I'm sorry, I know this is going to be long but I will summarize as much as I can.

I'd like to begin by saying that I have nothing against people who have BPD and I understand the painful stigma against mental illness; I have PTSD and chronic depression, and have likewise been treated very poorly by people because of it. I hope this post doesn't come across as an attack or as being insensitive. I am just trying to figure out for myself what happened.

I would also like to preface this post by disclosing that I am no stranger to dysfunctional relationships, having been in a relationship for nearly 5 years with a guy who likewise abandoned me in a very similar way and, after years of therapy with a trauma specialist, I strongly suspect has narcissistic personality disorder.

I (23F) met a girl (21F) online through a message board about a similar hobby in June 2018. I never met her in person, because I live on the East Coast of the US and she lives on the West Coast, and neither of us were in a financial situation to travel. However, she was very friendly with me and I liked her immediately, and we talked almost every day for more than a year. She shared with me early on (within a month after I met her) that she was struggling with bulimia and obsessive-compulsive tendencies and also that she was depressed and self-harming by cutting and burning herself. I never asked her to share these things with me, she would just take it upon herself to text me whenever and tell me things like she couldn't stop bingeing and purging or that she felt like an empty container with no personality. She often mentioned wanting to kill herself, too, and told me specific things like that there was a long pipe in the basement at her parents' house she was thinking about hanging herself from, or that she was going to overdose on sleeping pills, because she said she felt like a failure at life. I have no personal experience whatsoever with an eating disorder but I listened to her and let her discuss things with me because I've often felt how lonely it is to suffer alone and have no one to talk to. I did not tell her about my own mental illness, because whenever I talked about it with the guy I was in a relationship before, he called me crazy and used it as a weapon against me. I have vowed to myself never to talk about it with anyone except my therapist ever again. I did tell her about my past relationship and how he had abandoned me for "being crazy", to which she responded "that's terrible, I'm so sorry you experienced that" and "he's a heartless piece of shit for doing that".

I thought we got along quite well. We had a similar sense of humor and we were into a lot of the same things. We used to text for hours about our plans for the future and how we both wanted to travel the world. She went as far to say that she wanted to live with me in a domestic partnership and move to Hawaii, which I often laughed about and took with a grain of salt as it seemed like such a pipe dream, even though it was fun to think about (I actually hadn't entirely written this off as a long-term possibility, because I liked her so much). She also started sending me lots of cute memes about how she really likes me and she's so happy I'm her friend and even some things that suggested that she liked me romantically.

My depression started getting worse in April 2019 due to my ongoing financial difficulties, a missed promotion, and an unsuccessful job search. She always asked how I was doing and I felt like I could trust her, so I began to be more open about my depression, although I still didn't give details and always left it at "feeling depressed today" whenever she asked. Then she would always ask if I wanted to talk about it. I knew this was not something I wanted to do, because my NPD-ex had done the same thing, constantly offering to be a shoulder to lean on, only to blame me for it and use it as a justification for abandoning me for "being too crazy" in the end. I didn't think she would do anything like that, but I still didn't really want to talk about it because of my past experiences.

I continued to grow more and more depressed during the next 6 months. We still talked often, and she still often talked about her own mental health difficulties, which I didn't have any problem with. I wanted to support her and I was concerned about her because I cared about her as a person. However, the more she spoke about her depression and other issues, the more I felt like I could trust her about my own depression and talk about my thoughts and feelings. She didn't seem to have a problem with this. At first.

In September of last year I had a complete mental breakdown. I told her how depressed I really was and I made a comment about wanting to kill myself and also something I shouldn't have said about being very angry and upset at someone else in my life (not her) and I realized immediately I shouldn't have said it because out of context and the words I used made it sound violent. I apologized and told her I hadn't meant what I said and I was afraid I had scared her. She said it was okay. I still felt bad about it, but she kept saying it was okay.

