Breaking Free from a Toxic Relationship with Someone Who Has BPD

We all carry stories. Some are sacred, and some are just dead weight. This is the story of how I dropped the dead weight—and started to rise.

A while ago, I was being bullied online by someone I once trusted deeply. We’ll call her BBG. She was once a very good friend—one of those people who preached loyalty, truth, and forever vibes. Her life was supposedly dedicated to building a healthy lifestyle and healing people. She was someone I really cared for. A lot. But as our friendship unraveled and challenges surfaced, so did her real patterns. Patterns I now understand were rooted in BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) and ADHD, two complex conditions that can cause emotional chaos when left unchecked.

When our friendship hit turbulence, BBG didn't lean in—she lashed out. She mocked. She lied. She twisted truth into theater and turned my pain into her entertainment. And it hurt, because the betrayal wasn't from a stranger. It was from someone who knew me. Who supposedly loved me.

But I now understand that her “love” wasn’t real love—not the grounded, steady kind built on mutual respect and presence. It was a projection—rooted not in who I truly am, but in the unresolved wounds of her own childhood trauma. Her affection was conditional, fragile, and reactive—based more on her needs for validation, intensity, and control than on a genuine appreciation of my soul. Her lack of love and appreciation became more and more apparent the longer we knew each other, especially as the toxic volatility of the relationship increased over time. It became painfully clear that the relationship was actually nothing more than a facade that only caused more pain and trauma for both of us.

After all of this, here’s what I know now:

To manifest your full potential, you must release what no longer serves you. That includes old versions of yourself—and the people who only loved those outdated versions.

Letting Go: The Real Work of Growth

Too often, we confuse healing with holding on. We think if we just “fix it” or “prove ourselves” one more time, we’ll win back the love, the peace, the friendship. But some things aren’t meant to be mended.

Some things are just meant to be thrown out with the trash.

BBG’s behavior had become toxic:

Constant fighting
Emotional manipulation
Personal threats
Self-harming behaviors
Social media slander
Gaslighting and cruelty disguised as “truth”
Lying to save face

Furthermore, extreme jealousy and anger began to dominate the relationship on a near-daily basis. Any time I chose to prioritize my mental health, wellness, or personal growth—especially if it didn’t directly involve her—she would spiral out of control. There was no space for me to evolve as an individual. Every effort I made to care for myself was met with rage, emotional attacks, threats toward me and my family, or sudden self-harming behaviors intended to guilt and destabilize me.

She would often threaten to abandon me entirely or go find "better friends" if I didn’t meet her emotional demands. It became a cycle of walking on eggshells—never knowing when a normal day would explode into chaos because I dared to focus on something that didn’t center her. I never knew what would push her away and send her into the arms of another.

Every time we took space—whether a few days or a longer pause—she would immediately attach herself to new people, throwing herself headfirst into fresh friendships or flings and putting herself in questionable relationships and risky situations that even sometimes hurt her. Repeatedly, she would lie about the extent of the depth and intimacy of those newly formed relationships, only admitting to them after much discussion and arguing. The web of lies and deceit that she was able to spin around these relationships was damaging, yet it didn’t stop her from pursuing them. Her trend of immediately becoming deeply attached to new people at a moments notice was a warning sign, but nevertheless extremely painful, and destabilizing to our relationship when it happened. And this is in reference to those relationships that I actually found out about. It is possible there were many more I never learned of.

Then, once things would become rough between us, and it was clear that her newly formed friends were causing deep seated agony, she would use those new relationships against me. She still does. Almost like clockwork, she’d parade those relationships across social media, tagging them in stories, posting videos with them, posting inside jokes, and making sure I saw it. She intentionally wanted to harm me. To show me how insignificant I was to her. I should have taken my cues after the first time this happened. But this happened repeatedly, with at least three situations that I know of, and possibly on many more occasions that I never learned of.

It wasn’t subtle—it was weaponized visibility, a way of saying: “Look how easily I’ve replaced you.”

