BPD or personality and safety

Specific disabilities and conditions
1

Hello everyone,

I have been close friends with someone for 14 years and I am their favourite person. They have been diagnosed with BPD and paranoid schizophrenia and are currently supported by a great mental health team.
Our entire relationship is difficult to describe but it is lovely for a while and then awful (aggressive and to be honest it is non physical abuse) then the half arsed apologies come (it was their fault but mine too) and the cycle repeats.

I found out yesterday that she had systematically destroyed 3 close friendships; telling them awful things I had supposedly said and that I was abusing her and then telling me that they had done the same to her. It ruined five people’s mental health and relationships with each other (it is too complicated to go into details!). Is this normal behaviour for BPD or is this something else?

I always stuck by this woman because even though she has serious problems I always thought she was unfailingly honest. I am devastated.

I will be pulling back from this relationship I have with her, I already had decided to after an incident where the police were nearly called earlier in the month; I need to protect myself and my family but this was a betrayal I am truly shocked by. I don’t know how to step back safely (death threats have been issued to me, I don’t think they are overly serious).

Has anyone managed to remove themselves from this type of situation? I don’t want her to hurt herself (I am waiting for a call back from the MHT) and I don’t want her to hurt us either.

2

This is incredibly serious.
Have you spoken to the police about how to protect yourself?
Recorded any of the death threats?

3

Unfortunately it wasn’t to me, they were said about us to another of her friends who got in touch with us after she had a blow out on them as well so I haven’t recorded anything. Chances are they have been said to other people over the years, she has certainly threatened other people in front of us. However they have never been carried out. She has physically tried to attack people in the street that have annoyed her in some way when in a delusional state but something has always stopped it being carried out (like they ran off etc).

I am 95% certain it was anger and a lack of filter but there is a nagging suspicion, I mean who wouldn’t have one when a friend says that who is highly unstable and has decided to go cold turkey off their meds?

I haven’t spoken to the police. I did speak to their mental health team today so we shall see what becomes of that, although I don’t know if they are allowed to let me know what’s going on. I genuinely think going to the police would make it worse, we live about an hour away from her but my parents live much, much closer to her (she would have to drive past their road end to get to ours) and they have been a source of anger for her (I have a healthy, stable relationship with them and she doesn’t with her parents) and I am concerned that if I did anything it would put them in the firing line.