To not see my friend for a while (and why am I putting up with her behaviour anyway?!)

[struggling100]

I have a friend who I am increasingly convinced suffers from a personality disorder. She isn't a horrible person, but she lacks any capacity for empathy. She doesn't mean to be selfish, but she is so utterly self-absorbed that she has no capacity to give as well as take in a friendship or a relationship.

She cycles through a pattern of starting relationships with nice men, and then exhibiting increasingly controlling and histrionic behaviour, which pushes them away. If she doesn't get her way, her behaviour is off the scale - she will literally lie on the floor and beat her head against it, while crying hysterically. If asked whether she thinks this is normal, she'll say it's 'just her' and her bf should love her 'just as she is' (yes, really). No amount of trying to get her to examine the unreasonableness of that has any effect. It's like she lives in a melodrama, and having drama in her life is more important than having stability. I've seen her relationships start and end the exact same way four times in five years, and every single time I've been the one to pick up the pieces.

I don't know why I'm doing this, because I never get anything 'back'! It's like somehow the fact that she's hurt and vulnerable makes me feel a need to care, despite the fact that I know rationally she only ever calls when in crisis, she never contributes anything positive, and that what appears to be a 'ground zero' psychological event for her actually passes very quickly without ill effects. I've been having a rough time myself lately, and she is far too self-involved even to notice -and when I explained to her the various pressures I was under, she was completely uninterested. Despite the fact that I should know better, I was hurt by this - which suggests to me that perhaps I need to examine my own reasons for putting up with a one-way friendship like this (which I don't fully understand myself!! Why am I doing this?)

AIBU to cut contact? Should I offer her an explanation, or should I just leave it?

You know the answer to this already, but you don't like to be 'not nice' so you want others to tell you it's okay to cut contact. So here you go, I'll be the one to tell you - 'It's Okay To Cut Contact'. It doesn't make you a bad person. You don't like her much (she doesn't sound very likeable!) so your friendship is just based on you trying to be nice, which isn't a great basis for any friendship. Time and support you're giving her could be better invested in someone who cares about you. I wouldn't bother with an explanation, just quietly drift away. Friendships do ebb away, it's quite normal - you're not married to her or anything!

Cut contact.

I think it's ok to not be friends with someone that you don't like, why waste your time being a good friend to her when you get nothing back?

Save it for someone who matters

This one sided relationship with what sounds like a boring teenager, it needs to be shown the door. You have given her more than enough of your time and affection, it's time to cut your losses and go spend time with kind, interesting (and interested) adults.

I agree, cut contact. I've just done it with a friend who sounds very similar - she was getting increasingly self-absorbed and always wanted something from us, but there was never anything in return. She was a nightmare in my hen do, caused major drama, tried to corner me in the toilets at my own wedding to cry on me about some guy she'd slept with (tried to drag my husband off to a corner to tell him too) then told me that she'd decided to keep our wedding present because she had to pay £5 custom tax on it. That was the last straw!!

Your mate sounds like a selfish, childish nightmare and you'd be better off without her. It might even give her a kick up the arse to sort herself out, you never know.

Thanks gals! I guess I do need to be told this is OK. I have a part of me that 'needs to be needed' and I'm starting to realise that it's not always a very healthy impulse.

I've known three people like this, and they can often be very charming and interesting company when it suits them. But I had the same feeling of it being an entirely one sided friendship and of getting nothing back.

I let them all go gradually. One was an ex boyfriend, and the comments he used to come out with to justify his behaviour were breathtaking - 'I dont want to give the wrong impression', 'I lose contact with most people eventually', 'thats not what I want', 'what does it matter?' - when pointing out his behaviour was awful.

They all seem to like to give the impression they are helpless and in need of support. Its very wearing. They were all hypochondriacs too!

Have you suggested to her that she gets some counselling?

Instead of suddenly cutting her off, it would be kinder to tell her the reason why you're finding it hard to be around her, and suggest something she can do about it. If she really does have a "personality disorder" as you suggest, then she needs proper help.

the trouble is, disorders on the sociopathic scale are untreatable, and narcisstic and anti social personality disorder fall within this. I tended to think that the people involved were painfully aware of their deficiencies, and pointing it out to them was cruel, since there seemed to be nothing they could do about it.