But it was never really about them. It was about control. About punishing me for having boundaries. About making sure I never felt secure or allowed to heal on my own terms.

It wasn’t love. It was control dressed in codependency. And I couldn’t breathe in it anymore.

It wasn’t love—it was emotional captivity dressed as intimacy.

No matter how hard I tried to restore the connection, it became clear: the only way forward was without her. Because to truly evolve, we often have to let down the people who are only comfortable with us when we are silent, uncertain, and easy to control. They don’t love our growth—they loved our submission. They just want compliance and an ability to meet their constant needs; needs which can never be met because they are rooted in unhealed childhood trauma.

The Roots of the Storm: Childhood Trauma & the Void I Couldn’t Fill

As the dust settled, I began to see the pattern for what it truly was—not just chaos, but a cry from a much deeper wound.

BBG’s behavior wasn’t random. It was rooted in profound, unhealed childhood trauma—especially severe abandonment wounds that had calcified into Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Her emotional outbursts, control tactics, and constant fear of being left weren’t about me… they were about everything that happened before me.

After we were no longer speaking, I was left feeling hurt, confused, and emotionally raw. I wasn’t just grieving the relationship—I was trying to make sense of it. I genuinely wanted to understand what had happened, not to cast blame, but to gain clarity.

So I went inward. I began to analyze the patterns—hers, mine, and the volatile dance between the two of us. I spent countless hours researching BPD, ADHD, trauma bonding, attachment styles, and emotional dysregulation. I needed to uncover the truth beneath the chaos.

Early in the relationship I spotted issues and I tried to help. For years, I encouraged her to see a psychotherapist—to work with someone who could help her untangle the pain that was poisoning her relationships. But she never did.

And eventually, I had to accept what was true:

I could never fill the void she was trying to escape from.

It was never mine to fill. I could not be the one responsible for healing her personal traumas and emotional issues.

That kind of healing doesn’t come from being loved harder. It doesn’t come from being endlessly patient or walking on eggshells. It comes from doing the work for ones-self — by turning inward, confronting the pain, and rebuilding from the inside out.

She didn’t choose that. She wouldn’t do the work for herself. So I had to choose myself.

Because just as she needed to do the work to become whole, I needed to do my own work to manifest my highest self.

Staying in that dynamic was keeping both of us stuck. No one heals in a cycle of codependency and emotional whiplash. And no one becomes their fullest self by living in the shadows of someone else’s unprocessed past.

Trying to Make Sense of It All

Before I understood what I was truly dealing with, I was unable to fathom the extremely complex and volatile patterns we would encounter on our path together. After some time I began to analyze our dynamic, and I thought this was just another anxious/avoidant relationship attachment-style paradigm —the kind that flares up under stress but can be worked through with healthy communication, patience, and boundaries.

When things would get bad, admittedlyas the avoidant in our dynamic, I would retreat away from the relationship, which heightened her anxiety. That combination of attachment styles can be mutually confusing and destructive for both parties if not dealt with.

I truly believed that if we just learned to express ourselves better, set clearer expectations, and showed up with more consistency, we could fix things. I thought this was something normal. Something human. Something fixable.

But over time, the patterns became impossible to ignore. The volatility wasn’t just relational—it was clinical, cyclical, and rooted in something deeper than incompatibility. The intensity, the emotional chaos, the manipulation, and the public humiliation were far beyond what you'd expect in a typical relationship struggle.

That’s when I began researching and eventually recognized the signs of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)—and everything suddenly made sense.

The Crashout Pattern: Understanding BPD (and ADHD) Without Excusing Abuse

In trying to make sense of the madness, I learned about the emotional patterns that BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) and ADHD can manifest—especially in close relationships. Understanding them helped me heal, even as she cast me aside, and moved on. Eventually, I decided to permanently stay away and not return to the chaos, unable to handle the constant volatility and rejection.

