What would YOU do in this situation?

In My Humble Opinion
21

It doesn’t excuse the behavior but it might help explain the behaviour. Regardless of its cause (i.e. how much control Friend A has over her own behaviour), the fact is that it is toxic for you so you are best out of it.

Does it make Friend A a terrible person? Debatable. Maybe she is a terrible person. Or maybe she’s just a messed-up person who has done a terrible thing (and who, if she wasn’t mentally ill, wouldn’t do those things).

I feel like you’re trying to separate the person from the mental illness but I’m not sure where that separation lies in any of us - surely we are all impacted by our own mental states in our behaviours and ways of interacting with the world.

22

No, I completely understand that. BPD is something I have found very hard to deal with too, both from being a patient and a professional.

How much do you think BPD is a psychiatric illness? I’ve talked to a lot of psychiatrists who don’t believe it is an illness at all, and thus doesn’t deserve the treatment and understanding other psychiatric conditions have.

23

No, she is definitely not a terrible person. She is actually an extremely lovely, funny person which is something that makes all of this very hard. She is also extremely intelligent. Just before she first started self harming she had just finished her medical degree. Now I don’t think she’ll ever be able to practice as a doctor.

Yes that is true, I hadn’t thought of that. I’ve been trying to look at the situation with rose tinted glasses and think A is a good person, but she has messed up problems and these are making her do these terrible things. It doesn’t matter now anyway because I have moved on, but in general maybe I need to take the person more as a whole.

24

When living back “home” I had some toxic relationships that included abuse, alcoholism, & mental disorders. Some got better, some the same, and some even worse. At this time I had not officially been diagnosed with BPD, so that made it easier? to fall into the trap of being a self inflicted victim and passing that lifestyle on to my kids and so the cycle begins/continues.

I moved. Very much like you. New job, new friends, new LIFE. I broke off all communication with the exception to a couple relatives. I changed for the better. BPD runs in the family so I educated myself. I did not go through some much needed counseling so I did still make some bad decisions during my manic phases, but I was more careful. It wasnt until I had a very bad spell that landed me in the hospital (omg 8 months?! I did 7 days and told them I was leaving with or without their approval! dont know how you did it!) that I learned I was missing some very important life-tools. As mentioned previously, Boundaries is probably the biggest, imo.

If I was in this situation, I would try to be a positive influence on friend B - showing her that she can overcome her current situation if she wants to and if she is willing to work at it. I would help her by setting forth boundaries - I am going to tell you the good things in my life and what I am doing to get there. What are your goals, friend B? How can I help you to achieve them? How are you going to achieve them? etc etc. Steer away from friend A, and if she brings her up, I would most likely reply "A is very manipulative - you experienced that by her fake death - and refuses to except responsibility for herself. She hides behind her mental state. I refuse to be like her, I want to be happy and guess what? I’m there every day! Sometimes it takes a lot of work, sometimes a little work, sometimes no work at all - the thing is that I, being the only one responsible for myself, is choosing to overcome this and live a healthier life. I’m stubborn, and I’m determined. Just like you hear about those people who fought cancer and won? I bet they had to change their way of thinking and their lifestyle and thats why they lived longer. I’m going to prove to everyone - NO, I’m going to prove to MYSELF that I am not a lost cause, my condition is treatable and I’m already learning that I can live a very productive & “normal” life. Every day it gets a little easier.

If B continues down a distructive path, my correspondence would become less frequent. Maybe even change my number.

Friend A is so out of the picture, and if ever bumped into on the street, I’d let her know exactly where she stands: (applause) What a dramatic display of manipulation you preformed (last year) with your bully attempt of suicide topped off with faking your own death. Your actions were pathetic and it’s such a shame because I thought you were capable of overcoming this behaviour.

I definately would not require B dispose of A because then you are forcing her to a decision that she needs to make on her own terms. When she needs advice on a situation like A subjected her to, I’d empathize and let her know she really should speak with a nurse or therapist that is there. Most likely a nurse, the therapists/docs that were there were @ my location were scarce and rarely got to speak to them. I found the nurses would provide some empathy and an ear.

Well, ok, it all looks good planned out and all… I would like to think that’s what I would do.

When I find myself slipping, I have to tell myself to stop. I also let my loved ones know that if I am showing signs of going into a phase, to LET ME KNOW! This way I am more aware and can sit down and hopefully recognize what triggered it. I also keep a calendar to track my moods. If you want an online link, msg me and I will send it to you. :wink:

25

If I’ve read this thread correctly, the consensus I’m getting is that Hippos, and I think by implication, everyone, should ignore and have no contact with A, because her condition makes dealing with her too unpleasant and difficult. Even someone who is training to work in that field has said she would rather not have to deal with BPD sufferers.

