A friendship ended with no closure, only unanswered questions

[workinprogress7]

I found this forum a few weeks ago while searching for resources about the dynamics of being friends with someone who has borderline personality disorder. I am sifting through the aftermath of a friendship that imploded last year, trying to make sense of what happened and hoping that maybe some kind internet strangers can help me understand a few things about BPD relationships.

This friend (now ex-friend I guess, we'll call her L.) and I had known each other for at least a decade. We are now both in our 40s. We met through mutual university friends and most of our socializing was within that group setting with others. I always found L. to have a challenging personality, very loud and demanding of attention, has to dominate most conversations, but for the most part we always were able to have good interactions about our shared interests. Over time we started texting, one of those ongoing friendly chats that makes up a lot of modern friendships. A few years ago I moved away and our friendship became entirely 'online' or via text.

I noticed that L. always seemed to have some kind of drama going on in life - with other friends, with coworkers, random people at the gym - and our conversations became dominated with these ordeals. I'd listen dutifully, express sympathy, and generally let her vent whenever she needed to. Sometimes we'd get onto other subjects, usually some recent headline she found interesting, and on rare occasion she'd listen to me vent about things in my life. But she'd never ask how I was doing, or engage with my side of things on any sort of emotional level. For a while I just figured that this was where our friendship would settle, and as a long-distance thing I could easily manage the energy and emotional reserves it might require of me, even if it felt a bit one-sided.

Fast forward to last year, when we planned a trip together. L. wanted to have a very unique ecotourism experience that can only be had in the country where I now live, and I had been hoping to do this once-in-a-lifetime trip too. So we made plans, booked tickets etc. She started referring to me on social media (where I spend very little time now) as her "best friend" and I initially felt really weird about that label, but couldn't quite figure out why it bothered me. I understand now that it is because I never felt seen or heard by her in the ways that my actual "best" friends do.

Leading up to the trip we had many conversations about gear and prep (the conditions required some specialty stuff) and I found myself answering her same questions over and over, directing her to the same reliable resources repeatedly. I started to sense the pattern that had probably been there all along, in which she wouldn't really listen to/read my part of the conversations we had, except to formulate her responses. Didn't matter if it was something deeply personal I was trying to share, or some general info about what boots to buy, she never really engaged with incoming info except to formulate a response that would inevitably recenter the conversation on her.

For anyone keeping track, we're a few red flags in now, but I didn't see the whole picture until after the worst had happened...

So we went on our trip, and I had a very unsettling, rude awakening about how she behaves in general society. L. has always been assertive and ready to debate anything with anyone (she happens to be a teacher, used to being in charge) but I was not prepared to witness her behave so aggressively through a week of travelling with a group of strangers. She spoke down to people who were just trying to be polite, made a big deal about the rules of where we were staying (it was a dangerous environment, lots of liability for the trip operators) and rebelled repeatedly in ways that instantly reminded me of something a 14 year old might do. She even got into an altercation (her word for it, not mine) with the woman next to her on the plane which required intervention from the flight crew. She bragged about lying to her employer and students about her time away from work (she was afraid to ask for the time off) and I watched quietly as she lied repeatedly to strangers to centre herself in conversations as an expert on whatever the topic might be.

I did my best to stay civil and just try to enjoy the travel experience, but L. definitely noticed that I was putting some distance between us. I would choose to spend time with other people in the group, avoiding the spaces that she had chosen to dominate. I had other people asking if she was "always like this" and I could only tell them that I wasn't sure, we had never travelled together before.

So the trip ends, we managed to get through it with no big blowups between us, and I dropped her off at the airport where we said kind, friendly goodbyes. I hoped to let the friendship settle into something a bit less involved over time, as I could see clearly that her personality is not a good fit for me, nevermind ever travelling together ever again, which she'd already started talking about doing. Her black-and-white thinking, her combative attitude, her inattentiveness are all traits that I know are unhealthy for me to engage with.

A few weeks later in our texting convo, she brought up a subject that we'd talked about months before. She had expressed that she was going through a hard time with something, and I had offered her an empathetic response, acknowledging directly and kindly how hard the situation must be for her. Turns out she had decided that what I had really done was criticize her, and she wanted me to know that there was something wrong with how I had responded. I was stunned at first, I put a lot of effort into communicating clearly and compassionately with my friends, and it made no sense that she would misunderstand something meant in absolute kindness as coming from a place of malice.

