When to dump a friend (when you are BP)

This is apparently ungoogle-able, and I googled. Which is why I am here. Plenty of hits on why to dump someone who has bipolar. I had a really, really rough week, and this is not by a long shot the first friendship I've ended. I have very few friends in fact. But I feel like I have very sound reasons for ending them every time. Or if they ended them with me, they weren't a good friend anyway.

Are we all dumping friends? Is this a thing? It has been a week of over reactions, but this has been a brewin.



Background: Therapy every other week. Work full time. Student full time. Landlord tenant dispute. Talking more, smoking more. Hard time falling asleep but sleeping fine. Do we talk meds here? I take mine. See pdoc Friday.

I've ended several good friendships over the years. Mostly due to paranoia and also due to a decreased tollerance for anything when dysphoric/manic. In my case, I'm never sure if I ended a great friendship or if paranoia got the better of me. It's very distressing and something I'm struggling with hard right now. I have no advise because I haven't gotten it figured out at all.

I'm sorry you are struggling with this also. (((Hugs)))

Honestly, I know for a fact that I end friendships over dumb ***** at times. But that's just me and I kind of prefer to keep my circle small. Sometimes maintaining friendships are too much work, at least for me. I've become clingy to my sister now anyway, and that works for me. I've known her for 31 years.

I just refriended my life-long friend. We have had several periods of years of 'never speaking again' over our lives. Neither of us have been diagnosed necessarily with anything, but she's definitely toxic. She has a heart of gold and can be a great friend, but she can also say things that no friend would ever say. She has had problems with all her other friends, too.

We talked about the last thing she did to me that caused me to defriended her. She could not see how cruel and insensitive it was. I explained it to her about how I felt. She said "I can see your point, but I just have no empathy for you because you have so much going for you and I am so jealous of you."

She also told me she has a hard time separating fantasy from reality. She said at a concert she thinks the singer sees her in the crowd and is singing just to her and that he has feelings for her.

It took a while for this post to go through, and in the meantime I talked to a another BP friend about the details. Which would be a great read. Anyway, she said I had good cause. And my therapist said I am looking for true friendship and she isn't. But she literally calls me her best friend. But I feel like I do cartwheels for her and she does very little for me, and I'm just done. I don't do superficial well. That's for work. Or Facebook.

But this decision came in a week where I got into a several arguments with other people and anger is a key manifestation of my mania. I'm tired of adjusting with medication, I already take my high doses of medicines religiously. I wish I could therapy confrontation away. I wish nothing bothered me. Bukowski's Aliens.

Nope. Not for me anyway. So weird that you should bring this up, because I was just thinking about it last week and couldn't think of a single instance(!) (It might not be as shocking as it seems if you consider that I display considerable ineptitude in friend-making ability in the first place. )

If you feel you have good reasons for dumping the ones you've had, I'm a little confused as to your concern. Do you wonder if maybe the reasons weren't good? (It doesn't sound that way, hence the confusion, despite reading it a few times.) Is there a pattern to it? Does it tend to happen in a particular mood state?

To Op,
Did you try when to sever ties with a friend? Also leave out BP. Ive lost lots of friends over the yrs as well. Mostly to long bouts of depression. Isolating.. just falling of the face of the planet really. When i was younger I lost friends to out of control hypomania. But looking back it was really my fault , cuz i was pretty ignorant my MI and did some crap things to good ppl. But there have been a few instances where i stopped being friends with someone purposefully. But I wouldnt describe it as "dumping or breaking up" more just realized that they were toxic and using me and just kinda cut communication. I guess unless its a really good friend that you normally talk to daily, maybe then you might feel the need to have a formal conversation about not wanting to be friends? :/ idk... IMO most ppl are pretty involved with their own stuff and dont really think much of someone fading out of their lives... IDK.

So it's finals and papers time. Stressor 1.

My landlord texted me and asked me to move into an apt for $1,000 more 6.5 months before my lease ended. I texted her a polite no thanks and suggestion that could work for both of us and she never wrote back. Stressor #2.

In class, I was arguing the professor for extra credit for the whole class from the back of the class and another student interrupted me to say I was too loud, always too loud, can't stand me, be quiet, and I exploded don't talk to me like that and then the whole class got involved and then I shut up and she kept telling me off and I looked at the prof and he shrugged his shoulders empathetically and she continued for 5 minutes. All my fighting was sticking up for myself. All of hers was attacking me. Manic event? Not so sure. I was clearly under attack. Anyway, this colored the rest of my week, even now. Stressor 3.

