Is there seriously no hope for us? Listen to what my friend just said...

So my best friend just told me she has no hope for me. Seriously. She is a social worker and has seen all kinds of horrors of Bipolar. She has felt uneasy sharing with me her immense fear regarding my Bipolar and I know it was a hard thing for her to do. I understand having fear about Bipolar. What I did not realize until just now on the phone is that she said she is just not able to have hope for me, faith in me, or to believe in me right now. I asked her if she could at least believe in me and be scared at the same time. I mean that is what I am doing. But she said she hoped she could someday.

Her feelings might make you think that I am reckless with meds and not taking things seriously etc. I am completely committed to my meds. I do every lifestyle thing you can do from not drinking to getting sleep to exercising and my light box. I read, I research. I have children so I am extremely motivated to be as healthy as possible. I am a fighter through and through.

It sucks that she doesn't believe in me. It hurts very much. And it scares me to know that this person who is so important to me has no hope for my future. When we got off the phone I sobbed like a child for reasons not entirely clear to me. It is late so I couldn't call anyone else. So I came here to find some friends. People who get it. The best kind of people. Bipolar people

Has this kind of thing happened to anyone else?

Sounds like she has a bad attitude about your condition and may not understand it well enough. As long as you know you are doing well then it shouldn't really matter what their negative opinions are.

I've had people been negative to me numerous of times and it sucks a lot. Their negativity can bring you down to a whole other level so I try to brush them off and carry on. I've lost several friends in the process, but I don't need anyone in my life that considers me a hopeless mess. People can be so cruel to others that they just don't understand with bias assumptions.

Please do not allow negative feedback from others to get you down. I don't think she should have told you that even if it is true for her. One person's rotten take on things should not have that power over you! We have to fight that all the time. Your "friend" sounds like a burned-out social worker if she voices opinions like that! My sisters seem to hate me, especially when I ask them to help and support me emotionally. They don't even get those simple little words, a compassionate request from me. Detach enough to protect yourself emotionally and then talk with those who DO believe in you!

PrairieCat

What was said about a burn out. I actually worry for the people she works with. If she dooms her this way, she is not doing her job right.

Aww, Capriciousness, that's awful!
The only thing even remotely like that I had was after disclosing to someone, having her lament that "now" she was going to have to worry about me. What? She'd never worried about me in the 10 years she'd already known me(!) She based it solely on her sister. Like we're all exactly the same right? Ends up she didn't worry anyway, we fell away over something tangentially related about a year later. Whatever. (Never gave her a single moment of worry, btw. I only saw her about once a year, every time hypo as all get out. My energy level boggled her, but that was all.)
Agree with the others that she sounds burnt out. Pretty common in the field. Wasn't very professional of her either, even if she was speaking as a "friend".

I'm so sorry that you had to hear such harsh words coming from her. Whatbshe said was indeed extremely hurtful and out of line....especially being a social worker. I completely agree with the others, she must be burnt out.m She may want to consider another line of work. Seriously, shame on her for voicing those comments to you. Whenever people fail me, I take it upon myself to feel pitty for them. Who knows, sounds like she could use councelling herself.

Don't let her words bring you down. For every person who leaves, there are MANY great friendships and opportunities that lay ahead. Take heart in that.

Sending a big hug your way to brighten your day! Keep pushing forward, the best thing to do is put yourself first.

She's a social worker? Goodness do I feel really sorry for her clients - there is no way that she's being really good at her job if she harbours opinions like that!

As a social worker, she should KNOW that not everyone with the same disorder will have the same symptoms and that they will all have different levels of severity and control. How can she be that blind and jaded?

Personally... I would probably start cutting off contact if anyone treated me like that. I don't need to have anyone so toxic in my life!

I am so sorry you are going through this.

A lot of people (including social workers) don't fully understand bipolar. I try and surround myself with supportive people (you don't have to understand or be in the mental health field to offer simple support).

Dealing with life is hard enough in itself, having unsupportive friends is even worse (who can trust who in other words).

All I can do is offer support but agree with the feedback you have been given here so far.

This is preposteous! I have hope for myself! I AM a success! I am sure you are too, even through your struggles, just like the rest of us "poor, hopeless, souls!"

Sometimes it hurts, but it looks like it is time to move on and for your friend to find a new job. It is absolutely unacceptable for a professional to generalize a group of people in such a way. Everyone has hope, we are all able to live full lives dispite our struggles. GTFO here........

Horrors and bipolar in the same sentence would completely make me tune out. She doesn't sound supportive at all. What is the point of thinking someone is hopeless, no one should be a throw away case no matter what.