When I pressed her for clarification about how my side of things had somehow been meant to hurt her, she backpedalled and claimed that she thought actually that I had just been speaking out of ignorance. That she had assumed I was making up my compassionate understanding and she should have asked me to explain at the time. My mind was blown. I have never had anything like this happen in a friendship before. Misunderstandings happen, we're all human, but suddenly I was hearing how when I thought I had been acting with kindness and respect, I was actually someone out to get her and make her feel terrible.

When I looked back through our conversations I finally saw clearly how often I would express something sincere and caring, and she would push back and reject my empathy and kindness. More often than not, this pattern would continue, and any time I called her out on what seemed to me a clear point of misunderstanding, she would say "oh I just assumed...".

I was so hurt, and knowing how badly things can be misunderstood via text, I asked if we could meet in person to clear the air. I don't give up easily on the people I care about, and for all of the challenging aspects of her personality I wanted us both to have a chance to be honest with each other, face to face, and to try and at least make peace before we walked away from the friendship. I was due to be back in our hometown for the holidays and had the time to get together and try to sort things out. She agreed to meet, said she was busy for a couple weeks but that we could sort out the details after that.

Two weeks go by, I am en route to my hometown and I send her a message asking when/where she'd like to get together to talk. To my surprise, she responded by sending me complaint after complaint of things I had said or done "wrong" in the time we spent together. Comments that I had thought were just observations or statements of fact were taken as unforgivable attacks. Things I said clearly as my own opinions, differing from hers, were construed as deliberately meant to hurt her. Paragraph after paragraph of things twisted to have negative implications, with notes from her about how I should have said things instead. And no, she would not see/speak to me in person after all.

This was the last straw for me. As an adult, I expect some level of maturity and accountability in my friendships. I have been through some very toxic relationships, including a narc father, and I have learned a lot about my role in these dynamics. I have co-dependent tendencies and almost always feel tremendous guilt around setting difficult boundaries. But at this point, I have no patience for games of control, the push and pull nonsense, and I won't stick around to be purposefully misunderstood.

Instead of meeting with L. I spent some time with some of our mutual acquaintances who have been through this cycle with her many times over. They confirmed that this was normal behaviour on her part, and she'd lost many friends by pushing them away over minor and even fabricated issues. I was relieved to know that at least in this way I am nothing special to her. But I am struggling with the impossibility of having any real closure, even knowing that she is highly unlikely to be able to acknowledge her role in any of it. She has blocked me, and I know from prior experience with an abusive narc ex and my narc father that going no contact is probably the best thing I can do in this situation too.

To anyone who has read this far, thank you.

I think my main questions right now are along the lines of making sense of her behaviour...

Do people with BPD purposefully misunderstand others? I place so much importance in good communication that this just does not compute, but I seem to have experienced it firsthand.

Do people with BPD tend to be so thoroughly judgmental of others that they think that is how everyone else is perceiving them, through a negative perspective all the time?

Do people with BPD tend to be fearful of being seen as a whole person, with good and bad characteristics? This became a clear theme when I took a look back at our long-term dynamic, and I regret not recognizing it sooner. I believe that loving someone means witnessing and accepting them as they are, and not tip-toeing around the difficult stuff. It feels like L. never wanted to be seen as a whole person, just the persona she projected. And by that same token, I never felt fully seen and accepted by her, no matter how vulnerably and honestly I presented myself.

I know friendships come and go, and I am mostly at peace with letting this chapter with L. come to a close. I just find myself wishing for some logical explanation of why it happened like this. In any of my other friendships that have changed and grown closer or further apart over time, there has been plenty of room for kindness and radical honesty right up to the end. I think this is my first experience with someone who suffers terribly from BPD, and I feel sorry for her that her relationships are so tumultuous. I do recognize that I have to take care of myself, and if she wasn't able to be a good friend to me, I should feel no guilt in letting it go. But what I wouldn't give for some clarity and real closure!