What struck me most in my research was how precisely and profoundly BBG embodied these patterns. She didn’t just show signs of BPD—she lived them out in every corner of our connection. Her behaviors weren’t isolated incidents; they were predictable cycles fueled by emotional dysregulation, trauma, and fear.

Here are the key BPD (Boderline Personality Disorder) traits I came to recognize:

Emotional Dysregulation – People with BPD often react to stress with intense emotional highs and lows. ADHD can amplify this with impulsivity, making small moments feel like full-blown emergencies. With BBG, every minor disappointment became a meltdown—often exploding into toxic arguments and chaos without warning.
Splitting: Idolize, Then Demonize – One day you’re their soulmate, the next you’re the enemy. This is called splitting—a defense mechanism that happens fast and hits hard. She once told me I was her “mirror” and “the one,” then flipped overnight and treated me like I had never meant anything to her. Furthermore, she then w
Shame & Identity Collapse – After the blow-up comes the crash. People with BPD often feel deep shame afterward—but instead of accountability, they may deflect, blame, or lash out further to avoid it. BBG would often isolate or spiral after an episode, but instead of apologizing, she’d rewrite the story—casting herself as the victim and me as the cause, the perpetrator, the villian, the enemy…. Her enemy.
Masking Burnout – ADHD can lead people to overcompensate socially—trying to seem “fine” while battling inner chaos. That emotional suppression eventually erupts, often unfairly aimed at the closest target. She worked hard to present an image of confidence and stability in public, but privately, she would collapse into dysregulation, rage, and despair.

To further demonize me, she took that rejection public. What should have been a private unraveling became a grotesque performance. She began to taunt, humiliate, and bully me openly on social media—twisting reality, mocking my character, issuing overt threats of physical harm to me and my family, and inviting her followers to spectate. And because she has a relatively large online following, the damage was amplified. Because of her sizable online following, this spectacle gained traction—amplifying the cruelty and distorting the story for everyone watching. What should have been a quiet goodbye became a public smear campaign.

To gain sympathy and validation, she positioned herself as the wounded empath, casting me in the role of some narcissistic tyrant—even though she was the one who ended things between us, in a spectacularly explosive fashion. She always played the victim, weaponizing her pain and public platform to manipulate perception and rewrite reality. I became the villain in a story I didn’t write, performed for an audience I never agreed to entertain.

She weaponized her social medial presence to punish me. She leveled all types of accusations against me: that I was abusive, that I was a narcissist, that I she needed to escape from my controlling grip. She insulted me and taunted me: calling me ugly, calling me awful names, posting videos of her and her friends insulting me in various ways. She threatened to find newer, better relationships, or rekindle relationships with older people that she knew I would find disturbing. Then she would overtly display them on her social media posts. She threatened to do lewd acts with people, and then grossly insinuated she was doing them after seeking out and spending time with them. She openly welcomed random people to “slide into her DM’s” because she was “into it”. She was into the “attention” and the vindictive punishment she knew that posting these things would inflict on me.

I learned a hard but valuable truth: people who live their lives through the lens of social media—chasing likes, validation, and attention—often lack the emotional maturity to handle relationships with privacy, respect, and integrity. When real emotions rise, they don’t process them privately—they perform them publicly, in an extremely trashy way. They do so loudly and childishly.

When that kind of behavior is combined with untreated BPD and impulsivity, the result is explosive—and deeply damaging. In hindsight, I’ve realized it’s best to avoid relationships with people who are addicted to external validation and who process conflict through public spectacle. They don’t want healing. They want a stage. And if you’re not careful, you’ll become part of the show.

This experience taught me something essential: people who live for external validation—who perform their trauma for clout instead of processing it in private—are incapable of honoring the intimacy and complexity that real relationships require. And when you combine that with untreated BPD, the result is often emotional carnage.

Once I saw the patterns clearly, I could finally stop internalizing the chaos. I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t unlovable. I was just standing too close to someone who hadn’t healed yet.

Understanding their condition gave me compassion. But it didn’t mean I had to stay.

