I have been friends with this gal for 27 years, our entire lives. We met at a mommy-and-me class when we were still toddlers and have had a very long, intense friendship...closer to a sisterhood.

Looking back on our life, I feel like I can finally see that my best friend has been acting out along the BPD spectrum for many, many years. Her life began with trauma, she was adopted from a third world country and no one quite knows or understands what happened to her in the first months of her life.

Over the years, her untreated mental state &amp; lack of empathy/understanding from her adoptive family has contributed to additional trauma, turmoil, and suffering on her part. Her adoptive father is an unemotional wet blanket, and her mother is highly histrionic, dramatic, and at times downright cruel to my friend. The abuse goes both ways, my friend has always been incredibly harsh to her mother in return, but usually in reaction to constant nagging, helicoptering, and negative comments about my friends body weight, appearance, personality traits, perceived promiscuity, etc. Her parents have one of two solutions to "deal" with my friend: pay for her to live elsewhere and completely ignore her or completely infantalize her while she lives at home. They were doing that for two years, but after she escaped an abusive relationship she had to move back home. So they're back to option two: treat her like she's 12 years old again. They scream at her to get a job and "do something" with her life and her time, not realizing that they have given her ZERO TOOLS TO PREPARE FOR ADULT LIFE. My friend feels hopeless, helpless, and like an utter failure.  She does not know where to start, let again start over. She is currently in intensive therapy, but as far as I know her parents have a direct line to her therapist and to be honest, I don't feel like her therapist is all that great. My friend seems unenthusiastic about her therapist at best. 

My best friend very recently had a breakdown, believing someone stole her most prized possessions. Instead of calming her down, listening, filing a police report, validating her fear, or sympathizing her mother hurled insults at her &amp; claimed that she was "out of control" "psychotic" and "having an episode" causing her panic attack to worsen. This resulted both her and her mother going to MY mothers house to calm down. 

My mother unwillingly helped them both work through it. MY MOM was the one who had the good sense to call the police. This morning, my mother revealed to me that she believes that my best friend was sexually victimized by her adoptive father as a child. My stomach turned. I have many inappropriate memories with this individual and while I cannot say for sure that he victimized me, my friend has told me of experiences where there is no doubt in my mind of that is what happened. I will spare the details. My mother is tired of cleaning up after this family's messes and is threatening that the next time they come around, she's going to blow the top off of everything and reveal the truth to my best friend. 

A friend of her father's has been staying with them lately, and the moment I met him my skin crawled. I can't put my finger on it but I felt like I had to get away from him as soon as humanly possible. I now cannot shake this feeling that this has been a 30 year campaign to cover up abuse and write off my friend as "crazy." Yes. My friend has issues. Yes. She is difficult to deal with. Yes she has hurt me and others with her words and actions. No, she is not perfect and has made many mistakes. But I feel sick that she is in such a helpless position living at home with her emotionally abusive parents.

They don't always hate each other, they don't always fight, and there are happy moments. But I think my friend needs to feel empowered to get out from under her parents utterly and completely. I just have no idea where to start. And I have no idea how to tell her that her safest environment at the moment