I (22M) have BPD and PTSD. I know I shouldn’t, because honestly it’s hurting me, but right now I’m just buried in ruminating about a past friendship. It’s pretty much dead now, or at least in some weird limbo where I don’t really know where it stands (or maybe I do and I don’t want to face it, I don’t know, this is pretty much the only meaningful relationship I’ve ever had so I’m not the best at navigating them). 

Anyway, I’m inclined to say it’s over, but even if it isn’t it definitely feels to me like it’s on its deathbed. There were a lot of factors that killed it, one of the main ones being that it was with a girl I ended up falling in love with and she didn’t feel the same, but another reason I think is because the closer she got, the more of my ugly side she saw, the stuff I normally keep hidden at all costs. She is one of very few people who knows about my suicide attempt and she was actually the only person who came to visit me in the hospital at the time. She also found out about my self-harm, saw my constant substance abuse issues and encouraged me to stop drinking only to watch me relapse a month later. I was a wreck. Still kinda am to be honest, went 9 months sober and self-harm free after the last time I saw her in person but as we started talking less and less and I started to get less hopeful things would ever go back to how they were between us when we first met, even less hopeful we’d ever even see each other in person again, I relapsed pretty hard with everything. I’m trying to get a handle on it now though, 27 days self-harm free again and 2 weeks sober. 

But my point is, it felt like she lost respect for me after seeing me try to kill myself and cut myself and destroy my body and mind over and over again. Maybe losing respect isn’t the right word, I don’t know. But I don’t know if it’s just my insecurity and BPD talking, but I felt like I became more and more of a burden the more she learned about me. I don’t blame her for wanting to distance herself. But I also feel like as much as she felt like she wanted to get away from me, she also didn’t want to say that because she was justifiably worried about my mental state. It’s not like I couldn’t handle her leaving me or would have killed or hurt myself or anything, but she knew she was my only friend and probably saw me as pretty fragile so I can understand how she might have come to that conclusion. I just felt like she didn’t really want to talk to me after a while but when I’d try to ask her about it or something, she’d always deny anything was wrong or different. I even flat out gave her opportunities to get me out of her life and she told me I wasn’t allowed to distance myself. Just felt like mixed messages. We didn’t talk as much and things felt off but she’d always deny it and would take the easy outs it gave her. So I don’t know if it’s just my trust issues or if I was right and she thought I was too fragile to hear the truth.

I just want to know, is there any way to get back someone’s trust in your ability to cope with pain and take care of yourself when they know you’ve had a suicide attempt or self-harmed? Or do they always see you as weak and fragile after that? It obviously won’t help me with this girl, think that ship has sailed, but lately I’ve been feeling like I’ll be able to have any other relationships ever again because of how much it hurt last time and also who I am as a person and I’m trying to cope with that by trying to learn from past mistakes so that I’m not just wallowing in self pity.