Afterwards, she continued to text me and nothing particularly seemed amiss, except I noticed she was texting me less often, and sometimes my texts would go unanswered for a few days when before she had answered me within an hour or so. I figured she was just busy.  She mentioned at one point she was hanging out more often with a friend who lived near her. I was still very afraid I had upset her and had come across as "crazy" but she told me I hadn't and that it was okay.

A few days after Christmas, she texted me that she was seriously thinking about killing herself. She said it with conviction, and I was very afraid she was going to do it. After not hearing from her, I texted her on New Year's Eve and got no reply. I waited a few days and texted her again, and still nothing. I tried contacting her on social media and ended up sending her a message that I was very concerned that something terrible had happened to her and that I feared the worst. I also asked her to please let me know she was okay if she had any way of answering me. Still nothing. I began to accept that she had really done it, and that she was dead. I mourned and grieved and cried for days. I was heartbroken. I even went as far as to look into planting her favorite flowers in a public garden in her memory. 

Until about three weeks ago, she texted me out of the blue, and said she didn't want to talk to me anymore, because I'm "too crazy for her to deal with" and that "she can't support me and my issues" and that I "really freaked her out back in October". I was just so happy that she was alive, and I told her so, that I really had thought she was dead. That text went unanswered. She has since blocked and/or deleted me on all social media accounts and I suspect she has blocked my number as well. 

It is devastating to me...and also extremely confusing. In many ways, her behavior mimics my ex's, which, by the way, hadn't she herself told me that he was a piece of shit for doing such a terrible thing to me by abandoning me in such away, only to turn around and do it as well? And not only that, but why did she insist everything was fine and wait three months before telling me to f\*\*\* off? The only answer I can come up with is that she was securing my replacement during that time. The double-standard is also astounding - 80% of our conversations revolved around her mental health struggles, but the one time I really needed her to be there for me, the one time I speak candidly about my depression, suddenly I'm "too crazy to deal with"? I could have told her the same thing dozens of times, when she used to text me while I was at work or in the middle of the night that she'd been purging for the last two days and having heart palpitations and blurry vision, or that she was thinking about ways to kill herself. And yet I never did, because that's a horrible thing to say to anyone, and I could never just up and abandon someone for something they can't help, and I truly cared about her. This is how my loyalty and compassion is repaid?

It's like her side of our relationship was entirely built on lies...just the same as my ex. The lack of empathy, too, is identical; her text could have been written by my ex, it was that similar. And yet...I really can't accept that she's a narcissist. My ex was physically and sexually abuse, and he was also a master at gaslighting and emotional blackmail as well as idealizing/devaluing so quickly and frequently it made my head spin. He would be hostile and callous one moment and lovebombing the next. She did none of these things, and yet I cannot understand how anyone could do something like this unless they were truly suffering from a personality disorder of some sort. I was very careful, always dissecting my behavior so that I didn't trigger her. She sometimes raised her voice at me over misunderstandings and I calmly explained what I had meant, even when I was hurt or offended by her accusations, when I could have easily flown off the handle as well.

These experiences - with my ex, and now with her - has really destroyed my trust in people. How can I ever believe that someone is honest and trustworthy, when they lie and betray and abandon so easily? I feel like I'm disposable and not allowed to be a human being with human emotions. It's like I have to be this perfect robot, a manifestation of exactly what they want me to be, and the moment I make a mistake, or say something or act in a way that they do not like, I am worthless to them, like I never even existed to them. All the times she said she cared about me, how she felt like she was so lucky to have met me, the dreams we had to travel the world together, all of that means nothing to her now? What about all the times I listened to her and accepted her unconditionally? What about how I mourned for her and how I was torn up inside when I was convinced that she was dead? It means nothing...

So, I am here now, because I cannot accept that a rational, adult human being would willingly behave this way toward someone they've claimed they cared about so many times. Maybe I'm grasping at straws looking for answers which cannot be found. Or maybe I really am just too crazy for anyone to deal with...