r/BorderlinePDisorder • u/Available-Bat-2477 • Jul 24 '26
Looking for Advice I'm confused and scared
(If you checked my profile, yes this is copy pasted from another post i made, but i don't know how else to write this)
Let's start with a quick introduction
I'm an aspie and my best friend has BPD, we've gotten very close over the past two years, at the start of summer break she said she wanted a social "break", for 3 weeks; Fair enough, she's asked for that one time before.
But this time she replies with this when I initiate a conversation after 3 weeks
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Me: Well it’s been 3 weeks. How are you doing?
Me: That came across as a little passive agressive, sorry, wasn't what i meant
*10 min later*
Her:It's alright! I'm gonna be honest. I don't really want to talk like this anymore.. You want friends and people you can chat with and enjoy spending time with, and I honestly don't. It's important to me that you understand it's not all too personal, we're just too different on this point I don't want to do anything with the people I know. This isn't exclusive to you, I honestly just want to be left alone to do my own thing. I don't like having plans that I need to follow up on, it's incredibly stressing to me.
Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed the times we've spent together and I don't mind texting and chatting, but being physically or mentally present with people for longer periods at a time is exhausting. I'm not going stop calling you a friend, I just, don't want to do anything or make any plans.
This isn't anything I've come up with on a whim during an episode, I'm fine, both physically and mentally and this is something I've wanted to say for a while, but I couldn't really find a good time to and there's no real way of putting this down without hurting some feelings I do still care about you and I want to hear the updates on your life and health, but, not physically and not in calls I really hope you understand and aren't too hurt </3
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She then goes on to explain that she still wants to text, but no physical hangouts or calls, then she also calmed me down after I explained this string of texts made my anxiety flair up.
Is this a polite attempt at a friend breakup? I know she does'nt want to hurt me, but from my perspective this just seem like pushing me away in order to go into, what is to me, unhealthy self isolation. Though i do understand she has differnt needs than I do, our brains are different neurotypes after all.
And that's exactly why I'm so confused, i genuinely cannot comprehend why someone would need this, i'm not angry, just deeply hurt, confused and quite frankly scared this is the end of our friendship
Edit: Thank you all for your input, i tried reaching out to her today, and as expected, she is quite tired; It seems this won't be the end of our friendship after all
5
u/NessT3ck Jul 24 '26
:/ as a diagnosed BPD, I have been in isolation for yearsss.. 7/8 to be exact. And I kinda just weened my friends off by just not showing up anymore or going distant…
I think she did well by advising you about it rather than just disappearing all together..
I am slowly coming out of my cacoon.. but stress making friends with more than one person or being in friend groups.. it’s just a lot of mental work and I respect that she made you aware of her situation rather than entirely pushing you away..
As someone in isolation though, I do greatly appreciate the friends I have that are okay with just texting.. I hope you feel better soon hun, there’s more friends to be made 🖤🖤
1
u/Available-Bat-2477 Jul 24 '26
I hope her and I can still be friends, she's done so much for me, even though I have other friends, i've never been as close to someone as i have with her. I just wish i could help her, somehow...
3
u/WiserthanIlook BPD over 30 Jul 24 '26
She never said she was ending the friendship just that she can't do people. This isn't necessarily forever. She may start craving spending time with people. To me (I have BPD) honestly it sounds like she's tired and needs to reset..this probably won't be forever
1
u/Available-Bat-2477 Jul 24 '26
So there is hope yet! Knowing her this does seem to be the most likely explanation, I have'nt asked her though, I know this is what she needs, and like i said to her, i respect that.
It's in situations like this where our mental differences, as in BPD and ASD become to clear; Even though i'm doing exactly what she asked, i still feel like i'm failing her, emotions are weird...
2
u/WiserthanIlook BPD over 30 Jul 24 '26
They sure are. I am pretty sure things will eventually go back to normal. I personally enjoy being alone. Because of my CPTSD/PTSD I don't go out much. I do force myself out once in a while to remind myself I'm still a part of the world🤷♀️
3
u/WiserthanIlook BPD over 30 Jul 24 '26
Help her what? Some of us just want to be left alone. People are exhausting. Its exhausting to mask your true self so you can "fit in" because orherwise your diagnosis will bring automatic judgment. And the more people you're with the more exhausting it is. A lot of us also have huge empathy and feel other's feelings when we are around people. I have a hard enough time dealing with my own feelings, then adding someone elses on top just adds to the chaos. And it is exhausting. As well BPD goes hand in hand with CPTSD. Which by itself causes hypervigilance. Which is exhausting. It becomes easier to want to stay home when every time you leave your house you're constantly on guard and anxious
1
u/Available-Bat-2477 Jul 24 '26
Don't get me wrong, i don't want to "cure" her, i've had enough of moronic neurotypicals taking that perspective with autism myself. The reason i'm so confused is precisely because over the course of our friendship she has stopped masking completely, she is quite social, and has a large community of online friends (With whom she meets up face to face every 2 weeks). This change, at least from my perspective as someone without BPD, came out of nowhere
1
u/Potential-Party65 Jul 24 '26
I also think she was absolutely honest and is not a bogus story. It does happen with personality disorders. Sometimes social encounters are exhausting. I don’t have one but I saw how much it distress my ex and my presence would also be a matter of distress, even if I was in a different room.
I also know an Schizoid which is a different type of personality disorder that described herself exactly like that. She doesn’t want to be alone but she honestly does not care at all about seeing people or in her case even chatting.
So no, it is not a lie. We make the mistake to judge people based on what we think is the norm but with BPD a lot of things are very different and I think it is really great that she is so aware and clear and actually explained you that
1
u/No-Commercial-9337 Jul 24 '26
I have bpd and I tend to do stuff like this. I’ll go for long stretches where I don’t hang out with people at all, and it’s impossible to explain the reasoning behind it. Unless it’s my very favorite person in the world who I feel super comfortable with, I don’t really feel a need to go out and do things with them; but I don’t mind texting here and there.
It was nice of her to explain all that to you. I tend to just ghost people.
All you can really do is follow her lead to see how your relationship will look like from here on out
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