[notrightinthehead]

Welcome!
I think you have all the clarity and understanding of your friend L. that you will ever get. Your closure could come from using this experience to learn about yourself. About your caretaker traits. Your willingness to overlook red flags. Your ability to pretend that someone who clearly does not behave normally can be treated as if they were.
You were protecting yourself when you avoided L.' vicinity on the trip. She probably noticed your pulling away and discarded you before you could discard her. But whatever L.'s reasons are, if you investigate your own behavior and your own feelings you will learn a lot from it.

[workinprogress7]

Thank you @notrightinthehead, you make some excellent points. I think when I decided to post here, I was just starting to really see how much I can work on in myself to better handle these kinds of relationship challenges in the future. It feels in some ways like this experience has brought to my attention exactly the lessons I need right now, and you definitely identified some of the biggest things that I need to take some time to address.

I forgot to mention that I did not know about her diagnosis until after all was said and done, when a mutual acquaintance with that particular insight was trying to explain to me why L.'s friendships so often follow this pattern. I can only guess that L. never told me herself because she did not feel safe confiding in me about it, and I can respect that, but it does bring up feelings of frustration that L. saw fit to expect a certain kind of friendship from me when I didn't know at all the reasons behind her side of things. I think that anger probably comes through in my original post, and the nature of the lingering questions I have. I am working on accepting that my anger and hurt is just as valid as hers, but I have to make peace with the fact that there will be no full explanation of all that happened between us.

For every offence she accused me of causing, I responded with an acknowledgement and an apology, feeling like I had somehow not realized that my communication was more hurtful than kind. I don't doubt that her feelings are genuine, and knowing now that there's not much I could have done differently without completely compromising my own emotional safety, I still feel that the best I could do was to show that I could take responsibility for my part in things. In fact, our parting conversation was essentially her telling me what I had done wrong, and my taking responsibility for how she had been hurt by my choosing to distance myself from her. But I see now that I took responsibility for more of the negative dynamic than perhaps was appropriate, and I know that I need to work on shifting from the urge to people-please and placate toward standing up for myself more directly when a friendship feels so unbalanced. With L. I didn't do this because I was genuinely afraid of how volatile her reaction could be, but as it turns out, in this case the ultimate outcome would probably have been the same either way.

Live and learn!

[bloomie]

workinprogress7 - hi there and welcome. I am glad you have trusted us with some of the experiences you had in this friendship and the painful ending.

The thing that stands out to the me the most in your posts is that you sound like a wonderful friend to have.

When a friendship fractures unexpectedly and we find ourselves sitting with a lap full of accusations and twisted logic, combing through texts and awake at night rethinking conversations and interactions that are now being construed very differently, it is very painful. I am sorry you are experiencing this. It is additionally hard when we are a person who does all we can to accept and love others, communicate clearly and compassionately and abide in peace in our relationships.

If there is one thing that I have noticed in relationship with a person with strong bpd traits it is hyper vigilance and sensitivity to anything that could have a whiff of disagreement, disapproval, or even a hint of cooling of our willingness to accommodate egocentric, rude, uncomfortable behaviors and attitudes.

As notright said so well, if there was a sense you were uncomfortable - and you were, rightly so, and a slight distancing, it might have been enough to trigger L backing up a dump truck of muck and garbage and unloading it all on you as a defensive posture and way of escape having to take any kind of look at themselves in relationship to and with others.

One person who I was once close to with strong bpd traits was so hyper sensitive to perceived rejection that she attempted to refuse to accept my ending phone conversations. She needed and insisted on being the one to end a conversation. And when I cooled in my relationship due to many of the same characteristics you describe with L and began a slow fade her reaction to that was cataclysmic to an entire friend group. I still can't make sense of it all, or untangle the damage this person did. I have had to view the door as closed and accept what I cannot change.

The thing about a relationship being mostly not in person is it can be easy to overlook red flags. One way to truly know a person better is to travel with them like you did with L. You saw the red flags all along and my very good guess is going forward you will trust yourself more fully and will not continue moving toward someone when they show themselves to be, at the very least, a difficult and insecure person.

[blunk]

Hi Workinprogress7. I am so sorry to read what you have been through with this friend. I have experienced a lot of what you have described while with my BPDxh. I will try to answer your questions based on my own experiences, but I am certainly not a professional.