Insight doesn’t justify their abuse — but it can help you let go without dragging the bitterness with you.

Protect your peace. Step off their stage. Walk away before you become part of their performance.

When Words Become Weapons: Avoiding People Prone to Verbal Abuse

Another pattern that surfaced time and time again was her tendency to weaponize language during conflict. If we argued—even briefly—she would explode with slurs, accusations, and deeply personal insults, often using her deep personal knowledge of my vulnerabilities against me.

One of her favorite tactics was labeling me a “narcissist” any time I disagreed with her, set a boundary, or did something she simply didn’t like. She threw the word around recklessly, not as a diagnosis, but as a dagger. In her eyes, any behavior that didn’t center her emotions was an abuse. I was not just a flawed human—I was suddenly her sworn enemy, a monster, a manipulative villain destined to ruin her life.

And no matter how brutal her words became, she never once apologized. Not once. Instead, she justified every insult as a “reaction” to my supposed offenses—absolving herself of responsibility while leaving me bleeding from her words.

She cast me as the enemy the moment I stopped playing along with her chaos.

This is a hallmark of emotional abuse: verbal attacks followed by justification instead of remorse. It creates confusion, self-doubt, and psychological harm. And when someone knows you intimately, they know exactly where to aim their words to do the most damage.

If you’re in a relationship—romantic or platonic—with someone who routinely:

Escalates to verbal abuse during conflict
Uses therapy terms like “narcissist” as weapons
Justifies their cruelty instead of owning it
Never apologizes, but always blames

…then you are in a toxic dynamic. Period.

You do not have to accept being emotionally slaughtered just because someone is hurting. Pain is not a permission slip for abuse.

Turning the Pain Into Power

The turning point for me came when I realized I was shrinking—dimming my light to avoid another meltdown from BBG. I was filtering my words. Tiptoeing. Withholding joy. Editing my art. Staying small. My confidence was suffering. My mental and physical health were deteriorating.

And finally, despite seriously caring for her, I asked myself: Why am I making myself less, just to keep someone unstable more comfortable?

That’s when I stopped reacting and started creating.

I took the pain and turned it into design.
I took the insults and turned them into ink.
I took the shade and grew deeper roots.

In the end, I refused to drink from the poisoned cup she was offering me.

New Mantras for the Rebuild

These are the truths I live by now—and maybe, they’ll resonate for you too:

“I’m not the villain in your story—I just stopped auditioning for the role you wrote for me.”
“Letting go isn’t cruel. Holding on is.”
“You don’t owe closure to chaos.”
“They threw shade. I grew roots.”
“I don’t clap back. I copyright.”

Grieving the Loss — And the Reality of BPD

As much as I needed to walk away, it still hurts to lose someone you once cared about so deeply. There’s a specific kind of sadness that comes not just from the end of a relationship—but from the realization that so much of the damage was being driven by something neither of us fully understood at the time.

Looking back, I can see that many of the things I said or did—things that felt minor or neutral to me—hit her like emotional earthquakes. Her reactions weren’t simply dramatic. They were real. Unchecked BPD magnifies emotional pain to an unbearable scale. A moment of distance, a misunderstood tone, even a misinterpreted glance could trigger overwhelming feelings of abandonment or betrayal. And I didn’t always see it happening—until it was too late.

That’s the tragedy of it all. BPD isn’t just hard for the people around it—it’s traumatic for the person living inside it. The emotional intensity, the spirals of shame, the inability to regulate one’s own nervous system—it creates a reality that’s exhausting, isolating, and often terrifying.

And so I grieve—not just the relationship, but the potential that was lost to pain we didn’t know how to handle. I grieve the moments when love was present, but drowned out by trauma. I grieve the times we both tried, and the times we didn’t know how to work through.

But grief isn’t an excuse to return to chaos.

It’s a reason to honor what was—and grow from it.

To carry forward the empathy, but not the dysfunction.

To remember the human side of the relationship, the person you once cared for so deeply, even if you had to release the relationship.

