I'm looking for a weekly kind of community/social group, wouldn't mind if they did activities like reading or crafting
I've been part of one associated with mental health, but as I'm coming out of that I would like something with a different group of people
Thanks for any feedback
Mines I can't ride a bike
I mean there's other things as well, I can't have a healthy relationship either!! But something basic and simple that you now can't do as an adult
(I had a baby bike with stabilisers, apparently I fell off it and that was it, bye bye bike, could never have one without the safetys on and could only ride it around my garden once I'd outgrown it, was never allowed a grown up bike)
My good friend who has BPD ghosted our friendship group in February. She had told me ok December she had been thinking about ghosting us all then, so I kind of expected ot
She appeared back in my life suddenly on Wednesday, she seemed quite manic and not settled at all
She then messaged me later with her reasons for ghosting, apparently she'd been having feelings for me since last August, she said I've been her hyper fixation and also she has a history of that and it usually ends up on suicide ideation
She says she wants to try to rebuild a relationship and trust, but I can't see how, I just expect inevitably she'll ghost again and also being around me would likely be bad for her health
She was great fun and we had so much on common and I enjoyed being around her when it was good. Is it worth trying to rebuild our friendship?
Thanks for any advice
edit... She's messaged me to ask me to keep all she's told me to myself and not share it with mutual friends or people we know, which I guess also includes people who work for the mental health community group where we met and still go to. To me this feels quite manipulative, I suffered abuse from my mother and she made me keep it all quiet and never share anything, this friend knows all that, so asking me to be silent about it to my support group feels like that childhood abuse all over again. It also gives her complete control of the narrative around our friends if I have to pull away from her.
I'm now actually quite angry at her now
Strange situation
I had/have a friend who has BPD, she was great fun but also not so stable. At one time she told me she was thinking of not showing up to a group event and blocking and ghosting us all (she didn't then)
Then in Feb, we had a friend's birthday, there was a whole issue, I'd offered to pay for the activity, but we went for a meal afterwards, she didn't ask and was ordering cocktails, starters and sides and a main and didn't ask me if it was OK or if I was covering for it, when the bill came and she just said across the table "yeah, thanks" was the first she'd said I was responsible for her meal
Anyway, a little after that she ghosted our whole group, we were meant to go to things together (tickets were booked) and she just didn't show up anywhere, she'd also said she might change her number before she ghosted, so had no idea if she had or hadn't
Anyway, she showed up yesterday out of the blue, greeted me with a huge hug and a "so lovely to see you" and trying to arrange plans for like a group trip or a trip to visit a friend I'd been to see who she's not even close to and she hasn't seen or spoken to since December (as I'd just been to visit)
Anyway, she messaged after, saying it was good to see me, then deleted it, I offered her the chance to talk or message, the message back was how she had feelings for me
She said that she had growing feelings for me and I became a hyperfixation, she asked her therapist and he suggested she not say anything and she had suicide ideation with past romantic hyperfixations
She's now said she values me and our friendship and would like to build on it again, but I have no clue what to even say or do in this position
I sent her a message back saying thank you for finally being honest and to allow me time to process it all
Just feel weird, we obviously can't go back anyway, it feels strange and forced and different, but the fact she had such a hyperfixation on me kind of worries me
I go to a local community peer support group for mental health issues
At first I got quite a bit out of it. It was good to be around people I could talk about things with in an open and honest way
I've been doing a lot of work on myself, trauma work, inner child work, work on attachment issues and my own emotional stability and maturity and I'm really starting to feel the difference. My anxiety is under control and I'm starting to feel different and more stabilised in general
I'm now looking around and just seeing people who are really damaged and just want to complain about it and who are not looking to help or improve themselves. This is not a judgement, but it feels like I'm not really on the same path as them
There are also huge issues with misogyny there, like one guy is always talking about how he's going to eliminate his ex wife or wanting to SA female celebs, and most of the men are fine with hanging out with him (I actually called out a 'friend' who had said that he couldn't stand the sight of him to align himself with our friendship group, but he hangs out with him all the time now, and he didn't take it at all well)
Anyway, is it inevitable that you outgrow certain support networks? It would be a shame to lose a couple of the people, but I'm feeling like it might not be the space for me anymore
I have a friend, he is lovely, he's also usually in a chronic fawn response/people pleasing everywhere
He and I got very friendly, he always says how much he values me, even wrote something really beautiful recently to say how much I mean to him
But I haven't seen him really much at all. We used to get coffee about twice a week after our social club and then see each other on weekends as part of a friendship group we had
The group kind of fell away due to some others and mental health issues. He also volunteers and does a whole lot and can't say no to things and finds he's overwhelmed in everything. Since January, we've actually only spent time outside of the club together once
But again, I understand. He can't say no and really wants to please everyone
But I do know he appreciates me a lot and I do him, he says I'm one of the only people who understand him and see him
He also has this friendship, he's gay and has a lot of issues with his mother. This woman is quite older and very lonely. She's one of those who will just talk for hours at you, you know? And before him didn't really leave the house. She takes him places and he listens and talks to her. I think they both satisfy certain things to each other
Anyway, he had this thing last weekend he was volunteering for, I turned up to support him and his face was just really emotional and he said how he's so grateful and proud to have me as a friend
This older woman was also there. She kind of follows him around and when he'd finished with his role they ate together, and I was on the different side. I was fine as I was chatting to the people around me, and I also knew he'd be the busiest since he was volunteering, but yeah, it felt some kind of way
I don't like to be another person clawing at him, as he's a people pleaser, people are always demanding things of him and it hurts his anxiety, but I do really miss my friend. I know I don't demand much from others, I let them be and others kind of need more support like this woman does, and so in not making demands I feel like I'm a bit left aside
We said we might try to grab something this weekend, so should I ask that we meet more often? I don't want to be another person putting on him, but I feel because I'm not demanding or needing things from him, I'm easily left aside
I'm starting to lose hope and wondered truly that if my issues are very severe, they can really get better and I can heal or if realistically I'm going to be struggling with relationships and people for the rest of my life.
