I have a bipolar friend (I am too) who after being close friends for a long time suddenly told me she "didn't want to be friends the way I wanted to be", and refused to see me because she was "afraid her empathy wld prevent her from doing what she needs to do". I was totally blindsided, and hurt, and realized too late I was hypomanic and could not get myself to SHUT UP and sent her an email a day for 2 weeks without getting a response or even caring, weirdly enough. Then she blocked me, and it's been since Thanksgiving that she's spoken to me. NOTHING before her announcement that there was anything wrong. She's my best friend, a couple weeks before that it was like always, and then nothing. Did she withdraw, I mean as in BPD? What should I have done? And I feel like such an idiot. I apologized but no response. Just letting her be for now, but wondering if anybody has had a similar experience with a friend. Did they "come back"? Any advice?
It is sad that this friendship cannot last. Is it possible that you did something that made her misunderstand or misinterpret? Sometimes it is possible that some people bottle it up and blame someone without saying any reason. This is kind of not fair but some people are like that - reserved and don't want to fight and yet have their own moral values thinking something is wrong...
It is also possible that she suddenly cannot take the friendship. Maybe she did bear with you for a long time until she exploded. Like a boss suddenly tells an employee to get out...
It is not your fault if there is nothing obvious that you can see, Sometimes it just ends because the friendship is now at a different level.
Often I have friends who just lost contact after they moved far away. It is possbile that she doesn't think you have common ground with her. e.g., if both friends are mothers, there may be more stuff to talk about and etc.
Please forget about it and move on unless you can ask someone else to find out for you what is wrong.
Hugs,
Nina
The Following User Says Thank You to ninamarc For This Useful Post: Ruthsmom (02-24-2013)
She's refusing to allow me to speak to her or to allow anyone even to ask her about her relationship with me. I think she misinterpreted my fear of rejection as a sign that I expected too much from her or that I was very needy. (If anything, people complain that I don't seem to need them, so they feel kind of shut out without my intending it, and because she has more "rules" than I do, I have always let her "drive" the relationship as far as she wanted it to go and never pushed. She's a bit younger than I am, was struggling professionally, and she was the one who sought me out — and she built a relationship with my kids, who adore her, and now she's acting as if I were pursuing her and seems not to care what effect it has on my family. I've backed off, but it's painful, and I have no idea how to communicate to her that her fear, at which she panicked, was not something she needed to worry about. Thanks for the support and the wisdom.
The following user gives a hug of support to Ruthsmom: ninamarc (02-25-2013)
Friendship Fail: BPD withdrawal; now what? 
Thanks for the support and the wisdom.
