TLDR: I’m 20f and I live with my best friend (20m) and 2 other people. One of them (21f) has an extremely unhealthy attachment to my best friend and refers to him as her “FP” (favourite person – a term people with BPD use online). Her behaviour is getting more and more extreme and I have no idea what to do. Its impacting my friend greatly and causing a lot of stress in the flat.
I’ll call my best friend Ollie and my flatmate Laura. There’s another flatmate who isn’t directly involved.
I’ve known Ollie since we were in primary school. He had a difficult background (both parents in and out of prison and time in foster care) and he spent a lot of time at mine. My parents joked about him being their son. We have a very sibling-like relationship. We now go to the same uni (different courses) and we share a flat with 2 others.
I met Laura at uni and we were originally friends. She met Ollie through me. She was always very intense about him but it’s got a lot worse. When I first met her she was relatively normal and I don’t know exactly when that changed because it happened over time. Early this year she started talking a lot about having borderline personality disorder. I have no idea if she has it or not but I know she’s never been diagnosed because she literally told me that she asked to be diagnosed and the doctor said no. She was fuming about it. Since she started talking about it her behaviour has become very stereotypically BPD-like and she uses a lot of terms people use online such as “FP” which refers to someone you’re unhealthily attached to. People seem to romanticise it. She is extremely active on tiktok which is probably relevant.
I don’t remember exactly when but she decided Ollie is her “FP” and since then her behaviour towards him has got way worse. She says she’s not romantically interested in him, personally i think that’s a lie but whatever. She has tried to hook up with him multiple times when he’s been drunk. Ollie has a lot of problems especially with substance abuse and self harm. She insists he has BPD and tries to talk to him about it constantly. He doesn’t have BPD and I know this because a psychiatrist literally confirmed he didn’t meet the criteria and his issues are trauma-related. I was at the appointment with him and literally heard the entire discussion. She won’t let it go though.
She encourages very unhealthy behaviours such as drug use, self harm, skipping classes and giving up mental health treatment. Ollie is absolutely not a saint and doesn’t need much encouragement to do those things but last year he was actually doing quite well and now he’s a mess. She literally buys him drugs. One morning I came down and he was passed out on the sofa semi-naked because apparently he threw up on himself and she was crammed on to the sofa cuddling him. He was freaked out when he woke up and when she wasn’t there he said something about feeling “violated”. He said it like a joke but I’m not sure if it was.
Any time he meets another girl she ends up doing some weird shit like sending him s/h pictures or messages implying she’s going to do something to herself. She never says it’s because he’s with another girl but it would be a pretty big coincidence. She posts a lot of stuff online about him without his consent including pictures and videos when he’s asleep or out of it.
Ollie has said he’s uncomfortable but doesn’t know how to address it. He’s bad at being assertive and standing up for himself. I don’t get the impression he enjoys the attention but who knows. I’ve tried talking to Laura about it several times but she reacts badly to put it mildly. She says stuff about how it “must be nice to be neurotypical” (I’m autistic so not even accurate but okay), accuses me of being jealous and basically tells me to butt out. We’re meant to be living together in the same place for another year and I don’t know if I can actually ask her to leave. I could possibly leave but I would be concerned about Ollie if he stayed and I expect her behaviour would continue even if we aren’t living together.
How do I deal with this? Maybe it’s not my place to interfere but I’m concerned about my friend and Laura’s behaviour is very stressful to live with. At this point i don’t actually like her and don’t care about offending her but I still don’t want to be unfair or make things awkward for others.
Btw I know people might assume I’m reacting due to jealousy because I’m secretly interested in Ollie, that’s what Laura has accused me of at least. I’m not. First off I’m not into boys. Secondly I’ve never had any issue with any girl he’s been involved with, and there have been a lot. I might not like every single one of them but as long as they treat him ok I’m not bothered.
12 comments
If you are able to actually distance yourself and Ollie from her that sounds like the best plan. I understand that being roommates is a financial matter and it might take time due to a lease but start talking to Ollie about how you both don’t deserve to put up with someone who seems well “toxic”. You can choose a different word or really just talk with him about how you both no longer feel safe around her. Maybe even talk to your third less involved room mate. Don’t make it person but make it clear you want less association, time spent near and not to share any more of her mental health issues. Even if she is or is not diagnosed you are not responsible for her and do not need nor want to get more involved. Start making the plan and getting your friend on board asap. Tell him exactly what you told us about how he was doing well and seems to be doing worse more recently. Hopefully he can see that he is being enabled to make bad choices. Talk from a place of caring and caring about “boundaries” a thing Laura seems to lack. Good luck and sorry you had to deal with all that.
This is really Ollie’s problem to sort out for himself. He’s a grown-ass man, not an innocent child you need to protect. If he struggles with setting personal boundaries and telling Laura to leave him alone, all you can do is encourage him to talk to his mental health provider about healthier ways to deal with Laura’s bizarre behavior, including her efforts to get him to quit therapy and get back into substance use. She seems to be succeeding.
If you, Ollie, and your third roommate can all agree that it’s time to kick Laura out, that might be the best situation. But it could be tricky, since your original agreement was that you would room together for the entire year. Maybe she’d agree to move sooner, if the three of you can offer her enough time and a cash incentive to find a new place. And certainly you can kick her out at the end of the current lease, if you can manage to put up with her for that long.
Don’t worry so much about whether people think you’re jealous of Laura. Your good friends will know that’s ridiculous, and who cares what anyone else thinks? Just try to be the good friend to Ollie that you’ve always been. Keep encouraging him to stay away from Laura and talk about her with his therapist, because she is leading him right back down the rabbit hole into unhealthy behaviors that he wants to escape.
