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Anonymous
friend has bpd and won't seek help 2017-08-14 10:58:34 Post No. 18620973
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friend has bpd and won't seek help 2017-08-14 10:58:34 Post No. 18620973
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I've known this guy for about three years and we've become close for a variety of reasons. The nice way to put it is that I am a good listener and he needs someone to vent to, however it is increasingly obvious that our relationship is an unhealthy balance of him depending on me, then deluding himself that I depend on him. I say this because he is obsessed with being helpful and useful, and if he is neither of things then he is wrong, a failure, and proceeds to cut himself and talk to me about suicide. He will go through periods of saying he will try to get better, but then that inevitably goes awry and the cycle begins anew. This has happened the entirety I have known him. At this point, our conversations do not even start with a hello -- he simply talks about how he's so lonely, so useless, how he wants to kill himself.
I feel aloof talking about him. I feel very bad that someone can go through life with such weight on their shoulders, and he has told me much about his life and much of it has been filled with grief. But it is clear that while he can recognize what is wrong in his life, what he needs to change, and even how he can go about changing it, he will never ever put anything into practice. He cannot confront the problems in his life. He refuses to seek psychiatric help. He refuses to get a job. He refuses to go to school. What he does is play games all day, then talk to me about what is going wrong in his life.
I think that I am perpetuating some of this and so now for his sake and mine, I do not want to talk with him anymore. However, I do want him to get the proper help he needs before he offs himself. Is there anything I can do that isn't absolutely retarded to get him to seek help?
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When I was much younger I dated a guy exactly like this, to a T. I'm glad you've hit on the reality that talking to people who neuroticize like this and ruminate on the same negative emotions, then tell others to get positive feedback, is enabling. He needs to understand that his emotions are his. It's one thing to speak to a friend about an issue- this is something else entirely. He's fabricated an issue and keeps coming to you for validation because he has no clue how to make himself feel good. You could try to find some literature on this, it's a positive feedback loop, and he may realize what he's doing, which is a fantastic start. Unfortunately when you try to pull away he'll probably become irate or suicidal, and it's your responsibility to do it anyway. You cannot play into his shit, it's unhealthy for both of you.
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What you need to do is only meet him for things like skiing, gokarting, hiking, and all that good shit. Never meet him 1v1 in a house. Pull him out of it and show him how to live.
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>>18620978
Thank you, I will try to find out a bit more about this positive feedback loop. It is not my responsibility to "fix" him, however I feel very sad at the idea of pulling away from him. Firstly, he has told me much about himself, has confessed to me etc, so he's a friend. Secondly, I feel like not talking to him as much anymore will simply pass the buck onto someone else. I would want him to stop doing this... yet I know it's up to him. It's just very hard to do it, but I will.
>>18620993
I met him online. I have suggested to him to do fun, stress relieving live-in-the-moment sorts of things like bowling, walking outside for a while, picking up a sport for a hobby. I also ask him to play games with me when he feels down. He always refuses the former thing and usually refuses the latter, and when he does play games with me, half the time he's typing to other people. I do not think he can live in the moment very well.
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>>18620973
Someone post it.
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