I have never come in to contact with anyone who has BPD, so fortunately I’ve never had to make that decision, but I suspect I’d go along with everyone else in this thread. Surely that must impact in a pretty negative way on people with anti social mental illnesses? I’m sure they must need supportative social interaction as much as the rest of us.

A Priori Tea:

This is sort of the crux of what I’m wondering. You’re saying that beyond a certain point, some people should be isolated from society? I’m not necessarily disagreeing, because I have mental problems and to prevent negatively impacting on people, I isolate myself from them IRL as much as possible. But it’s a bit of a Catch 22 because I’m sure one of the ways to recovery would be to practice social interaction. Doesn’t incarceration send the message that you’re beyond help and hope.

26

Thank you, but I am not going to do this because it is too much for me. Not because of my problems, but because I don’t have enough contact with her to be that much of a support, and because I live so far away our communication is by phone, and most of the time she is so not with it it is a very one sided conversation from me without her saying anything. I think that is something her close friends and family who live in the same city can do. I was though very impressed by your post and what you said about yourself. It takes so much strength and courage to do that and it must be a daily battle so wow. I was going to say welldone but that would be patronising. It just impresses me a lot.

I wasn’t going to write about my own problems here but my Dad encouraged me to widen the conversation slightly about how much you should excuse and accept someone’s behaviour when they have mental health problems.

I have anorexia and self harm issues (though not the SH so much at the moment thankgod-not since last august really), but the anorexia is affecting me physically a lot at the moment. I have really bad anaemia that makes me feel very very tired. On wednesday a GP rang me with blood test results and said they are dangerously bad and I have to start resting more and looking after myself better. Last night I was meant to go round to a friend’s house at 7pm, just for an hour, to say hello and to see her new cat. Now I’ve got to admit I don’t like this person an awful lot. I don’t dislike her, but I don’t see her as being a very good friend and I don’t have an awful lot of contact with her. I just don’t feel very comfortable around her, shes a lot older than me and we have very different interests. The blood test results came as a real shock actually. I knew i had anaemia but I didnt think things were that bad, and by 3pm yesterday I was totally washed out and felt like I couldn’t move and needed to lie down. Normally I would have pushed myself through it and gone and seen her, but last night I had what the GP had said in my mind, and so text her, saying i’m very sorry and would come around another day when I was feeling better. She didn’t reply but publically posted on facebook about how pissed off she was and how she wasn’t going to bother with me anymore, and how she felt let down etc etc. I felt very guilty anyway but I tried to reason with myself that it wasn’t a special occasion, I was going over there for just an hour anyway, and physically there was no way I could have done it anyway.

But is she justified in her response? I caused myself to not be able to go around to see her because of not eating properly and over exercising, and if i had eaten better during the day I might have had more energy to go around and see her. Should she not bother with me anymore because I did that?

27

It’s really hard for us to judge your friends’ actions based on what you tell us here. Because we only hear one side of the story, it’s always going to be biased no matter how neutral you try to be.

Are you familiar with the concept of ‘emotional bank accounts’? The basic premise is this:

Let’s say you and me are friends. Everytime you do something positive for/with me, that’s a deposit in my emotional bank account. Every time you do something negative to me, that’s a withdrawal from my emotional bank account.

If you make more deposits than withdrawals, then you become a more valued friend to me. And, hopefully, I would be doing the same for you so that the friendship is mutually strengthened.

However, if you are constantly making withdrawals, our friendship is going to become strained. If you make too many withdrawals, I’m going to close the bank account.

Different people have different levels of risk they’re willing to take with their emotional bank accounts. Some people just need one or two withdrawals before they go ‘this is too risky, I’m closing the account’. Other people are quite comfortable to go into overdraft because they are confident you’ll start making deposits soon. Maybe they understand that you need to make a lot of withdrawals right now and they feel confident that you’ll make deposits as soon as you are able.

You can’t control how much risk other people will take. And sometimes, it won’t just be your withdrawal - maybe three or four of their friends have been making withdrawals lately and yours was the last in a line.

Analogy over.

Anyways, going back to your current situation, I’d just ask you this. If she wasn’t that great a friend to you and you didn’t like her that much, is it really that important that she is in a huff with you? And frankly, using Facebook as a way of communicating unhappiness is a really immature, pissy, passive-aggressive way to act and you’re better off not dealing with people like that.

28

On the first point: I work in mental health and have done for several years now. Patients with BPD are the hardest I work with, and I find they provoke an ugly internal reaction in myself which I don’t like - I get really irritated and my patience wears thin so much quicker than with others. I work to a guiding principle of ‘reality confrontation’ and would never take shit from a BPD patient - similarly I don’t take shit off my friends anymore! Almost all people, diagnosis or no diagnosis, need to be told if something is bang out of order. I see it that I take into account a diagnosis, bear it in mind, but rarely let it excuse bad behaviour.