Ultimately, if Ollie is going to self-destruct he’ll do it with or without Laura in his daily life. I worry that you are moving dangerously close to becoming his codependent caregiver, rather than just his good friend. It’s fine to keep talking to him and encouraging him to avoid Laura and keep working on resolving his childhood trauma issues. But you also need to figure out how to detach and not care so much, if he ends up spiraling downward under her bad influence. Ultimately you need to put your own mental health and well-being first.
>We’re meant to be living together in the same place for another year and I don’t know if I can actually ask her to leave.
Why wouldn’t you be able to ask her to leave?
Have a sit-down discussion with Ollie and your other roommate, and mutually agree to contact the landlord outlining your concerns and asking to replace her on the lease. Then give her a letter with 30 days notice to vacate.
Be aware that this will cause her to absolutely lose her mind. Since she is only 20, if her parents are trustworthy and responsible people, I would contact them ahead of time so that they can intervene when she inevitably attempts suicide.
The long and short of it: one of those two is going to have to find alternste housing.
​
in the short term: Ollie needs to mute her or everything (Phone, social media). It is clear she is trying to sabotage him on many fronts, so limiting access to him is in his best interest. ollie needs to make it that she cannot get under his skin whenever She wants.
Dont listen to anyone that tells you to distance yourself from him. What you all need to do is to get rid of her. She clearly has a twisted view of these things. Having BPD is NOT and hear me out NOT making these things acceptable. She is kind of a psycho. Find a way to evict her and forbid contact with him. He doesnt need that and also doesnt need to be alone and have no one to show him how thats not the way. If someone needs to be punished its her
You guys need to either move or kick her out before she ruins Ollie’s life. Stand up for Ollie, she’s being abusive.
Individual with BPD here.
That makes me so mad. I’d really like to slap some sense into people like that! (Not literal, I’m a pacifist but the thought was still here. People that feed the stigma & don’t see their wrongdoings are probably the most huge trigger in my life)
A lot of her behaviour you listed would absolutely fit the criteria.
So, if she’s SO active in the online communities didn’t she hear about how divided we’re about the term FP? It’s romanticizing emotional dependence & an unhealthy attachment. I go completley nuts at my partner?
_”Ph.. oh boy I feel SO bad but.. you know, you’re my favorite person and I just CAN’T help it! You know, it’s my BPD!”_
(Don’t get me wrong. Having a “fp” is really real and sometimes you’ll lose control & it can be explained with the diagnosis, but NOT excused & if it escalates it’s the individual with BPD’s responsibility to make sure it doesn’t happen again/ less intense etc)
**She needs help, better yesterday then today. All of you, ESPECIALLY OLLIE (!!!!) need to set strict boundaries and stick with them.**
Kick her out if she’s fully unwilling to see her unhealthy behaviour or refuses to work on it.
She’ll probably either be super understanding & able to reflect on herself or fully lose her shit. Take care & stand firm.
So a phrase we use a lot in therapy is “your mental health may not be your fault, but it is your responsibility.” Whether or not she has BPD is irrelevant to her behavior.
She may or may not have BPD, but she definitely needs help, and I hope she can get it.
Best of luck, OP. You’re doing the right thing by looking out for your friend. Harassment is a completely reasonable reason to remove someone from your lease.
ETA: TikTok has made a lot of people armchair experts on many subjects. It is important to keep in mind that mental health exists on a spectrum, and some people with the same diagnosis may present differently. Either way, TikTok is not a licensed mental health professional.
Honestly, I think she’s right on the money with the BPD diagnosis.
There’s an entire subculture on TikTok dedicated to showing off how “cute” and “quirky” it is to be mentally ill, which I guess would be fine if the people participating in the trend were actually mentally ill and were trying to see the positive side of their conditions. But it’s 99% comprised of people like your roommate: people who self-diagnose and then proceed to make it their entire personality. It’s performative bullshit and I can almost guarantee you that she’s part of it. You mentioned in another comment that her personality drastically changes around her parents, so they likely have no idea what she’s been doing.
As someone who struggled with multiple mental illnesses, people like her disgust me. They reduce the struggle of countless others to a list of “traits” that they either (a) pretend to have or (b) completely over-exaggerate. More often than not I feel like these people are just looking for an excuse to act out.
If a person suspects they might have a mental disorder, it’s perfectly reasonable and acceptable for them to do some basic research and speak to a doctor about their concern. She (presumably) did that and her doctor outright refused to diagnose her with anything. She’s not mentally ill, she’s an obsessive creep who’s hiding behind mental illness to excuse her shitty behavior.
I’m sorry the three of you (and especially Ollie) have to put up with this. I’m not sure where you’re located but I’d suggest looking up your local laws. There are laws in the UK and in many US States that make it illegal to capture and distribute a person’s image, especially in situations where that person would have an expectation of privacy. If she’s sharing photos or videos of him either asleep or inebriated in his own home without his explicit consent, there might be a legal argument against her. I’m no legal expert and I’m not suggesting you take her to court, but if she’s breaking the law than it could potentially be leveraged with your landlord to get her removed from the apartment. Seeing as drugs are involved as well, I’d be surprised if he didn’t listen.
Blow this whole situation up. It sounds like you all go to school together, so you can probably get legal help from the school, and the dean can step in due to the inappropriate interaction between students.
If you all don’t go to school together, the pictures were taken without consent and that might be enough to get a restraining order. Usually a lease can be broken when there’s a restraining order.
Get out of this mess and try to save your friend if you can.