My best friend, her words. We planned to take a vacation together, long story short, she got a good deal and went without me. She's been back, 2 weeks, no plans to hang out, but plans with other people (while I am good enough to still have her house plants) and I just kinda broke. In my therapist's words, who has been following this relationship for 6 years, I want true friendship, and she wants what's available. So was it the stressors leading up to this moment? Or had I really had it with Jen? I think I had it with Jen. It also took her 6 years to confide in me that she let her last 3 boyfriends used her as a toilet, then left for Europe, and never brought it up again. Acted like it never happened. Even though I worked in a dungeon for a year. So you know what? I'm offended. I've confided plenty. This is not a two way street, and it's just too much. Same girl that called me disgusting for double dipping in the community marinara. Got it. Alrighty.

Pant, pant. We're incompatible. *I* was settling. But now I have no friends.

I dumped my best friend (or did she dump me?) about three months ago. I still love her but she is so toxic.
This probably sounds weird, but I TOLD her going in that I would be a very hard friend to have. She stayed around and we became best friends. I did a lot for her and vice-versa. She changed however, and instead of being emotionally close, she wanted to talk about recipes.
I kept hoping for the closeness again and I waited seven years (of recipes). My therapist and I agreed I had waited long enough and she just wasn't best friend material anymore.
I have enough other friends and this person lives in another state.
I sort of hope we can be friends again at some point, but I don't know.
I don't miss the drama and loneliness I felt with her.

Lilypup,

I want to send you a recipe so bad, bc I have a feeling you are a funny lady. Instead, here:

She was drama, drama, drama too. This friend loved to cook too! I am vegan. She would make extravagant meals, and serve me white bread and olive oil. Of course I would smile, and say I loved it, as she unnecessarily added the demi-glace to the root vegetables without reserving any for me. Lol, I feel you. I think we put our time in. My therapist is going to question why I explained to Jen that it wasn't working. She's going to say I should have just let it go and moved on. No confrontation. But Jen is super confrontational, and was this past week. I don't respond well to it. AT ALL.

It was a week of standing up for myself. Then again, I am filled with guilt. Look at my name here.

Honestly, I haven't suffered from a proper major depressive episode since I stopped Lithium. That lovely drug added 90lbs to my 5'5" frame, 40lb which I finally took off this year, but between the weight gain and COMPLETE loss of sex drive, I no longer date. Complete like don't even miss it, and when my then boyfriend broke up with my apathetic *****, I was like, OK. Now I struggle with mania, and I guess paranoia and baby mixed states. Jen and I talked almost daily, live a few blocks away and do coffee and or dinner several times a week and also weekends. Multiply that by a billion if she's in between boyfriends. Which she has been on and off last year and a half.

I had sent her an I thought direct text earlier in the week saying she had hurt my feelings and her response was short. I called her, she screened me.

3 days later I texted her, she wrote back something nasty referring to the first text. We met in person, I had already resolved to end it. She brought up the text and how it made her feel. It was the her show. To me it was the me show. It was an impasse. So I said that.

And I gave her a 2 minute speech. I simply said, prepare yourself for the ick factor, I've talked about this in therapy a lot and we're looking for different types of friendships. I packed up your things in this bag, and I would like my blah blah back. Please make that happen. And she kinda of welled up and I turned and walked away.

It was cut throat. I played make nice with her, while a bag of her stuff was sitting next to me the whole time. But she literally said every. wrong. thing.

When you said leave the BP thing out, boy did she ever. I don't think that I ever got preferential treatment for that. Including coaxing me into drinking a glass of wine at night when she knows I don't like to mix it with my medicine. Toxic.

Aha, Dontspeak, got it now. (post # 8, boy, did I fall behind!)
First, I don't think you should feel guilty (not telling you how to feel, just that what you did seems justified). She sounds pretty obnoxious. The stressors may well have tripped it, but that's ok. It was how the friendship was (and over 6 years, you'd know!), so your position was based in reality, not a sudden unwarranted outburst, like something that might be said in the heat of the moment that wasn't an accurate assesment, you know?

