good morning guys. i’ve been unsure for a while of how to comfort someone in my life who has bpd and depression for some time now. i cry about it a lot then end up feeling as if i’m making it about me or something. it isn’t that; i just need to know how to help. she’s in excessive amounts of pain and that’s painful for me to know. reading up about this illness doesn’t help at all; i can’t imagine what she goes through.
my cousin who is six months younger than me is rly like my best friend. we’ve always been extremely close and still are but she doesn’t open up as much now, which i know is a big part of bpd so of course i’m understanding. when she was diagnosed with depression, she would open up quite a lot and we’d cry together and she could confide in me and all of that. she used to have a therapist but now that she has had diagnoses her mother won’t continue the therapy? she’s basically struggling on her own along with her mom gaslighting her and contributing to her problems in so many ways. i found out thru her extremely private story on snapchat that she tried k* herself one time by an o*dose. that was inexplicably disheartening to say the absolute least. i obviously texted after i saw that but no response. i understand; it must be unimaginably hard to talk about something like that. when we’re together in person we usually just laugh and have fun and i think that’s great because she needs that and i want to help her make things feel normal. however i haven’t confronted her at all about her scars or her attempts and i haven’t asked if she’s okay and that makes me feel really shitty. i know a lot of ppl with bpd don’t like that kind of thing so i do it out of respect but now i feel i need to. i want to let her know that if there is absolutely ANYTHING at all i can do, i will do it. should i do this in person? how do i even bring it up? i love her so fucking much and if anything were to god forbid happen to her i don’t know what on earth i wojld do with myself. i need advice from people with bpd: what brings you all comfort? what can i do, if anything? the last thing i want her to feel is that i don’t care. but i also don’t want to be invasive. pls help