Introspective HPD friend

Firstly, im a partial HPD victim, luckily I never got in too deep.

I don't know where to start, but I literally found out about this disorder a few hours ago, and it seems to make EVERYTHING make so much sense. I've tried everything to try and understand her and why she does the things she does, it felt like smashing my head into a wall.

I guess im organizing this into 3 parts.

Backstory

I first met her at work about a year ago. At the time she had just broken with her BF. Within a week she went bonkers over me. She would follow me everywhere, tell me I make her heart go "boom boom", Write little hearts on all my paperwork with my name and hers on it, and even tried to give me an "engagement ring" made out of candy. Every time, I would just turn away an ignore her, or just blow it off as a joke, as I was quite creeped out by how she came on to me so fast, especially right after breaking up with her BF. Finally, she came up to me and said something along the lines "Why are you like this? I thought we had something going?!?!", I just blew her off with something like "I don't care!". And we pretty much stopped talking to eachother for about 3-4 months. Just a few weeks later, I found out that she had "crushes" like this on like 3-4 other guys at the same time. It seems like I did the right thing.

So fast forward to 3-4 months later, we start talking again, hanging out a little bit (work christmas party and stuff), but this time her advances are much much more subdued, and I slowly start falling for her over the course of a month. Finally she tells me something about how she talks about guys (whom she gives silly nicknames) with her friend. So out of curiosity, I check it out, and I very very easily figure out which one is mine, and she talks about how im her "winner" how she she has dreams about me and stuff like that. Finally, at one point at work, she whispers to her friend something, and her friend turns around and says "Youre making her nervous". She then gives her friend the dirtiest look and starts freaking out on me and say "Just tell me you love me! admit it! you know its true! ect.", and is driven to the verge of tears. I just leave. And later on that night, against my better judgment, I tell her that she's probably right, and I ask her out. She just turns around and ignores me. Later on, I talk to her again, and she tells me she just wants to me friends. In return, I call her crazy, and then she proclaims "oh my god! I think I screwed this up!", I replied "screwed what up?", she says "I don't know!", but then she added again "But im sure we should just be friends". So I told myself screw it, shes a nutjob, and stopped talking to her for a couple months, which turns out, is the worst thing you can do to an HPD.

Just a week after this incident, I was in a room with her an another female co-worker, and i'm talking to the other co-worker pretty enhusiastically, and totally excluding her from the conversation. At one point im talking about an exam in remote sensing that I nailed. She finally loses it, and bursts out "Oh yea?!?!? Well I did really well on MY remote sensing exam too!". And I knew she had no idea what remote sensing even meant, so I replied "You don't even know what remote sensing means!", and she gave me a dirty look and left.

So a couple months later, she starts making advances on me again. However, this time I've figured that she's a huge flirt, and took no notice in her. Infact, at one point she jumps me with a EXTREMELY overenthusiastic hug. I and just calmly tell her that she has a level of enthusiasm that's WAY too high for a normal person, and told her shes not a normal person. Gradually, she started acting nervous around me. For example, at one time, I walked out of a room and appeared right infront of her unexpectedly, and she looked at me panicked and started walking in the opposite direction (I don't know if any of you saw the movie "21", where the girl the main character likes walks into his store, and he does the same thing, it was exactly like that). And another instance where she starts to ask me for a ride home after work, but panics and stops mid-sentence, and leaves the room. So my logic at the time was that if she's acting nervous around me, then it must be a genuine feeling deep in her, and not just flirting right? On top of that, at a party a week later, although slightly intoxicated, was all over me, feeling me, and even kissed me (well, technically she tried and missed, lol). Then she wanted to make out, and in all my infinite (and stupid) wisdom, I told her that I don't make out when i'm drunk, which obviousely made her bananas for me again. I'm thinking ok, I'll ask her out again. I did a week later, and she just just said she couldn't, and didn't reply to anything I said after that.