Today I am still growing, and still learning to practice the following beliefs:

• I can love someone’s soul and still protect my own.

• I can hold compassion and still hold a boundary.

• And I can grieve while still choosing to heal.

However, no matter how much personal growth I experience, nor the distance I maintain, the collapse of our relationship is still unbearably sad. The promise of what could have been shattered into a million pieces to the point of oblivion, then trampled into dust, and blown away by the winds of lies, deception and anger. It sometimes makes me wonder if there was ever anything real there at all. Or was it something I just imagined? Was there even a relationship there at all? There is a sense that all this was is a poetically tragic interlude in the chorus of my life, as ephemeral as the notes carried across the wind that die in a careless whisper.

The Real Work: Shedding the Beliefs That Hold You Back

This wasn’t just about a toxic friend. It was about me. I had to let go of limiting beliefs like:

“If I try harder, they’ll love me again.”
“I should fix this because I’m loyal.”
“I can’t grow unless everyone approves.”

These were boat anchors disguised as virtues. They were wrapped around my neck, dragging me under the water, drowning me with chaos, pain and confusion. And the moment I cut them loose, I finally felt it: freedom.

This wasn’t just about walking away from someone else’s chaos. It was about walking back to myself.

To manifest my highest potential, I’ve had to start doing the deep inner work of shedding—not just toxic people, but the limiting beliefs, emotional wounds, and inherited patterns that have kept me stuck in survival mode my entire life. I’ve begun to break the chains that were never truly mine but passed down through prior generations — unquestioned habits, unhealed trauma; all quietly stunting my spiritual, emotional, and personal growth.

This is the real work. Not just healing from someone else, but healing the version of me that allowed it to go on for so long.

Because like attracts like. And I’ve realized that as long as I stayed at a low vibration—carrying shame, codependency, and my own fear of abandonment—I would keep calling in people who mirrored those same wounds. The Universe is destined to provide me with whatever I truly ask for. And what I was asking for was causing me more pain, and more trauma. Some of the people brought into my life, like BBG, served to illustrate this fact.

So now I choose differently.

I choose to raise my frequency by facing my shadows head-on. I choose to release the people and patterns that were only ever reflections of my unhealed self. I choose to make space for relationships that are nourishing, honest, expansive—and truly rooted in love and respect.

You cannot manifest wholeness while clinging to what fractures you.
You cannot receive true love while tolerating manipulation.
And you cannot rise while still defending the weight that’s been sinking you.

This journey isn’t easy. But it’s sacred. And it’s mine.

We cannot manifest our highest selves while still tied to people who thrive on our lowest moments.

Healing from BPD — For Those Who Live With It, and Those Who’ve Been Hurt By It

Healing from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is not just possible—it’s a real possibility. But healing from its effects is also messy, nonlinear, and deeply personal. Whether you’re the one living with BPD or someone who has loved (and been hurt by) someone with it, the path forward begins with one shared truth:

Healing is not about blame—it’s about responsibility. And it begins with radical compassion and clear boundaries.

For the Person Living with BPD

If you’re living with BPD, you’re not broken. You’re not toxic. You’re someone who has survived immense emotional pain, often since childhood, and your nervous system learned to respond with intensity in order to protect you.

But now, those same patterns may be hurting the people around you—and keeping you from the love, peace, and stability you deeply crave.

Healing means:

Learning to self-soothe without destruction.
Building emotional regulation skills through Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT).
Unlearning the belief that love must always feel like chaos.
Taking ownership of how your words and behaviors affect others.
Learning that boundaries are not rejection—they are safety.

This takes time. It takes honesty. And it takes help. But it can be done. You are worthy of relationships that don’t revolve around repair. You are worthy of wholeness.

For Those Who’ve Been in BPD Relationships

If you’ve loved someone with BPD, you may feel emotionally whiplashed—swung between love and cruelty, intimacy and isolation, idolization and demonization.

You may be grieving the person you knew and the relationship you thought you had.