Wow! I too am very sorry you had to go through this! What kind of a social worker has no empathy?!?! It seems to me like she tried to make this all about her, like somehow your struggle is now hers. She sounds a little NPD to me . But seriously, BP is a biologically based condition, like diabetes etc. Would she say such discouraging things to a friend with diabetes?!?! I know they are different, and it is only an analogy, but still, everyone is different, and different people have different outcomes with any condition.

The fact that you have taken control of BP disorder and are doing everything you can, and living life says a great deal about your strength and character. I really hope she is not this much of a Debbie Downer when dealing with her clients. She sounds really toxic to me, and not very supportive. It sounds like she has some serious issues that probably aren't as easy to treat as BP. At the very least, what she did was very unkind.

THANK YOU to everyone who replied! The support is so needed and I am so grateful. Everything all of you said is completely true.

And yes Themeanreds, I was having the same thought about how absolutely inappropriate and appalling it would be for someone to tell somebody with cancer or parkinsons or any other illness that they had no hope for them. Really the word for that is cruel. So i feel here is just another example of not having our illness respected and viewed as a real illness and by someone who should know better.

As one of my other friends said when she heard the story "Well what does she think you should do then? Just kill yourself now?" I mean seriously.

Unfortunately, this is not the only or the last appalling thing she has done. She has basically told me that because of her "fear" she doesn't want to be involved in my bipolar anymore or the inner workings of me in general (we were very close and I told her more than I ever told anyone else. felt very safe with her. foolish me!)

And here it is guys! Here is the kicker! She is supposed to come to my house next week and stay with me for five whole days!

I had thought i could put my hard *** I don't need anybody walls back up around here and get on with it with the goal of not losing the whole relationship thinking maybe someday she would get over whatever is going on with her right now. (this is a 14 year best friendship) But now I am just feeling like I have gone to embarrassing lengths to give her opportunities to prove my broken heart wrong and she is just not going to do it. I do have self respect and I feel pushed past my limit. Telling her now to come will cause a bigger rift for sure but I am having a hard time caring right now. I need to take care of myself.

She should not be social working. I know what it is like to have someone root against me. It does hurt, and it takes a lot of time and work to get over it. I suggest you ditch her and start hanging out with more positive people.

I was in a similar situation. This friendship was not as long, however, I had moved and she was someone I found in a new place, I thought we were good friends. I confided in her, as she did with me. Then she got pregnant and a very small disagreement occurred.
She flipper her lid and threw all of that in my face, as though her life was perfect. She smeared my name on Facebook, at work and with mutual friends.

The kicker here is that she later tried to "re-friend" me, but did not find in necessary to apologize, so I declined her invitation. Furthermore, HER problems reached critical mass and now she is the one without a friend that understands her situation to lean on.

I feel like there is some kind of saying about karma…..but this puts me is schadenfreude territory and I dislike being a hateful person.

Yes Alokin....I am the best friend this girl has. I have been there for her too ya know. A lot! And it is Justine boggling to me that she would just throw me away. But see she is somehow not keyed in to the fact yet that she is losing me. I don't get it. She like really think we can just go on from this. Yeah. So weird.

And yes meanreds I was going to say that she is def making this all about her and every time we talk it is a about her. All of a sudden every feeling I am having is all about her. She is also and incredibly defensive person which makes any conversation about how an action of here hurt me just tortuous.

And yes to all of you who have said the thing about how she should not be in social work. I think she really can't handle the emotional toll of this job and it has changed her somehow recently.

One thing that often comes up is that she has no time to chat with me because she always needs her time in the evenings to process her day. As my husband said she must be having some crazy emotional issues if she gets out of work every day by 5:30, has time to go out with her friends, host dinner parties, go camping, iChat with her sister, and spend entire evenings alone watching TV and yet still feels overwhelmed and like she has no time.....

Of course it could always be a case of she's just not that into you.....

Which is what I have been trying to suss out for awhile and she is always defensive and annoyed that I don't understand how stressful her job is.

Well now.

To assuage myself I try to remember that, like myself, others if not everyone, has challenges of some sort in their lives. However, you should not just take it. I have probably pushed people away when I did not mean to. However, I understand that an apology and acknowledgement of my jerky antics goes a long way.

Perhaps something in her mind has triggered this behavior, perhaps she will come around and realize she is being hurtful and what I like to call wrong, but that is inflammatory and in a situation like this I refrain from using such accusatory terms. It does not foster reconciliation.

Well said

Why did you ask her that? She says that right now, she is not able to have hope for you. Tell her that right now, you do not need her company. Right now, good riddance. If things change later on, she is welcome to report the positive change to you and you will reconsider. For now though, good riddance.