That was the final chance, I stopped attempting anything after that. And again, she would behave strangely, for example, after a shift at work, she would message me on MSN, apologizing that she didn't have the time to talk to me at work. And finally, a couple weeks ago, at another party, she kissed me again, and more intensely than the previous time. And the next day at work, she completely avoided me, and told a friend to tell me she now has a BF (who lives in another city). I have my doubts about this, because just a week earlier she was telling me how she "can't get a succesful relationship". And weve barely talked since.

I think the most frustrating thing is that she is very outgoing, but also very very reserved, especially regarding how she feels towards me. Never have we talked about anything we've done, and she pretends like nothing shes ever done, or any of the advances shes ever made ever happened. Its like our friendship has no history.

Other signs of HPD

-She constantly flirts with many guys at work, then when they're not around, she calls them creepy. For example, this one guy (who really is creepy), called her at like 2am telling her he wants to cuddle with her. She she talks about how creepy he is. However when I see her around him, she flirts with him hard andhugs him, and whatnot. I just felt like screaming at her "Why are you flirting with him?!?! you know hes creepy, you know hes crazy for you, YET YOU STILL DO IT!". This includes a much older guy, who she CONSTANTLY complains about how he's trying to get her to go out with him. Yet she flirts with him more than anybody else.
-She constantly brags about how many guys are trying to date her, or are oggling her or whatever.
-I've heard many people talk about how "fake" she is, or even ask my opinion about it.
-Her friends change all the time, and she has like 15 "best friends".
-At one point I figured out on my own that she HATES not being the center of attention. So at one time in the break room, i'm leading the conversation with half a dozen people, and constantly taking the center from her and putting it on myself, and almost excluding her completely. She finally loses it and raises her voice really high and said something about how im NEVER invited to her house because I said plastic dishes are bad or something stupid, and keeps going and going. Everybody kinda looked at each other in bewilderment at what she did.
-She's gotten quite jealous when she heard rumors that a couple other girls at work had crushes on me, and started questioning me.
-I know she's been taken advantage of before.


Why I think there's hope for her

I'd say on about half a dozen occasions, I feelt like I truly talked to the true her, behind her HPD, and how she seems quite depresed about her "carziness".
-Firstly, she's admitted that often times she likes too many guys, and she wished they would all go away.
-She's admitted to me that she thinks "she's crazy"
-She's told me that she has trouble keeping friends. But she came up with the rationale that it was the culture and the country we live in, because she lived in many other countries (she's from Mexico, which apparently, "HPD may be diagnosed more frequently in Hispanic and Latin-American cultures" according to http://www.minddisorders.com/Flu-Inv/Hi ... order.html).
-After her complaining about not being able to keep friends, and with her birthday coming up, she said she never has a birthday party, cause nobody cares. So I promised her I'd host one for her this year. And I hosted it, and it turned out really great. She cried of joy when I gave her her gift, and she joked that I wasn't allowed to get her a meaningful gift. A couple days later one of her friends told me she never had a good birthday like that, because she always refused, because on of her ex did something really bad or something on her birthday in the past, but she refused to tell what that was. And worst of all, she never told me about this ex, she only said she had one ex. So she even denies his existance.

Infact, with all these things she's told me, which match up perfectly with HPD, I wonder if she actually knows whether she has it or not, because she has pretty much admitted to me that she suffers from most of the symptoms in HPD.

She's introspective enough to realize that something is not right with herself.

Now for the final question:
What can I do about it?

-Should I approach her straight up about it?
-Should I just point out all the little things she does which match up to HPD, and eventually tell her about it, while citing the things I pointed out?
-Should I just forget about it completely?


She bugs me, not because she bugs me directly, but it bugs me how everybody falls for her, and don't know about this. And I feel really really bad for the guys she keeps teasing and flirting but refusing. he's absolutely tormenting them. And I think she dosen't realise it.


edit: HOLY CRAP, i didnt realise I wrote this much!

swift-guy,


I wouldn't mention HPD at first.........I would just say.........

You know you seem to have a big hole in your heart and you're trying to fill it with every guys love.......that's not going to wokr.........you can't sucessfully go with every guy at the same time......ect

You know, you seem to have a real need to be the center of attraction.............

etc............

She's not introspective. The HPD behavior you have described is not that of an introspective person.

