. She would just lash out and try to turn others against me. She cannot have a disagreement with someone without taking everything extremely personally. Moreover, the only things we can talk about revolve around sex and politics and that bothers me. She mostly cares about how she looks, how other guys see her and how desirable she is. And regarding the politics, it´s like she is only interested in it so that she can weaponize it against others and make herself seem superior, but not about having an intellectual discussion and that makes it hard to talk to her even about these things. Please help!

[pursuingJoy]

I get so frustrated about this because I cannot help but give her advice.

What do you mean you can't help it?

Moreover, the only things we can talk about revolve around sex and politics and that bothers me.

This is something you can control. If it bothers you, give yourself permission to set a boundary around it. You can either be direct and let her know ahead of time that you will limit these conversations. Prepare for her to push back, get upset, or stomp all over your boundary, and plan how you're going to respond and sustain your limit. At times I've had better success with a more subtle approach like changing the subject, or joking, "Politics again? I'd rather talk about what you're doing this weekend."

I broke off a relationship with a BPD-like friend two years ago. I recognized the warning signs and knowingly engaged with her because of shared interest in building a dance community. It was ok at first but her boundary busting behavior got to be more than I could take. It was so hard to watch what she was doing to her son and husband. I disagreed with her at one point and her response was to blast me on social media. It was the final straw after a series of issues. I didn't get upset, but when she reached out to talk, I politely declined and wished her well.

It will take work, keep in mind that you are the only person in the relationship that is equipped to move the relationship in a more positive direction.

[beatricex]

Hi anonymous23,
Glad you found this group.  I had a really unpleasant interaction with someone I considered a "friend" (I am since reconsidering that label) this weekend. 

So, I get what you're saying and how hard it can be to approach someone who is "just a friend" (as opposed to your relative or a spouse) with stronger boundaries.  It can feel unsetting and even unsafe to do so.  It can be unnerving because they might blast you on social media.  Personally, I am not on social media because I found it caused me huge anxiety, but I get that most people use this medium to reach out to friends, and it is not fair that your friend blasted you on it.  It shows her level of maturity - she's not.  There's a saying where I work, which is a professional environment, "Praise in public, Criticize in private."  Your friend did not honor this simple rule of social etiquette.  It's kind of common sense, if you think about it.

That said, the BPD's in my life are extremely emotionally immature, so I don't expect them to act polite or to have much concern for my well-being, or even to "play fair."  You can point out that they are misbehaving or socially inept all day and they take it as a compliment.  You said your friend gets very jealous.  I have found that to be par for the course with anyone with either Narcissitic tendancies or BPD.  So, you will need to get used to it, you will need to adjust, and you will need to determine what your boundaries will be in this relationship.  Can you tolerate the bad behavior, because it's unlikely to get better.

I get you likely have a reason for staying friends with this person.  Totally totally get it, like my mis-behaving friend's husband is great friends with my husband.  So I can't write her off completely, although she did some pretty terrible stuff to me this past weekend.  I can't write her off completely but ignoring it seems wrong too.  How to reconcile this?  I am also worried she will blast me in the social circles we both belong to, I get it this is tricky.

Is there a recent event that you could describe where you felt you needed to say something to her?  If she is just hurting herself, and you're sick of enabling her, that is one thing.  But if she is potentially harming You and You need to stand up for You, that is quite another. There's a reason I capitalized You three times there.  You need to think three times about yourself for every one thought about her.  That's how you take care of You.

In my situation, we traveled to another state together to watch a show and shared a hotel room.  My "friend" gave out our room number to a guy she was hitting on at the pool.  This is totally unacceptable, as it created a really unsafe situation for me.  What was I going to do if the guy showed up to our room?  And, if she was Not planning on doing [whatever] with this guy who she kissed at the bar while sitting next to me (I think I mentioned my friend is married), why exchange room numbers?

In my situation my friend totally misses the boundary violation, that she put my safety in jeopardy and then she actually yelled at me because I implied she would sleep with this guy she just met.  "I can't believe you think that about me, I thought you Knew me!" was screamed at me, to totally deflect and put the blame on me for what was happening, which is she got caught.  She also lied about the exchange of their room numbers, which was stupid cause I saw her texts to him (please note she was drunk and unaware I was reading her text over her shoulder).  That was not my issue at all, she can makeout with the guy, sleep with him, I don't care, but don't drag me into the situation.  I was worried he was a scam artist as he was half our age, and who hits on a married woman on vacation with her friends? (there were two other people with us).  I was thinking he might jump us for our purses or something worse.  Her going to his room was one thing, but him coming to ours, quite another.  It's like she put me in a situation where I had to save her from herself, and me from her.

We are back home from our trip and she's pretending like nothing happened, but there was a pretty tense exchange between us in the airport before we boarded when she angrily asked "Would I tell my husband what happened?"  I walked away, did not engage (no point in getting kicked off our flight).  I'm still thinking about how to respond to that one - and of course I have told my husband everything, as it was happening on the trip, and later afterward with more details.  My husband is ready to confront her (I was going to say "kick her a**" as these are the actual words he used) if I don't, he is that angry she did this to me.

b