Do you still have the plants? For some reason, that jumped out (probably because I've got a gawdawful neighbor who had a lot of crap stored at someone's house. They had had a fire, and needed the space. Neighbor knew this, yet refused to answer her phone or contact them about getting it out of there(!!!) They finally just dumped it all in front of neighbor's unit. The level of neighbor's self-centeredness absolute blew my mind.)

I can relate to your story in a couple situations, but two different people. Most recent one let's call A, on the last one and travel front. She had sent an email that a mutual friend was coming to town, exact days tbd, and that I definitely should come along on their adventures. We'd even figured out when, as I had to work one of the potential days. Nothing. Mutual friend came and went. A couple weeks later, I got an email, most of which talked about the visit. It hurt, but I tend to cut people a lot of slack, and sent a couple of emails following this (no negativity about the visit -- I relate to your screen name!) Never heard back. It's coming up on 2 years. Maybe I should take a hint. It's a bummer because she's very funny, and was my last friend. (The visiting one has made no contact either).

The probably more relatable was B, for the drama high-maintenence front. We'd been friends for a few years, despite distance and seldom seeing. She was having a rough time, post-divorce. I told her to call ANY time. She did. Late night, middle of night (which I was ok with -- I'd made the offer after all, lol) buzzed, always with the problems. Mostly self-created. Drama, drama, drama!!! She'd ask for my advice, then never followed it, despite agreeing with it. The situation was wearing, but I never let on. (Not surprisingly, my life was never discussed. It was a one way street.) Then contact stopped. Never heard from since. (Through mutual people know she's fine.) That one was toxic, so just as well.

Yours was toxic too. And a one way street. So yes, I very much think you were finally just standing up for yourself. Good for you! If you're tempted to feel guilty at all, remember the saying, " with friends like that, who needs enemies?!" So true. I hope things settle down for you soon.

Oh! And if your therapist actually thinks you shouldn't have confronted?(!) confronting her was good. When people are like that, they ought to be told. Really, getting a free pass would be ridiculous. She needed to be made aware of how she treats other people (even though she probably knows), if only for the fact that people will hold her accountable for that behavior.

I think A and B are totally on point with my Jen (all of it, plans made, not kept, then talked about, late night calls, my needs not met). Yes, lol, the plant was in the bag with other things and perfectly, mindfully packed. Now it's her turn to return things that unfortunately I do need back.

Talking this out here has brought me GREAT clarity and I really appreciate that. Life is most challenging for me because, and I may have said in my cajillion +1 posts, through both nature and nurture I often don't feel entitled to a full range of emotions. That I am not allowed to ever be angry, really sad, or really happy. Add to that that I live in NYC where emotions run high as it is. None of us are particularly normal here. But I truly feel like I put up with some serious stress and that is a killer when you are BP, that and not sleeping.

I think that's why my therapist wants me going gently into the night. Just let things go. Reduce the stress. But a lot of times if I don't feel I've represented myself, the what ifs destroy me. Flipside, if I try and fail, and it becomes super confrontational and I freak out, then I will beat myself up over that too. It's a no win. This week has been a no win in the confrontation department, and I literally came at it from every angle.

I see my pdoc and therapist Friday so it should it should be interesting to see what their takes are. We had been talking about reducing Geodon, the only antipsychotic I've ever been on (to think 20mg used to knock me out for 12hours and I slurred my speech). I'm on a really high dose, and I can feel it's not working. I shouldn't have such a loose grip. This isn't what I'd call stable. Then again, it's spring. I go mad in spring.

Not long after I got my BP diagnosis I dumped my best friend that id had since high school.

I was consistently putting in more effort in the friendship and that was frustrating. But what did it for me is when I told her about my diagnosis (she knows that I had struggled for years) she has not once in over 6 months texted me to ask how I'm doing. I don't need people like that in my life.

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Hi Golden Snitch,

As you're in Canada, you might appreciate. In the week leading up to the Great Dumping of 2016, I had more messages from Esther the Wonder Pig, than from my best friend. Go figure.

Sounds like you did what you had to do. She sounds really self centered.. you already got put thru the ringer by your ahole ex and feeling like crap. Last thing you need is a equally shite friend who cant even seem to feign anything resembling sincere support! Big for standing up for yourself!
P.S. re:... leave out the BP... I meant in your googling queries not in your friendships.