Just a little bit of background for those of you who don't know me. About a year and a half ago, I moved 2,600 miles from everything I knew. The decision was totally impulsive and I've regretted it for a while. I have no friends here, no place I can go if I ever need help, and my husband and I are often at odds. More than once, I've started feeling trapped, like I needed to go somewhere, had to get away, and had absolutely no where to go.

Well, around Thanksgiving, I said a few things that my husband's cousin pulled me aside for. I've come to be fairly open about my messed up childhood...it's made it easier to deal with... and she overheard something. She seemed to care in a way I don't see very often.

In early January, I met up with her for lunch. We spent several hours sharing sob stories. She has gone through two divorces and had enough of her own, and we seemed to really connect. I decided to go a little further and mentioned a few BPD traits in a way that it couldn't be directly associated with BPD: "I don't really know who I am.", "When I get upset, I tend to 'phase out' (disassociate)". To every single one, she looked at me and said "so do I!. I thought I was alone in that." By the time I left, I had her pegged for at least four or five traits. I'm not saying she's definitely BPD, but she definitely had some traits there. On my way home, I made a decision, a decision I was stupid for making, but you have to understand, I've been pretty desperate to find SOMEONE here I can relate to, someone who would help me if I needed it or that I could just talk to. When I got home, I sent her a link, the DSM's BPD traits. I told her I'd been diagnosed with it and that she and I seemed to have a lot in common....which we did. She agreed with me on every statement I posed to her that represented the traits.

Well, she never messaged or called me back. I knew I'd screwed it up. She finally agreed to meet me for dinner, which was on Friday. She was standoffish to me pretty much through the whole thing. Turns out, she talked to her therapist as well as her ex (who's a therapist) about BPD and they both told her she didn't have it. In addition, and this just conjecture, they told her a lot of things about it...that BPDs were attention seekers, manipulators, turned on you, etc. I asked her if she'd be willing to let me come over if I ever felt I needed to get out. Last time I met her, she claimed to understand and would have said "yes" if I'd asked. Now she needed to "keep boundaries"!! Now, she has reason to not want to take me in...it could potentially cause a family conflict, but "keep boundaries"!! I have no friends here, absolutely none, and that's all I hoped to achieve from it. Now I feel as though I lost the only chance I had for a friend. It breaks my heart. I really thought she'd get it, but I knew better...and I still thinks she has traits...but you know the reputation of personality disorders! All I know is she's been officially pushed, and we weren't that close yet. I can make it stick. It makes me want to go back in to the shell I spent over 20 years of my life in...where I didn't have anyone and was okay with that....but I don't know how to do that part.