I think when she expressed that she was "crazy" and all, she was actually just saying what she thought you wanted to hear AS A MEANS TO MANIPULATE YOU. That's what I think.

Don't try to help her. You are not qualified to. If she truly wanted help, she would get it herself in a psychiatrist's office.

And personally, I don't think there's hope with HPDs. They're in such deep denial and seemingly totally unaware that their behavior even hurts people! They blame others for the messes they create.

It's like playing with fire, truly. If you like the excitement, take up bungee jumping.

I have to agree with pinkflamingo. The HPD that my son married started out with this same type thing only it was about her past problems with men and sex and how she knows she has a problem. She told him that she would just go back to her old ways if he left her. She was reeling him in!

Don't get in deep swiftwin! If you feel you must do something buy her a book. I've heard Emotional Vampires is a good one. Give her the book and go your separate ways is my advice!

Read what everyone else has wrote on this forum and KNOW you can't help her!

I recommend "Emotional Vampires" as well, but for yourself, so you can read about her.

I wouldn't suggest giving her the book, though. Most HPDs are in such deep denial that if they read about themselves in a book which YOU had given them, they would then project those qualities onto you and start attacking you, telling you that it is YOU actually, who has the HPD and THAT'S why you're seeing it in her. And throw in, that she hopes you get the help that you need (I've heard that one from an HPD).

They have to turn the tables. That's what they do. They're spinners of chaos.

Well, yeah pinkflamingo, I guess you're right! I just felt if he absolutely HAD to do something a book might work, at least for his conscience sake. But we all agree on one thing..... run, run, very fast in the OPPOSITE direction!

Hey RidingTheTide,

Sorry, didn't mean to diss your idea.

To clear my conscience I had to explain to a HPD friend in an email exactly why I could have nothing to do with her. But it "fell on deaf ears". They cannot understand how their behavior affects others. So it was truly a waste of my time, writing to her.

It's best that we sane people learn as much as we can about the disorder (and PDs in general), to steer clear of them or learn how to best deal with them if we can't get away, say, if they are in our family.

Pf

Another reason I just can't stand idly by is that now she trying to reel in a friend of mine.

I know they went out a couple times a little less than a year ago, he started showing some interest in her, so obviously, she ran. Now he got a really hot girlfriend, so now she's trying to reel him in again. She was bragging about how she got him to kiss her, and how she's the "man" in her relationship with him. But he's still sticking to his GF. And it seems like every day goes goes more and more mad for him.

Also, one of the "creepy" guys I was talking about is quite depressive and on medication. Its quite distressing to see how she's tormenting his life.

I can't just run away, I work with her, and she's in my group of friends.

The thing is: You can't change her. "Working with her" is futile.
She has a personality disorder, after all. You're not dealing with sanity.

Either you can show all of these guy friends the "Emotional Vampires" book, so that they know exactly what they are dealing with, or just detach from her drama and chaos and let the soap opera play itself out. You truly cannot control the situation. It is out of your hands, unfortunately.

She is not the victim. Trying to work with a perpetrator so that she will see the evil of her ways? That's not going to happen! Even trained psychiatrists have a difficult time with PDs.

If anything, work with the guys--wake them up to the fact of her mental disorder--that she is not sane--and how they're being manipulated by her.

And perhaps consider NOT having her in your group of friends, if that is possible. She's manipulative and only out for herself. She cannot be a true friend to anyone. And I can imagine she probably ruins a lot of potentially fun times, with her dramatics.

Do any of your friends feel the same way about her as you do? Can't they see through her bubbly facade, through her act?

Most do, but some don't.

But what they (and I didn't untill I found out about HPD) don't realize is the extent that she will go.

For example, like I said, the second time around, I knew she was a huge flirt, so I bushed off alot of her advances, which only fed her more, and made her push further right up to the point where she kissed me and wanted to make out with me. I fell for it, because, like them, I didn't realize for he she would go. I know a guy whom i'm pretty sure pushed her all the way.

But she's pretty good at keeping the drama behind wraps though. The only way I find out about it is though bits and pieces from different people. Cause I know a friend who can't believe at the amount of drama that comes out of her.