As for your friend, she *might *be annoyed as hell about you letting her down. She *might *think you’re a flake with all your problems self-inflicted. But to post that on Facebook makes her so much worse.

I have a friend with bi-polar - just recently diagnosed although she has clearly suffered for years. We met at school when we were 16, in 1998. Back in 2004 I was driving up to the psych ward every day to visit her. I guess in retrospect I was trying to save her(what I was referring to earlier). But dammit if she didn’t turn around and utterly screw me over - I don’t want to martyr myself, but I bent over backwards to try and help her out. I would have done anything for her, and so would my family. A long story short, she screwed up my tenancy/living situation, because of her lying.

I still care about her so much, want the best for her, but I can’t be around her much because she makes me so MAD. She does so little to help herself…but my point is this: if I posted all of that shit on Facebook, that would make me an unbelievable arsehole, and I wouldn’t live with myself. Ugh. Your friend way overstepped the mark with her public broadcast, and IMHO should be deleted immediately, even if she’s angry with you for your problems.

29

:smack:

I forgot to mention (it must’ve been that pretty shiny thing…) that while I was border-line BPD I was never officially diagnosed. I did not intend to mislead anyone in my post, and if I did please accept my apologies (I’m still working on the slowing down and making sure my mouth/fingers are up to speed with my brain).

While living in my home town, and while I had a tendency to surround myself with others that “had issues”, shortly after moving and throwing myself into my work my personality changed for the better. It was later that I was diagnosed with Manic-depression, which also runs in the family (oh yay a double-ding! or as I call it: BPDx2). So the wow-factor is not as wow as one might think. Had I not moved away and somewhat isolated myself when I did, chances are I very well could have dug a deeper hole to the point of no will to live a productive & happy life. I was able to take the first initial step to change because of my children - I didnt want them to repeat the pattern (and so far, so good!)

Have you talked to your doctor about getting iron shots for your anemia?
The shots helped me ALOT.

Your dad brings up a very interesting question, and maybe one for another thread?

ATM, the only answer I can think of is “Are you enabling the person by doing so?”

I am still working through these types of situations.

30

sandra_nz:

Really interesting post: the emotional bank is a wonderful analogy.

31

I’ll try not to get into too much discussing, as this is IMHO, but I’ll answer briefly and if you’d like to go more in-depth maybe we could talk about it in another forum. :slight_smile:

What I’m saying is that people who are incapable of controlling their impulses to hurt themselves or others need to be controlled, so they don’t do damage to themselves and/or the people around them through their illness or lack of self-awareness. Sometimes that’s therapy, sometimes it’s hospitalization. I think what is missing in our communication is the idea that incarceration (in a hospital or otherwise) does NOT mean that you’re beyond help or hope. In decades past, that was often the case; however, it’s more often a sign now that you need structure that outpatient therapy can’t give, and that you’re getting the kind of help you need to reintegrate into everyday society.

Grant you, mental hospitals still aren’t shiny happy places full of bunnies, but they’re a lot more “stepping stone to success” than the “lock 'em up and throw away the key” that they used to be.

32

:confused: Thats interesting. I certainly think it’s an illness - well, maybe illness isn’t the correct word - it’s a disturbance in thinking for sure. One of the requirements for psychiatric diagnosis is that whatever condition is being described has to have a negitive impact on the person who has it - I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with BPD where it DIDN’T have a negtive impact on them.

However, BPD is very difficult to treat. It’s soul sucking to be around people in that state of mind all day. It is a very, very special person that can work with BPD patients and not wind up somewhat wackado themselves - the average burn out time for those people is about 18 months. That’s…frightening. So, I suppose I can understand why some psychiatrists might say it’s not an illness if only for self preservation.

33

Which is totally valid and reasonable. Wanting to help people is admirable. Recognizing when you don’t personally have the tools to do so is better.

This is a bit more tricky, frankly. Do you do this often with this gal? Do you regularly make plans with her and blow her off? If so, then I can understand why she’s upset. I’m not crazy about her posting on Facebook about it; however, it could be that she didn’t think she was getting through to you in any other way.

One of the toughest parts of anorexia is how isolating it is. There are many, many aspects of our culture that are focused around eating, eating together, going out for a meal, etc. When a person refuses to partake it cuts them off from all of those interactions.

Here’s the thing though - if your friend were posting on here, what would her story look like?

You have to know that posters on here would be telling Friend X that she shouldn’t waste time on you, etc.

So really, I think you have to make some decisions. You need to decide that you want to be friends with this girl, appologize for flaking out, and recognize that when you blow people off in that way it’s very hurtful and not do it anymore. Or, you need to decide that your not friends and don’t want to be friends with this girl and ignore her crabby message on facebook.