Do people with BPD purposefully misunderstand others? I place so much importance in good communication that this just does not compute, but I seem to have experienced it firsthand.

I don't know that they purposely misunderstand, but as you stated, it seemed as though L only listened long enough to formulate a response. I had many conversations with my xh that he would later re-hash, and what he heard was nothing close to what had been said. He once told me that he would start to hear me, but then felt that he already knew what I was going to say and would stop listening. This led him to tell me that I (and I alone) had a communication problem. This was before I was Out of the FOG, and I tried to reason that I was communicating clearly, but that he would stop listening when he decided he knew the rest.

Do people with BPD tend to be so thoroughly judgmental of others that they think that is how everyone else is perceiving them, through a negative perspective all the time?

One of the main components of BPD is that the individual has a negative view of themselves. So, it is only natural that they would think/feel/imagine that others also have a negative view of them.

Do people with BPD tend to be fearful of being seen as a whole person, with good and bad characteristics?

A couple of other traits of BPD are splitting (everything is all black or all white, with no in between) and feelings creating facts (with a non-PDs facts create feelings - something happens and then you feel a certain way. With BPD it is reversed - something makes them feel bad and they cannot handle it, so they create a narrative (often untrue, or blown out of proportion) to explain it).

This goes back to the communication piece you described. You may have said something that made L feel badly about herself or something she had done. Splitting may have made her believe that you wanted her to feel bad on purpose, and then to wonder why. And the narrative that L came up with is that you attacked her (even though you only gave opinions or made observations) because you are bad, and so everything L felt was your fault. The other possibility is that you made L feel bad, so she needed to make you feel worse.

I can also understand your apologizing to avoid the volatile response. However, that is a bit of a no win...not apologizing could be framed as you don't care that you hurt L. And apologizing means that you really were at fault just as L said, and that you deserved to be treated poorly/punished because of whatever it was for which you apologized.

Again, please note that this is just my opinion, based on past experiences and a lot of studying BPD behaviors and traits. I understand how much all of this can make your head spin. The reality is that there is no closure in these types of relationships. In a healthy friendship/relationship, if there are problems you discuss and come to a middle ground, or even agree to disagree and move on whether you chose to continue the friendship/relationship, or not. Those with BPD cannot see the middle ground, nor agree to disagree...there is only right/wrong, good/bad, friend/enemy.

So, while you may feel that having had that face to face conversation would have helped you to bring the friendship to some conclusion, it is unlikely that anything could have been gained. More than likely you would have come away from that meeting even more confused and frustrated.

You have received great advice so far. Please continue to work on making yourself stronger, so that you may learn to avoid others who would be less that the friends you truly deserve.

[workinprogress7]

Thank you @bloomie, your insights have helped immensely. It has been very hard to be consumed by so much doubt about my own actions in this situation.

"When a friendship fractures unexpectedly and we find ourselves sitting with a lap full of accusations and twisted logic, combing through texts and awake at night rethinking conversations and interactions that are now being construed very differently..."

You nailed it. I am very glad to have found this forum where I can learn from others and process a bit of my own fractured friendship mess. I know I am not perfect and could probably have handled some things better, but I keep coming back to having that awful, pit of my stomach feeling that I can't even trust my own memories with L. - a hallmark of my time in an abusive relationship with a narcissist, so I know it too well. It is a feeling I never expected to have quite like this again, especially without some overtly malicious behaviour behind it. Being gaslit by someone I considered a friend has been very unsettling, and I hate that I have let it consume me so thoroughly these past couple months.

"If there is one thing that I have noticed in relationship with a person with strong bpd traits it is hyper vigilance and sensitivity to anything that could have a whiff of disagreement, disapproval, or even a hint of cooling of our willingness to accommodate egocentric, rude, uncomfortable behaviors and attitudes."

The hyper vigilance factor is something I think I hoped being a good friend could overcome. I knew L. could be very sensitive and wary of people she's not close to, but I did not anticipate how this trait translates to her friendships. I think some of my difficulty now is having to accept that no matter my best intentions or leading with kindness and compassion, I never really earned her trust. Even when she implied that we were close and "best friends" she was keeping me at arm's length. You are very right, the moment she sensed my seeking some distance, she started to push me away with complete re-tellings of our interactions. At my age and after a decade of healing from other abusive relationships, I think I am better equipped to stick to the boundary I felt the need to establish, as I was noticing aspects of her personality that I now understand can be incredibly toxic for me. I suppose she wasn't wrong to react as she did, it is her own means of self-preservation, however unhealthy it may be. And I wasn't wrong for my choosing to protect myself over placating her.

