Dealing with a BPD friend ending the friendship

[LucySnowe24]

Hello everyone,

I'm dealing with a 'friendship breakup'. I'm autistic and was bullied badly at school and have always struggled tremendously forming friendships. When I started university, I made friends with another autistic student. At first I thought she was everything I wanted to be - cool and bohemian and feminist and secure in her queerness - and I was flattered by her attention. She told me she was BPD. After we graduated, my life got better and I got a good job and hers fell apart and she's now living on benefits. The friendship became all about her needs - she expected me to be available to talk by Facebook or phone whenever she wanted me to. Every single conversation with her is a very long, negative monologue about her problems. Her life is very hard but she doesn't take any steps to make it better and is incapable of thinking positively and constructively about things. Sometimes she sounds like she's hallucinating. She constantly ends friendships with people then complains to me about how terrible they are. She's irresponsible with money, going into debt to pay for big luxuries then asking her friends to give her money to pay her electricity bill. She shut the conversation down if I ever disagreed with her, even about stuff like books and films. She never wanted to listen to my problems. Every time we talked I just listened and made soothing noises, or gave advice which she ignored. I felt so drained and tired and unappreciated. She's a black hole – you pour all your energy into it and it disappears. Since I don't have any experience with friendships, I didn't know how to set boundaries and express disagreement. I just abegnated myself, trying to give everything to help her. I have such difficulty with friendships that I was grateful anyone was contacting me at all, even if it was always to talk about herself.

At the beginning of this year, I finally drew a boundary when she asked for another long phone call. I was very tired and depressed owing to problems at work and couldn't summon up the energy, so I said I couldn't talk. She immediately blew up at me, accused me of being a bad friend and not caring about her,  and cut off the friendship. I actually felt like a weight had been lifted when she wasn't in my life.

Then last week she sent me a long email, saying I was a terrible friend and accusing me of being privileged and entitled. I come from a more materially well-off background than her, although my parents are by no means wealthy, and she's always been jealous of it. (which she is blatantly jealous of). She said 'my only problem is my attitude' when she knows about the bullying at school and other serious problems in my life. She gave me a lot of condescending advice about how I need to go to therapy and change my life or I'll never be happy (I have seen therapists, she just didn't know because like I said, she never listened when I talked about my life, and I am pretty happy, especially without her). She said I worry too much about money when I'm well-off. I have a low-paying job and budget carefully. As I said above, she doesn't understand anything about financial prudence.

It's brought up all the bad feelings again. Is there anything I could have done to salvage this situation (other than never get involved with her in the first place)? How do I move on from knowing that my only close friend was just using me as a listening ear/source of money and mentally looking down on me for my class background the whole time?

[SerenityCat]

She was abusive. I don't think there was much that you could have done other than eventually get away, which you have.

You deserve praise for learning from your relationship with her, setting boundaries (when you were tired you told her that you could not talk/take care of her), and choosing to take good care of yourself.

You can block her email.

You have an entire glorious life ahead of you. You will meet other people and have other relationships.

For now, depending on what works best for you, you may have an emotional hangover for a bit. You may go through some grieving. You may need to treat yourself extra well. Or you may also find yourself feeling liberated, lighter, and curious about what life offers next.

[clara]

It's not actually about you.  PDs like this will say the same thing, in the same way, to anyone.  They just alter a few of the details to suit your situation, but otherwise it's the same accusations they throw at anyone who is no longer serving their need.  They have to find a reason for their upset over not getting what they want, so pull out their bag of tricks.  It hurts to realize you were being used all along, that they were never a real friend, but that's not your problem.  You were behaving the way a friend should behave, you were holding up your part of the relationship.  But she never had any intention of reciprocation.  It's all about her, always has been and always will be.  And she'll go on being that way with everyone she knows, probably for the rest of her life.  What happened to you will happen to the next person she "friends."  I know that doesn't make you feel any better about what happened, but sometimes knowing you're not alone in this helps jar you out of your self-reflections and shines a light on the bigger picture.

I know making friends is difficult for some of us, and sometimes it's okay to have a problematic friend as long as you can keep your boundaries with them.   Since you tried with this friend but she wouldn't respect the boundary, there was nowhere for the relationship to go other than the way it went.  She was never going to allow you to have a boundary, so the confrontation would've come sooner or later.  I wouldn't be surprised if she eventually tries to come back and be friends with you once again (when she finds herself alone and wanting someone to talk to).  Don't allow it, block her like SerenityCat suggested, and don't feel guilty for doing so.  You didn't do anything wrong! 

Finding what relationship patterns work for you will take time and experience, but they'll come.  It's natural to be self-protective and not want to get hurt, but the hurt of a failed relationship doesn't last forever.  And it doesn't mean you're a failure.   Give the time and consideration you would've once given to this person to yourself.