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I'm sorry this is my first post, but I need help. It's going to be a long one, so grab a brew first!
My Girlfriend had a best friend until about a year ago. They had been friends since my GF was about 14 (other girl is a few years younger, so she'd have been 12 or so). This friend has always had problems and has had a rough ride. She had a retinoblastoma (I think that's right!) and had to have a glass eye. Her other eye is fine though. She claims she had bullying all through school because of her eye (it's a different colour to the other one, apart from that you can tell no difference) and claims this as the cause of her problems. For the last 6 years or so she has (genuinely) struggled with eating disorders and depression.
Three years ago something changed. It was shortly after I had met my GF although my GF wasn't spending any less time with this friend. I guess it seemed like she felt threatened. My GF would get horrible text messages from her friend if she didn't reply to her emails within 5 minutes, wasn't able to go and see this friend at the drop of a hat, or otherwise told her things she didn't want to hear. Bear in mind my GF is 2-3 years older than this girl, and had a full time job to keep down, responsibilities through the week at Church, and look after her younger brother while her Mum works night shifts. It sometimes just isn't possible to drop everything.
For the next two years my friend tried her absolute best for her friend, and on several occasions ended up going out at 2-4am to find this friend wandering along railway lines, threatening to jump from bridges etc... It was around this time that my GF and I had a meeting with the Church Minister to try and make sense of the whole situation. My GF had always calmed situations by saying things that this girl wanted to hear. "I'll do anything for you, they're wrong you're right, don't worry it'll be ok" etc... which looking back on things made things worse as it encouraged an "it's not my fault" attitude. We decided it was best to encourage her to seek more professional help as the help she "wanted" was making everything worse.
I think at some point she realised that this whole thing really was working for her. She printed a list of things that my girlfriend wasn't allowed to say to her, and became a whole lot more manipulative. She would deny that she had any problems, but when it suited her she had every problem under the sun! This was also the time she was diagnosed with BPD. Her behaviour is VERY in line with BPD symptoms.
She began to keep a tumblr blog of her life, which more often than not, was manipulative stuff aimed at my GF - to make her feel guilty. It also transpired in this time that this girl really does not like me (despite me making as much effort as I possibly could to get on with all my GF's friends and family - infact this girl is the only one who took a dislike to me) which I believe was because she felt I was stealing her friend away.
Things kept escalating, and after another meeting with our Minister we decided we would have to back off. My girlfriend wasn't sleeping (3-4 hours a night maximum), her performance at work was going down, and at some times I was genuinely worried that she was slipping into depression too. Thankfully she is a lot better now!
We explained to this friend why we were backing off, and told her she had to get more professional help. the Minister offered to meet twice a week with my GF's friend and has been an absolute star. Anyway, after this, this girl tried to get my GF sacked at work, spread rumours around Church about my GF, and when she didn't get a reaction she was rushed to hospital after trying to kill herself. Or so we thought. It transpired that she rang the ambulance herself and actually they found no trace of any substance in her system.
After this we pulled out completely and told her we would have no contact. She had tried every trick in the book, and really, she needs to start accepting the help she's offered. We have had no contact with her for a year now, but, we are still getting the harassment. She has also started harassing others. If you read her blog (where actually, she comes across as a sane and balanced individual - until you realise it's mostly lies!) you will read how her Church is possibly the most unchristian place you could imagine, how all her friends hate her, how she's the victim. She has gathered a few hundred internet "followers" which she has given both my and my girlfriends details too and we're not getting horrible messages from them too!
She uses bible passages to make us look bad (example: Luke 6:42) - claiming we've spread rumours about her (the closest to this is discussing the situation with out Minister - which was a private conversation held in confidence). She really comes across as the model Christian on her blog, while she's sending us anonymous hate messages! We regularly have our faith attacked (example: You're ugly. You were once a beautiful Christian, but now all I see is an ugly heart - that's verbatim).
At Church we're caught between two groups of people. Those who know how we were treated and sympathize with us, or the majority who believe we're evil, and not shoing "love and compassion". I do rather think that giving her everything she wants and not addressing the issues at the heart of this is not loving nor compassionate. A lot of Christians seem to think being all nicey nicey = love and compassion. Of course we've made mistakes and we don't deny that. We're young (I'm now 23, as is my GF) and it's something we've never had to deal with. The whole situation escalated quickly and we were in too deep before we realised! We never wanted to break contact with her, but she pushed every boundary until we could take no more.
We did try to re-kindle a friendship with her, and made it clear it would not be a "best friends" situation as per before. But it lasted about a week before she kicked off. She saw my girlfriend and I having a coffee in town, and we're horrible people because we didn't invite her. If we had invited her, we would have been horrible people for making her drink in public (eating disorders...).
She has moved out of her family home, lives alone in a flat paid for by our tax money (I wouldn't have a problem if it was sheltered accomodation, but it isn't), she gets £63.00 a week "wages" as she calls it. But she doesn't work. Quite honestly it's got to the point where I don't think she wants to get better. Her illnesses are getting her everything she wants.
I just don't know how we could have handled it differently. Maybe we are in the wrong? What can we do to stop the hate mail by post, email, phone and friends?