"One person who I was once close to with strong bpd traits was so hyper sensitive to perceived rejection that she attempted to refuse to accept my ending phone conversations...I still can't make sense of it all, or untangle the damage this person did. I have had to view the door as closed and accept what I cannot change."

I am sorry you went through that, I can imagine how fraught that ordeal would have been. I am learning that with people who have strong BPD traits, the need to walk on eggshells around them is a great big red flag. Some take it to extremes, some just make it incredibly difficult to connect as caring and authentic adults. Looking back I see how much tip-toeing I did in conversations with L. because it was too easy to offend her. She goes through life acting as if she has some kind of inherent superiority to most other people, but for those of us she has let get close enough, it is abundantly clear just how insecure and fragile she is. I know she suffered appalling childhood abuse from her parents which she talks about pretty openly, and I think in light of that information I gave her more benefit of the doubt when she got overly defensive or combative about things that should have just been easy conversations between friends. She has been in therapy for a long time and she talks a lot about her efforts to heal and grow, but somehow in her friendships the same destructive patterns and negative self-fulfilling prophecies are still the default.

"The thing about a relationship being mostly not in person is it can be easy to overlook red flags. One way to truly know a person better is to travel with them like you did with L. You saw the red flags all along and my very good guess is going forward you will trust yourself more fully and will not continue moving toward someone when they show themselves to be, at the very least, a difficult and insecure person."

Thank you for this, this is my hope. Thanks to L., I feel much more clarity about what I will and will not tolerate in my friendships. I will continue the work on building more trust in myself to set boundaries when those red flags first show, rather than trying to fix something that will only hurt me in the end.

[workinprogress7]

Thank you for your response @blunk, so much of what you share resonates deeply.

"...it seemed as though L only listened long enough to formulate a response...He once told me that he would start to hear me, but then felt that he already knew what I was going to say and would stop listening."

This is it exactly! L. does this to the point of starting to talk over someone else as if she is going to finish their sentence for them. I don't know how to explain it, I thought maybe it was a trait she picked up as a teacher, but it happened at the strangest times and with everyone, myself included. Even my mother, having met L. only once over lunch, observed that L. never seemed to be really listening when anyone else was speaking and was instead thinking about what she was going to say as soon as she had the opportunity. Of course misunderstandings, whether intentional or not, are also going to be a factor when this is how L. chooses to interact with people.

"One of the main components of BPD is that the individual has a negative view of themselves. So, it is only natural that they would think/feel/imagine that others also have a negative view of them."

Well said, I feel like I should have been quicker to recognize this. Learning that this is also very true of narcissists was pivotal in my work to free myself from an abusive relationship that nearly killed me. Understanding that he hated himself helped me to understand how pointless it was for me to try and fill that emotional void - there is nothing anyone can do to counteract such immense self-loathing. I think I was very much in denial about how this aspect of L.'s personality could only negatively impact a friendship with her, especially for someone like me with strong care-giving and co-dependant traits.

"You may have said something that made L feel badly about herself or something she had done. Splitting may have made her believe that you wanted her to feel bad on purpose, and then to wonder why. And the narrative that L came up with is that you attacked her (even though you only gave opinions or made observations) because you are bad, and so everything L felt was your fault."

This is a very helpful observation. I am only just learning about what BPD is like, for the people experiencing it and the people they have relationships with. Splitting is definitely something I can see now in her behaviour. She is so black-and-white about everything, and I think in our recent encounter it was much more of a factor than it used to be. I have always been someone who doesn't avoid nuance, and I find that the most powerful truths and the most effective answers are usually found in the grey areas of life. Over the past few years I have actually focused on cultivating and protecting this aspect of myself; as the world has felt more challenging and precarious in so many ways, I am determined to embrace uncertainty and finding comfort in the "middle ground". L. seems very much inclined in the opposite direction, and this was definitely an underlying source of friction between us. I would often meet her black-and-white judgment of a situation or person with a perspective that centres allowing for unknowns and admitting possible assumptions. It seems particularly ironic that this was apparently one of the greatest offences I caused her, but in light of her BPD traits, it makes sense.