Healing for you means:

Releasing the guilt of not being able to “fix” them.
Letting go of the idea that love alone could save them.
Acknowledging that your pain is real, even if theirs is too.
Rebuilding trust in yourself—your perceptions, your worth, your boundaries.
Learning that compassion does not require you to stay.

The emotional damage from these relationships can be deep, especially if there was verbal abuse, gaslighting, or emotional instability. But just like they have healing work to do, so do you—and it begins with reclaiming your peace.

The Balance: Compassion + Boundaries

The most important lesson in navigating life around BPD is this:

Compassion without boundaries is self-abandonment.
Boundaries without compassion become cold walls.

We need both.

Compassion allows us to see the pain behind the behavior.
Boundaries protect us from being consumed by it.

Whether you're staying in a relationship, distancing, or walking away completely, the goal isn't to punish or save—it's to honor your own healing journey.

Final Thought

BPD is not a death sentence for love, connection, or peace. But it requires work—hard, honest, ongoing work. And that work belongs to the person who has the disorder—not the person who loves them.

Healing is possible. For both sides. But it begins with truth, accountability, and the brave act of choosing to break the cycle—so something healthier can grow in its place.

Closing Words: Throw Out the Trash and Rise

You’re not meant to heal in places that keep reopening the wound.
You’re not meant to stay in conversations where the only response is cruelty.
You’re not meant to hold hands with the same people who push you off cliffs.

So if you're dealing with betrayal, bullying, or emotional chaos—release it.
Not because they deserve forgiveness.
But because you deserve peace.

And if anyone asks why you're glowing so much brighter lately?

Tell them:
"I took out the trash."

Closing Mantra

I hold compassion for those suffering from unhealed trauma—
but their pain does not have to become my prison.

I release the need to fix what was never mine to carry.
I grow not by clinging to toxicity or self-defeating habits,
but by letting them go—with grace, with courage, with clarity.

In that space, I make room for healing, alignment, and truth.

I no longer confuse chaos for love.
I no longer stay where I’m only shrinking.

I choose better ways. I welcome better days.

And I rise—lighter, wiser, and free.

Want to wear the message?

Check out my ResistanceTheNoise Etsy store for shirts and hoodies that say it loud—with style:

“Throw Out the Trash & Manifest”
“Letting go isn’t cruel. Holding on is.”
“You don’t owe closure to chaos.”
“I won't drink the poison just because you poured it in my cup.”
“I see your wounds behind your weapons.”
“The brighter you shine, the more shade you attract.”
“They Threw Shade. I Grew Roots.”
“I Don’t Clap Back. I Copyright.”

In the near future I plan to design a series of wearable art that will address mental health and abuse issues. These are serious issues that have major ripple effects across our society when left unaddressed. I want to bring attention to these issues and provide a means to normalize the discussion of them, and encourage people suffering from mental health problems, and abuse, to seek help.

Encouragement to Seek Help

If you’re struggling with intense emotions, past trauma, or feel trapped in a cycle of abuse—you don’t have to carry it alone. Healing is possible, and asking for help isn’t weakness—it’s the first courageous step toward freedom.

You are not broken. You are not a burden. You are not too far gone.

Whether you’re facing BPD, ADHD, anxiety, depression, or the wounds of emotional, physical, substance or other abuses, there are people who understand—and who are ready to help you come back to yourself.

Mental Health & Support Resources

Immediate Support

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (U.S.)
Call or text 988 anytime, 24/7, for free, confidential support.
Crisis Text Line
Text HELLO to 741741 (U.S. and Canada) to talk with a trained crisis counselor.

Therapy & Mental Health

BPD-Specific Support

Final Words

You are worthy of peace. You are capable of healing.
And you deserve a life that doesn’t revolve around living in and surviving pain—but thriving beyond it.
Reach out. Ask for help. The first step is the hardest—but you don’t have to take it alone.

“They Threw Shade. I Grew Roots.” — Turning Betrayal into Becoming

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