She's coming to stay with you?!

I'm sorry. I'd be cancelling. I'd probably say something like "I'm sorry, but I have no hope of your visit being pleasant. I do not feel safe around you."

When a very close friend is not there for you when you need that person the most, this is very hard to forgive. I understand wanting to keep a friend who has been in your life for such a long time. I know that my BP existed long before it was diagnosed. She knew you for all those years, and your BP never seemed to make any difference back then, so why are things so different and difficult for her all of a sudden???

If anything, I have become a lot easier to deal with since I was diagnosed, and have been working on it, taking my meds, etc. The fact is, she liked the undiagnosed you. Now that you are dealing with this head on, your life is going to improve. Mine sure did.

I have to say, I have known quite a few individuals with BP throughout the years. They are healthy, successful people who contribute a great deal to their friends, family and society in general. Your friend seems to know very little about BP, and the prognosis when treated. This is really unfortunate as a social worker (I know, I keep repeating this, but empathy is essential in her line of work).

In my experience, NPD individuals make everything anyone else is going through all about them. My sister has screamed at me several times because she thinks my BP is all about her, and I have been very calm and stable around her. I would hate to think what would happen if I were in chemo, and she were to yell at me for the unpleasantness of knowing someone with cancer. I would not put it past her, and I am pretty sure that if you had an illness such as cancer, your friend would somehow make it all about herself.

She certainly is not the brightest light on the Christmas tree, that is for sure. (I had to make a seasonal comment about her, just me showing my holiday spirit !)

I really cannot tell you how to handle the situation. One thing is for sure, she needs to never disrespect you or the challenges you face in life like this again, if she wants to have an enduring friendship with you.

Absolutely DO take care of yourself! You know, frankly, a bigger rift is exactly what is needed. It is the only possible way she could even begin to "get it"--that one can't go around treating people like that. To do otherwise would only encourage her self-centered ways.
It is sooo tempting here for me to say that the "no hope" is for her. Lol. I love irony.

You know what, though? None of the people I've personally dealt with that act in these ways has ever changed. I do believe it is possible, but it'd require a complete paradigm shift and a LOT of sustained hard work. They'd have to really really want it. Personally, themselves, and not for the sake of another. But how many people who think the world revolves around them earnestly want to work on taking themselves out of the spotlight? Yeah.
They like it there.
And it's certainly a lot easier than the alternatives.

I second this!
Please do not let this assholian "friend" come lounge around your house and clean out your fridge after the way she treated you. Geez, what a douchtard! I also agree with IZ, a bigger rift is exactly what is needed IF fences are going to be mended. Or else she'll keep treating you as a second class, hopeless case citizen.

She needs to know her behaviour is unacceptable.

Also on the attitude change topic: I'm sure she suddenly has an issue with you post dx, because now you have "valid" or "legitimate" issues, certified by a professional. Which means making things about her her her 20.....4.....7.... isn't logically appropriate any longer, and in order to keep the narcissistic spotlight, she's unable to deal with you.

Hey everybody,

Thanks again for all of your responses. It is so nice to hear the support and opinions of people who know what it is like to deal with bipolar.

As an update I will tell you all that she actually called me and expressed extreme regret for having told me the whole no hope thing. Said over and over again that it was so inappropriate and all about her issues and she should never have put them on me and she was so sorry. She was genuine and upset. And I was guarded. I said I accepted that apology but there was too much other hurt at this point that I just didn't know what I could do moving forward and I kinda went ahead and put it all out there everything I am so upset about in the way she has been behaving and treating me recently and I thought we were going to just go into another round of her defensiveness but she actually broke down and was super sorry that she hurt me so much and doesn't know what she has been thinking and she can't imagine life without me as her friend and she will do anything to make it better etc. It was like the friend I haven't had for five months came back from the space ship. So weird. I was like well that is all great but it is going to be a long road back and I don't know what I will actually be able to do. I laid out all kinds of things I wanted her to do and not do etc. So we will see.

Historically she has sucked as a friend when under a lot of stress. She just like is not herself at all. I think this job is really too much for her. I told her one of my requirements is that she get into therapy ASAP.

So anyway. I am glad she finally got it and came back to herself. I remain guarded and I think I learned a valuable lesson about how to keep my own boundaries and walls up even though I need people sometimes.

Just wanted to share with you all..

Thanks again and again

(2) is OK.

(1) is ridiculous - the word "inappropriate" does not begin to describe how she should not have said what she said to you. If all she has to offer is to chastise herself for saying something that she dubs "inappropriate", then you do not need her as a friend.

But per (2), she is genuinely remorseful, so maybe she will be an OK friend after all.