"So, while you may feel that having had that face to face conversation would have helped you to bring the friendship to some conclusion, it is unlikely that anything could have been gained. More than likely you would have come away from that meeting even more confused and frustrated."

I think you are right. I could see from her last pile of texts sent to me that she had made up her mind and there was nothing I could do to change that, especially without seriously compromising my boundaries and emotional safety. I am used to there being space for closure in my friendships, but I need to accept that this was not a true friend in any healthy sense. I went no contact with my abusive narc ex and it was immediately life-changing for the better. Even though this time I am not walking away from a relationship that I think of as maliciously abusive (I think from what I am learning about BPD, I still have a lot of compassion for how she is suffering and how hard it is to change the patterns she is stuck in) there is still no reason for me to expect closure when I know that no contact is once again the best choice.

Thank you for your kind words - this has been a very helpful space. Some of the advice has resonated so instantly that I know my gut has been trying to tell me these things already, and hearing it from others has been just what I needed.

[moglow]

For what it's worth, I can see where she wouldn't share her diagnosis and I'm actually surprised she has one at all - one who's always right wouldn't be likely to admit that something clearly isn't, know what I mean? From my own observations over the years, it seems that few who actually have PD diagnoses follow through to make major changes to their outlook and behaviors. Too many appear to cling to their assumptions and refuse to listen to anything else. Whatever insistence there may have been for therapy initially, whether individual or couple/marital, I've just not read of many who faced up to their own issues and pursued long term change. Indeed, it seems there's a long and illustrious trail of broken relationships, erratic employment history, resentful if not absent family members, etc.

Remember too, while she may have diagnosis of BPD, it's also likely that's combined with others [NPD comes immediately to mind from what you've described]. That makes it doubly difficult to treat [even if that were a possibility] but does help when looking at it from a distance.

I believe we find closure when we're ready for it, that it doesn't come from others. Closure to me is acceptance that we're not responsible for the other person or how they choose to see things. All any of us can do is try to explain when we've been misunderstood, genuinely apologize when we know or are made aware that we've done harm, then move forward. The crux of it is, *she* may also move forward and reappear at some point in the future only to try and rehash it all over again.

[workinprogress7]

@moglow you make some very good points. I got the sense that the diagnosis is not something she fully accepts, that it was "suggested" by a therapist but she thought they were wrong. The NPD aspect is likely too and would help to explain some of the things that happened between us. I know from my own work in therapy that I am a pretty classic co-dependent when I get attached to these kinds of personalities, and for all the work I might put in trying to understand L.'s side of things, my energy is best spent on my own reflection and work around how this "friendship" was never good for me, and how to avoid similar unhealthy connections in the future.

"I believe we find closure when we're ready for it, that it doesn't come from others. Closure to me is acceptance that we're not responsible for the other person or how they choose to see things. All any of us can do is try to explain when we've been misunderstood, genuinely apologize when we know or are made aware that we've done harm, then move forward. The crux of it is, *she* may also move forward and reappear at some point in the future only to try and rehash it all over again.

I like this definition of closure, it makes a lot of sense especially in this context. I've done my best to offer clarity about our misunderstandings, I have apologized for my part in things, and now I have to let go of the idea that I'll ever have the satisfaction of finding middle ground and a shared responsibility of how things played out with her.

After spending time here with these helpful insights, I have decided the door is closed, there will be no opportunities for rehashing. I have blocked her and archived our chats because I have no interest in getting reeled back in and having my tendency to give others the benefit of the doubt abused repeatedly. I know she can express sensitivity and empathy toward others, but I have seen enough now to know that this only happens to serve her own agenda and is never really rooted in any desire to be a good person. Some of our mutual friends may have more patience (and less of a history with these kinds of abusive dynamics) than I do, so I may hear through the grapevine whatever lies she decides to tell about me, and that's fine. I am at peace with not controlling the story because the people who I can count on as friends already know me more truly than L. ever bothered to.