I have encouraged her to go to counselling, and she has been helped in a limited way by it. But the problem is that she isn't completely truthful with herself or anyone else about her behaviour, so counselling has in some ways reinforced the negative cycle. I mean that I think she creates victim narratives repeatedly (even when she is actually being a real controlling bully), and counselling has tended to affirm those rather than challenging her on her extreme behaviour. I think it would take an extremely intelligent and patient counsellor to challenge her in a way that would be rigorous but supportive. I am now of the opinion that she needs psychiatric help first, and then counselling in the context of that.

I'm in a not too dis similar situation myself ATM. I think my friend has a personality disorder too. She does not seem to notice or care how anyone else is feeling. After a massive outburst at me, which involved me being shouted at to the point of years, I am now giving her a very wide very.

Point of tears

Wide berth

God I could have written this post! I have the same problem.

Unfortunately our DCs attend the same very small primary school. Avoidance is not an option.
It is very hard isn't it OP? I was torn between wanting to support her and sheer despair at being used over and over again.

I am now exhausted by it all and have made it clear that I want no further contact. She needs to pursue a psych appointment that she has been dodging for months and I am hoping that by cutting off contact it will give her a kick up the arse.
I don't hold out much hope though - I think she will barely notice I am gone and my role as surrogate parent/shoulder to weep on/sounding board will be filled by some other poor sod and all the histrionic dramas will begin again.

Let her go.

Mines at same school too, it's hard.

God, I'm glad I'm not the only one with this issue!

I think these types of person will latch onto basically anyone who will go along with the drama: I am completely meaningless to her, except as the necessary audience to her victim narrative. Honest to God, if I died tomorrow, it would only matter to her because she'd be able to play the Great Victim Whose Friend Just Passed Away.

I am absolutely certain now that my friend behaves in a disruptive way because she needs the attention it brings more than she needs stability and happiness in her life. In spite of all her display of emotion, she's fundamentally hollow and empty inside: there is a gap where compassion and empathy for others should be.

I do think that she is unhappy being this way. But I now feel that instead of helping, I'm actually enabling her to cycle round the same behaviour over and over - I'm the person 'feeding' her unhealthy addiction by being there every single time something goes wrong.

If you honestly think she has a genuine personality disorder, then this thread is pretty offensive and disablist.

Tolerance and understanding for all on MN. (except those nasty little Borderlines cos they're just drama queens who bring it on themselves)

There are three aspects to this. The first is, is it in your interests to continue the friendship, or is it doing you harm?

The second is, is the friendship harming her? You said this:
But I now feel that instead of helping, I'm actually enabling her to cycle round the same behaviour over and over - I'm the person 'feeding' her unhealthy addiction by being there every single time something goes wrong

and the third is: do you think that you could recalibrate the friendship to avoid these problems, or is it all or nothing?

I stopped seeing a friend with diagnosed BPD. I liked her, I felt sad about it, but it was a protective act because of the way the friendship made me feel (I had my own MH problems-we met in hospital) and the fact that my friend was overstepping boundaries more and more flagrantly in a way that was having an impact on me professionally as well as personally. She wasn't going to stop doing it, so I stopped seeing her.

I'd cut contact. This 'friendship' sounds imbalanced and far too mentally draining. Your emotional wellbeing matters. Why exactly should it be eroded by the actions & decisions of another?

I know its fashionable to throw 'personality disorder' into the mix these days but - some people are just intrinsically selfish; they want you to prop them up every time they want & need you to, but they'd happily let you fall.

& if they by chance do have a disorder, why should it be your life's purpose to deal with it? Advise, show them where to get help then leave it at that. Life's way too short - get rid.

No question, she is an emotion vampire.

Cut contact, asap.

Sorry, I should have said: she has never been officially diagnosed with a personality disorder, and I am not a psychiatric expert! So my assessment of her having an illness is based entirely on the fact that I think her behaviour is so extremely selfish, and so histrionic that it seems to me to need some kind of psychiatric 'explanation'. But that's just a personal view. DH, who also knows her well, disagrees - he thinks I'm medicalising her selfishness to make it more forgivable. He points out that she is successful in her career, and comes over completely normal to strangers.

The weird thing is, she can control her behaviour (which means that she can take responsibility, right?): she once woke me at 2am calling from a taxi in utter hysterics, but then when she had to pay she switched to completely calm and lucid, then started with the hysterics again once the transaction was complete!

The taxi story just confirms it, she's at it! Get rid.

That also made me remember my friend doing something similar when she got lost in another country, she phoned me in hysterics at 3am asking me to get hold of the police/people she was meant to be out with. I didn't know what to do and told her so. I call her an hour later because I was worried and she's found her crowd and is at a party perfectly happy. No thought of calling me back to let me know though. Bloody weirdo.