My Girlfriend had a best friend until about a year ago. They had been friends since my GF was about 14 (other girl is a few years younger, so she'd have been 12 or so). This friend has always had problems and has had a rough ride. She had a retinoblastoma (I think that's right!) and had to have a glass eye. Her other eye is fine though. She claims she had bullying all through school because of her eye (it's a different colour to the other one, apart from that you can tell no difference) and claims this as the cause of her problems. For the last 6 years or so she has (genuinely) struggled with eating disorders and depression.
Three years ago something changed. It was shortly after I had met my GF although my GF wasn't spending any less time with this friend. I guess it seemed like she felt threatened. My GF would get horrible text messages from her friend if she didn't reply to her emails within 5 minutes, wasn't able to go and see this friend at the drop of a hat, or otherwise told her things she didn't want to hear. Bear in mind my GF is 2-3 years older than this girl, and had a full time job to keep down, responsibilities through the week at Church, and look after her younger brother while her Mum works night shifts. It sometimes just isn't possible to drop everything.
For the next two years my friend tried her absolute best for her friend, and on several occasions ended up going out at 2-4am to find this friend wandering along railway lines, threatening to jump from bridges etc... It was around this time that my GF and I had a meeting with the Church Minister to try and make sense of the whole situation. My GF had always calmed situations by saying things that this girl wanted to hear. "I'll do anything for you, they're wrong you're right, don't worry it'll be ok" etc... which looking back on things made things worse as it encouraged an "it's not my fault" attitude. We decided it was best to encourage her to seek more professional help as the help she "wanted" was making everything worse.
I think at some point she realised that this whole thing really was working for her. She printed a list of things that my girlfriend wasn't allowed to say to her, and became a whole lot more manipulative. She would deny that she had any problems, but when it suited her she had every problem under the sun! This was also the time she was diagnosed with BPD. Her behaviour is VERY in line with BPD symptoms.
She began to keep a tumblr blog of her life, which more often than not, was manipulative stuff aimed at my GF - to make her feel guilty. It also transpired in this time that this girl really does not like me (despite me making as much effort as I possibly could to get on with all my GF's friends and family - infact this girl is the only one who took a dislike to me) which I believe was because she felt I was stealing her friend away.
Things kept escalating, and after another meeting with our Minister we decided we would have to back off. My girlfriend wasn't sleeping (3-4 hours a night maximum), her performance at work was going down, and at some times I was genuinely worried that she was slipping into depression too. Thankfully she is a lot better now!
We explained to this friend why we were backing off, and told her she had to get more professional help. the Minister offered to meet twice a week with my GF's friend and has been an absolute star. Anyway, after this, this girl tried to get my GF sacked at work, spread rumours around Church about my GF, and when she didn't get a reaction she was rushed to hospital after trying to kill herself. Or so we thought. It transpired that she rang the ambulance herself and actually they found no trace of any substance in her system.
After this we pulled out completely and told her we would have no contact. She had tried every trick in the book, and really, she needs to start accepting the help she's offered. We have had no contact with her for a year now, but, we are still getting the harassment. She has also started harassing others. If you read her blog (where actually, she comes across as a sane and balanced individual - until you realise it's mostly lies!) you will read how her Church is possibly the most unchristian place you could imagine, how all her friends hate her, how she's the victim. She has gathered a few hundred internet "followers" which she has given both my and my girlfriends details too and we're not getting horrible messages from them too!
She uses bible passages to make us look bad (example: Luke 6:42) - claiming we've spread rumours about her (the closest to this is discussing the situation with out Minister - which was a private conversation held in confidence). She really comes across as the model Christian on her blog, while she's sending us anonymous hate messages! We regularly have our faith attacked (example: You're ugly. You were once a beautiful Christian, but now all I see is an ugly heart - that's verbatim).
At Church we're caught between two groups of people. Those who know how we were treated and sympathize with us, or the majority who believe we're evil, and not shoing "love and compassion". I do rather think that giving her everything she wants and not addressing the issues at the heart of this is not loving nor compassionate. A lot of Christians seem to think being all nicey nicey = love and compassion. Of course we've made mistakes and we don't deny that. We're young (I'm now 23, as is my GF) and it's something we've never had to deal with. The whole situation escalated quickly and we were in too deep before we realised! We never wanted to break contact with her, but she pushed every boundary until we could take no more.
We did try to re-kindle a friendship with her, and made it clear it would not be a "best friends" situation as per before. But it lasted about a week before she kicked off. She saw my girlfriend and I having a coffee in town, and we're horrible people because we didn't invite her. If we had invited her, we would have been horrible people for making her drink in public (eating disorders...).
She has moved out of her family home, lives alone in a flat paid for by our tax money (I wouldn't have a problem if it was sheltered accomodation, but it isn't), she gets £63.00 a week "wages" as she calls it. But she doesn't work. Quite honestly it's got to the point where I don't think she wants to get better. Her illnesses are getting her everything she wants.
I just don't know how we could have handled it differently. Maybe we are in the wrong? What can we do to stop the hate mail by post, email, phone and friends?