Some background, I've done all the test available and they always come out as fearful avoidant, but I feel I leave more dismissive. I'mm now 40 and I have never had a relationship (romantic or sexual) and it's only the last year and a half that it my history of everything has come up and I realised I was quite severely abused as a child by my mother (emotional abuse/enmeshment/CI/other forms of strange abuse).
I don't love other people. As in I've never loved them. I don't know what real love is as my family love was based on manipulation and emotional blackmail. I even asked my therapist if I'm a sociopath or something (she's known me for years) and she said I'm very far from it as I'm a caring person.
I always felt naturally I just couldn't trust people and kept people at a distance. Surprisingly people do like me at like first meeting and on the surface, they say lovely things about me and lately people have been saying that I have like an inner light that shines through.
My issue has always been trust and showing up authentically. I have a lot of shame I've always had to cover up and things from our family I had to cover up at school and stuff, so it just feels natural to me.
I've done a lot of work on myself the last year and a half. A lot. I feel like I'm getting somewhere with some aspects, but still, I just can't cut through and I can't feel deeply about others.
I have some friends, I'd made some new ones, but honestly they all just created problems for me with their own issues. One of them was an out and out user and when I stopped pleasing her she ghosted us all. Another is someone who needs fixing and as I'm a fixer I found they were draining me.
I've done so much work. The sharing, starting at sharing a maybe level 2 thing and moving up and up and I've put myself out there. I'm doing somantic work, I have a therapist, I've explored what happened as a kid and why that's the reason I have these issues and put those pieces together, but still I'm so stuck. I just feel like breath work isn't telling me where the good people are!
I just don't think I can heal properly and it's so lonely.
I was wondering if it was typical of a BPD person/parent to go down the online rabbit hole?
My mother is more the hermit type with a bit of waif. She literally doesn't leave the house, she doesn't even go in the garden. She's left the house once all year and once in the last 8 or so months, so she's got her nose in her phone a lot, especially facebook and twitter.
A few years ago, she was a full on TERF, she'd heard something about trans people and she went the full way down the rabbit hole and was obsessed with trans people. Her twitter account was absolutely vile to see.
She got out of that, she was confronted with her bias when my grandmother was in hospital and men and non-binary people were helping her mother and she realised people living their lives were not affecting her.
So to replace it she became obsessed with the conflict in the middle east, I think it's because I have always been pro Palestine, so she got into talking about it and looking at it online and got into the online aspect. So from there she's made it an obsession, she brings it up constantly. It then though, went to her disliking Jewish people and actually quite bad antisemitism at the minute.
Does anyone else experience this with their BPD parent?
Just looking for a bit of advice really. This will be my first solo trip abroad
I've wanted to go to Italy for the longest time and I decided to go to Florence (all being well)
I look perfectly well, actually really healthy, so much so that I've had people laugh at me when I've asked to use the accessible queues or for help (not kidding!)
My main issues are pain and fatigue, I have EDS and a lot of other pain conditions. I also cannot queue for long periods as I have a weird heart condition where I pass out after standing for too long
I was wondering if anyone had any advice or tips, or if maybe this will be beyond me?
I booked somewhere the other side of the river from the main area as it seems more peaceful and easier to get rest and it's a little place where the apartment is on the ground floor, so it's accessible
I can walk, and I'm much better with my mobility in good weather as well (booking for September) but then I do have days where it's not so good. No matter what I will wake up in pain the next day (always do on holidays where I end up pushing too much as I want to do things, it's the price you pay) but I would still like to see and do things. I just try to do what I can and not waste energy or pain levels, so I will not be in queues for a sandwich or a affogato, no matter who great they are! I'll be trying to get anywhere without queues to sit down (sitting down and resting is a big thing)
So yeah, any advice? I have a nimbus card/freedom pass as proof of disability, is that good enough if needed? Do radar keys work in Florence?
Any tips would be so, so welcome
I was at the 28th April evening show of Dracula and we were right at the end, the climax of them finding and killing Dracula and all of a sudden she stopped talking all of the crew came onto the stage around Cynthia and draped her in a black cloak (I thought it was all part of it, cloak and all) and the safety curtain came down.
I don't know if it was to do with it, but she stepped onto a step and onto the coffin, the step moved a small bit when she got on the coffin but she didn't slip or fall, so I didn't think that was big enough to stop a whole West End show, so much assume it's something else entirely?
If it's that, well I can't really believe it as a retired dancer, the show always goes on even if you're injured, you carry on!
Anyone heard anything?