New poster. I don't know what to do *trigger warning, violence*

[eidolon]

I have a friend with borderline. It's a unique relationship that is not really covered by any of the subforums here, or by any of the experiences you typically see at places like this.  That does not mean that my situation is worse or better than a typical destructive relationship with someone with a personality disorder. It just means I feel more alone. In some ways, I could break this relationship off much easier than people who are related to or romantically involved with their abuser. My relationship with my friend is completely online. As I type this, I am in a voice call with her. My headphones are on. My microphone is on push to talk. I'm not saying anything. She isn't saying anything. This describes most of our time together, which is hours a day -- at least 8-10 on average -- for three and a half years. I could disconnect at any time. I could block her everywhere, and that'd be that unless she came to try to kill me. She's done that herself several times -- both the blocking me and the threatening to come kill me (and my family). In another way, this relationship is much harder to end than a typical abusive relationship. I say this because I am responsible for her existence, more or less. I pay her rent. I find the places she lives. If she wants or needs something, she comes to me. If she doesn't get it, she threatens me. Sometimes these threats are direct, in that she will threaten to hurt me. These are less frequent, because she doesn't live anywhere near me. More often she threatens to hurt her roommate, who is also mentally ill (and an alcoholic), and whom she has physically abused many times. Sometimes she threatens to hurt random people she encounters, whom she regularly fantasizes about killing. Most often she threatens to hurt herself. This can be in very direct and traumatizing ways, such as slamming her arm through a window, or pressing a giant knife against her wrist while screaming as loud as she can. Other times it is in more subtle ways, such as suggesting acts that she knows will get her thrown out on the street, or saying extremely debasing things about herself and the value of her life. These latter things she does constantly, every day. She makes suicidal threats almost every day. She constantly tests my loyalty to her world view. If she reads a comment somewhere online that she disagrees with, I must disagree with it, and this disagreement must mean that the person who made it is a bad person who deserves to die; usually she will then extrapolate this as evidence that the world is evil, people are not good, and either all people need to die or she needs to kill herself. This happens constantly.

At any rate, one fact remains at the end of any consideration I have regarding what to do: she has no money, no job, no family (most of her family members were/are abusive, almost all are mentally ill, virtually none of them have any means to support her at all, and I currently know the location of none of them), no support system whatsoever, no desire to change any of these things, and no sense of self preservation. She currently has a two week notice from her roommate to leave, after the latest incident of physical abuse. You might think this reality would cause her to do...something. It has not. I have been trying to find places for her to say these last few days. She has made zero effort. She will not discuss any of these possibilities with me, or anything else regarding her reality. If I try to discuss any of these things, she lets me know that she is getting angry, which is simply code for the reality that literally anything could happen if I take up this issue any further. Instead, she watches funny internet videos and laughs as loud as she can while her roommate is sleeping. Now, it is obvious to everyone besides her that this situation is extraordinarily toxic. In any other situation, no contact would be the best possibility. If someone else posted this story, I'd say no contact is the answer. But no contact immediately makes her homeless (during the winter!), and very possibly makes her dead. I do not believe that she is capable of taking care of herself. It is rare that she is able to interact with another human being without feeling intense pain or anger. She routinely dredges up extreme anger or pain out of nowhere related to minor slights that occurred years ago (which is not to say that all of her slights or the flashbacks relating to them are minor; she has also been abused and neglected in real, extreme ways), such as one time when someone she barely knew said that a song she liked was stupid. When something bad does happen to her that she willfully did nothing to prevent or prepare for, or that she directly brought upon herself, as is usually the case, she will call me crying and pleading to fix it. She does so basically as a child, because that's what someone with severe borderline and whatever other co-morbidity she has that was abused when they were young is: a child. So I find myself in a situation where I am asking myself whether or not it is morally repugnant to abandon a wounded child in crisis. And it is. It is morally repugnant. The best I can try to tell myself is to get her hospitalized. But I have tried that. She has been hospitalized several times, but each of those times she is able to leave of her own volition, and able to do so without having ever spoken to someone who has made an overture to set up some plan for her, or plug her into some programs in the city she's living in. Beyond that, she is not insured, and she lives in a state with little mental health support, and arguably less homelessness support. Several other times the police have been called on her, either by myself or by her roommate. Usually the police don't bother to show up. Once, egregiously, they did not even pick up the phone. When they have shown up, she has simply left before they got there. There is almost no possibility of me getting her involuntarily committed from out of state, and as I'm sure most of you know it is not difficult for people with personality disorders to present as mostly normal and capable for extended periods of time, much less for the period necessary to convince someone that she does not need to be detained against her will. My own mental health is crumbling as a result of this pressure, and my ability to financially support her is dwindling as is. Every possibility is pain.

I felt like venting, at least. I'm exhausted. I'm sorry if this doesn't really fit here.

[square]

Welcome. This all fits here.

Even if your particular relationship type is not as common as the parent/child or spouse relationships represented here, the tactics and the FOG are very well known.

Your friend has employed a highly toxic combination of Fear Obligation and Guilt to control you. And people here do understand how potent those are.

I can certainly hear how absolutely stuck you feel.

I wonder if the Chosen Relationships section might be the best fit for you, even lacking the romantic partner aspect, given the degree of entanglement involved.

[Starboard Song]

Thank you for sharing.

A person who makes repeated threats to hurt or kill herself, her acquaintances, strangers, and any of our members is beyond the capacity of an online community forum. Her apparent lack of internal or external resources is heartbreaking, but not yours to own. Her hostility to receiving actual help is also not yours to own, and ought not make you a captive.

Please contact emergency welfare resources in her area and seek the immediate, real life help she needs.

Emergency Resources

[j.banquo]

It sure sounds exhausting, and it sounds like some people I've known in my life too.

The best thing you can do to help her is to protect yourself, first, which means keeping yourself sane as best you can. Which could easily mean cutting her out.

My understanding - and it makes sense - is that also the best thing you can do for her is to cut her out. She's not allowing you to help anyway, and is telling you to stop. Whether or not it's a bluff that she wants you to stop, she is telling you to. The only hope of her being able to take care of herself and to stop abusing other people, is for her to realize she has to.

You can give her a list of local resources for shelter, food, access to healthcare, and anything else you can think of, and she'll always have that.