However, it’s not fair to pretend to be friends with her, but then blow her off because you’re tired. Really, you have an illness - a really, really tough illness. But (and anorexia is about the only illness I would say this about) you need to decide you don’t want to be sick anymore. You need to rejoin your life and start focusing on getting better. Sometimes being healthy means you spend an hour at someone’s house to see their new cat even when you’re tired.

34

I wasn’t aware of this. Are you saying that people with anorexia are - or can be - in control of their illness? That they can decide to be anorexic or not? I think an awful lot of anorexics might disagee. Could you expand on this?

35

No, that’s not exactly what I’m saying. I based my statement on an longitudinal NIH study that showed that their is no particular treatment that works for anorexia. People either get better or they don’t and it doesn’t much matter what sorts of treatments they have - there is no gold standard. Willing oneself to get better is as successful as anyother treatment, and for some patients may actually be more successful.

The fact of the matter is, many people with anorexia just get better without treatment, simply by wanting to get better. I don’t know why this is, but the research seems to support it. FWIW, it’s quite different than other eating disorders, or other psychiatric illness in that regard.

36

Concur for once. Well, given the rephrase of “I would say nothing to A…” in that the OP wasn’t looking for advice but rather our thoughts on what we’d do. Some people are simply not capable of being close with anyone. Faking a suicide puts someone in that category, IMO. Unless one has some overriding obligation to them, i think the best option is avoidance.

37

Alice’s idea of what your friend could be feeling because you blew her off is good, and could be close to how this girl is feeling. BUT, the Facebook thing makes me say: Nope, she’s an arsehole.

If I were in your situation re your first post, I would drop B as well as A. Nicely - just say something like you really need to concentrate on yourself right now. I wouldn’t give A the same courtesy. Ill or not, that is crappy behaviour and I don’t think it can be excused as part of the illness (don’t want to get into it here, but I do have some experience in pondering this).

Slight hijack - sorry, Hippos - what’s been written about BPD here sounds fascinating, and I’d love to see a thread on it by someone with a bit of knowledge on it.

Glad to hear you’re doing well, Hippos. I lost a recovering anorexic friend to suicide in 2006 so like to hear of people getting better. Hugs and best wishes.

38

Yes I agree, and was thinking about starting a seperate thread on it. I always wonder what is the difference between a person who self harms and takes the occasional OD to a person who is officially diagnosed with a personality disorder? And is a personality disorder something someone is born with or is it caused by environmental factors?

Thank you :slight_smile: I am trying really really hard. And it is hard, very hard, so it is nice to have some random praise sometimes. It means a lot.

No to all of the questions!! I actually met her through an eating disorder association and through seeing her around the gym. I don’t think ive ever blown her off before, we have met up for drinks in different places in our town or worked out together. We were meant to meet on the tuesday instead of the thursday this time and I ended up having to work on the tuesday so I said could we meet on thursday instead, but apart from that I’ve always been there. Because she has an eating disorder too (though of the over eating sort) eating and food has never been an issue.

You are right though, I did have to make some decisions about her and our friendship. I’ve decided to move on from her aswell (crikey it sounds like im dropping friends like flies at the moment, but thats it, honestly!). I didn’t have a healthy relationship with her, yet again because it was formed around our problems, and we are just so different it wasn’t working. And also she is obsessed with one guy who hates her and she never stopped talking about him, ever!!(but thats a very very small reason!).

I understand where you are coming from and understand your point, but I wouldn’t say it is the only psychiatric illness you can say that about. And it is a LOT easier said than done. I have been wanting, and trying damn hard, to get better for a long time now, and still have so far to go.

Do you mean iron injections? She hasn’t mentioned them actually. Since thursday I’ve been trying a different type of iron tablet and I think im going to have to stop taking it again. I have extreme stomach pain and jump from being constipated to having the runs…not nice!!

No, I wasn’t aware of them before your post but thank you, what you said was so helpful so interesting. I will definitely keep that in mind in the future.

39

Yes, iron shots. I have anemia and my doctor put me on shots because I had a very hard time with the iron supplements - much like you! IME, many docs are unwilling to do the shots because they are unwilling to believe that one can have such complications. My SO at the time had to go in with me - I made him go anyways - and tell the doctor that he watches me take the meds, and then sees how misearable I was after the first few days. I feel for ya, girl!

The shots are worth it - though, if you are fair complected, it can eventually leave a stain where they inject it (alternating hips and making sure they get the needle deep in the tissue will help prevent that). I never realized iron was black (well, it looks black in the vial) and so thick! Best thing is, a few minutes after the shot you perk up pretty good!

Might be something to discuss with your MD?

40

That sounds so good thank you! I will definitely look into that. After another week of trying another iron supplement I’m giving up again, they make me feel too awful to cope with!