Friend with cancer, refusing treatment: is this bpd?

[Justmehere]

Ugh.

I have been holding boundaries with those in her life about quite a bit of chaos with her lately. A couple of people started to realize what's going on, just how bad things were, and in the middle of it, started being really apologetic to me. I told them to please focus on her. I'm fine. Please just try not to give into the splitting and triangulation.... and I need space from this all right now to regroup.

I haven't had any direct communication to/from her for over a week... until now.

She sent me an email today. I didn't even know she had my email address. She requested over email that I arrange for any counselor of my choosing to contact her and set up a time to meet for her to end the friendship with me in person in order to honor the long history of our friendship.

It said nothing else. I won't be doing this, and I will be hoping that she simply leaves me alone now and focuses all her efforts in getting well.

 

[Deleted member 541]

I doubt she will, but you can always block her if needed. This must be really painful and yet frustrating at the same time. Focus on you!!! In the end that's all you can do!!!,

 

[Sideways]

She sounds like she's really unwell right now - her behaviour is really quite bizarre. But incredibly painful to be on the receiving end. I'm sorry the friendship is ending in these circumstances, you do deserve better and I'm sorry she can't see that

 

[Changing4Best]

My uncle was a Dr. He was on chemo, couldn't take the side effects any longer and decided to QUIT CHEMO! He had been in charge of a whole HOSPITAL! His wife was angry with him. I didn't know what to think. I could see both sides of the thing. He was suffering. He knew he was dying anyway, so why suffer the side affects too? On the other hand, his wife was appalled and feeling deserted, before the fact even. Each of them had their story, I was caught in the middle. I tried to make peace between them. She was still angry. He was still dying.... then he was gone.

I talked with her on the phone a lot, until she died too. Everyone from that generation is gone now. I miss them all so much.

Yes, write that letter! Send it ASAP. I hope it gets to her before she goes.

 

[joeylittle]

She requested over email that I arrange for any counselor of my choosing to contact her and set up a time to meet for her to end the friendship with me in person in order to honor the long history of our friendship.

Well if that isn't the height of emotional manipulation, I don't know what is.

What a jerky thing to do.

The odds are good that she doesn't actually want you to contact someone to broker the end of the friendship. What she wants is for you to pay attention to her, apologize for being a shitty friend, give her a ton of consolation and attention.

I'm glad you are not going to respond. I think you should prep yourself for another action from her. Your non-response will prompt her to push back. So you may want to be doing your own work around accepting that you cannot take on the burden of feeding her emotional needs, and that it's possible for you to both love your friend and not be able to give them what they think they want.

I empathize. I was in a situation with a friend who was fully melting down for a number of reasons, and I did not see how I was letting myself get hooked into it. Stopping the contact was hard but ultimately was best for me - and turned out to be best for them as well. We've since been able to re-connect.

In your friends case, she may not be able to really access the professional support services she needs, so long as she is getting a dysfunctional level of support from those around her.

Regardless: your job is to take care of yourself, first. I know it's hard, but encourage you to keep that in the forefront, as you are already doing. It just may get worse before it gets better.