PD or just passive aggressive?

[AD]

I went on a trip with a friend recently, and I'm now wondering whether she's just passive aggressive, or if she may also have a PD. In the past, I've really liked her - the main thing that has bothered me is that she often just fails to respond to messages. For example, we'll be talking about doing something together, and then she just drops off and doesn't respond to me about it. To be clear, it's totally fine if she doesn't want to do something, but when she doesn't respond at all when we've been somewhat making plans, then I'm left hanging when she doesn't respond to just say "no". It bothers me, but I justified it by saying that she just finds it hard to say no.

On this trip, she was just generally rude to me a lot, snapped at me at times, lots of passive aggressive complaining when she was clearly unhappy about something. Some examples: ignoring me for her phone for long stretches (after pointedly one day commenting on how sad it is when she saw people at dinner on their phones - she did this at times when my battery was dead so I kind of had nothing else to do when she decided to spend extended periods on her phone); complaining for long stretches over and over about how tired she is (and generally being really negative), and then asking ME what's wrong when, I'm guessing, she could tell that I didn't look thrilled after listening to the complaints about nothing endlessly. She did both of these during one dinner and seemed to really want to leave, then when we did, she went to a store that was open and never wanted to go (it was midnight at this point). Then when we got back to where we were staying, she snapped at me that I had "10 minutes" if I wanted her to help with something before she would go to bed. I hadn't asked her to help me with this, and there was no reason to snap....it was just weird.

She had a day where she woke me up early by playing something loudly on her phone - I think she wanted to wake me up, but wanted to pretend that she hadn't. She kept talking about how tired she was and how she didn't sleep well, which is fine - I asked what she wanted to do. At one point she said she just wanted to sit in the shade - I suggested she do so and message me if/when she wanted to re-connect. It was our last day on vacation, and I had some things I wanted to see and do, and she just seemed to be in a bad mood. We were due to check into another hotel that day, and she responded to my suggestion with "so you want ME to deal with everything with the hotel then?" I said no, I would stay nearby and come back right away if we got news that we would be able to check in early (which was unlikely to happen). Then when we did check in, she bolted right away and left me to deal with everything, including paying. Then she started complaining about how she had to unpack again (right, me too), and how she didn't like the place. I eventually just said that it sounded like she was upset and so maybe we should talk about it. Then she went off about how she can't say anything then, she was just talking about the place and it had nothing to do with me (I had chosen the hotel, and I think she hadn't wanted to move from the last one - in regards to that, I'd said that I would like to move for certain reasons, but if she didn't want to, to let me know and we could stay. She agreed to move but seemed to then resent me for it).

She also made a point of complaining about how a guy she was seeing wouldn't respond to her messages right away, asking how hard it is to do that, etc. Meanwhile, she regularly ignores some of my messages altogether, so I was sitting there like, really, you're saying this to me when you must know that you ignore my messages, no?

She also ignored me altogether once when I was trying to ask her about something. When I gently called her out on it, she said that she didn't know I was talking to her - there was no one else there. When I said as much, she said something like "oh, I thought you were STILL talking about X". Right so....you decided to just tune me out then?

After the trip she sent me a message and when I didn't respond right away, sent something like "what's wrong???" with sad faces. I mean....she should have a sense that she was rude on the trip and could have just apologized or offered an explanation or something. Maybe I should say something about it, but I don't think she would hear me or handle it well.

[Thru the Rain]

What an awful time!

At a minimum, she seems not to be very self-aware.

Is this the first time you've traveled with her? Sometimes when you spend a significant amount of time with someone, you learn more than you wanted about that person.

Whether she's PD or "just" PA, I would consider not traveling together in the future.

[AD]

Thanks. We have travelled together a couple of times before and I didn't see this side of her.

I think there's been an overall shift in how I see her now - maybe it's an overreaction? But for those things that bothered me before - like the lack of responses - I used to let them go, but now I'm not really inclined to make excuses for her.

[NotFooled]

To me she sounds passive aggressive.  If she hasn't acted like that in previous trips perhaps she was just going through something.  If it was me I probably would avoid taking vacations with her in the future. 

[clara]

She sounds to me like a  passive-aggressive non-PD narcissist.  Often narcs will only show you the full range of their behavior once they get comfortable with you, hence her willingness to act out in ways she never did in the past.  Narcs, like NPDs, can easily draw  people to them and take their time showing their true colors.  They're not necessarily bad or unpleasant people to be around (their level of destruction is nowhere near the scale of that in a NPD) but often you have to limit your interactions with them because of their tendency to walk all over you and act like they have every right to do so. 

[Starboard Song]

PDs, of course, are defined as having "too many" of a list of traits, "too often" or to "too high a degree."

It's a cute definition, and helps us talk about the worst cases, but it isn't an essence thing at all, like determining whether your pet is a raccoon or "just" a possum.

What I mean is: I wouldn't bother with the question. Instead, I'd directly observe, prepare for and respond to the behaviors. Implement boundaries, change contact levels, at least avoid road trips -- whatever seems right to you based on this experience.

I'm so sorry this happened.