"AITA for throwing my friend’s diagnosis in her face?"
I've had a close friendship with Mia for ten years. From the start, she was open about her borderline diagnosis, which helped me understand why her behavior toward me could sometimes be extreme. Most of the time, I was her "favorite person," which meant weeks of idealization followed by sudden devaluation phases.
In good times, we spent every free moment together, but in bad times, I had to apologize for days over minor things. I constantly watched what I said, how I said it, and what I better kept quiet about to avoid triggering another devaluation wave. I would never pathologize her or bring up her borderline diagnosis. I learned to walk on eggshells, carefully frame criticism, and swallow a lot.
This unbalanced our relationship, but I was willing to bear it for Mia because I understood the dynamics behind BPD. About three years ago, she started questioning her diagnosis. Her therapy ended, she dove into ADHD content on Instagram, read books, and eventually became convinced that her symptoms could be explained by ADHD.
From my perspective, this was a misjudgment (the borderline patterns were extremely clear). Because she no longer had insight into her condition, her toxic behaviors became even more pronounced. I tried to guide Mia gently through questioning, for example by not fully jumping on her ADHD "train."
But even that led to new intense arguments. At that point, I just couldn’t anymore. I had swallowed years of apologies, handled her outbursts, and now there wasn’t even any insight into why these dynamics kept happening. I wanted to finally speak my mind honestly, hoping she might someday accept it. I also suspected she would immediately cut off contact.
So we met in our regular café to talk. I laid everything out that had been weighing on me. Unfortunately, there was a chess tournament that day in the normally quiet café, making it noisy and the tables were close together. I said loudly: “You have BORDERLINE! Accept it! You can’t help that you have it, but you are responsible for what you do with it.”
People at the surrounding tables stared awkwardly at their chessboards. As expected, she stood up, left, and later blocked me everywhere. I haven’t heard from her since. I was relieved and also saw it as a final act of friendship, but I must admit I said it with a certain satisfaction and hoped it would hurt her. AITA?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
dogsnfeet wrote:
You presumably aren’t trained in diagnosing mental health conditions and neurodivergence, so I don’t think your opinion on what she does or doesn’t have is helpful. It would have been better to encourage her to see a psychiatrist for an assessment who would have the experience and qualifications to unpick what she’s got going on with her.
You don’t have to be her friend if the relationship isn’t working for you, but YTA for wanting to hurt her, for thinking you know enough to diagnose her, and for having the conversation in public.
OP responded:
She was diagnosed by two independent psychiatrists when I met her, and after ten years of being around her I’ve learned a lot about BPD. I know I’m not officially qualified, but I know her better than anyone, and honestly…you recognize the patterns when you see them.
I’m aware that I’m not the person who gets to diagnose her, and that’s exactly why I never said anything earlier. The only reason I finally did was because I really saw her life falling apart. She was losing her friends, her job, her sense of identity…and I genuinely hoped she could get back on track.
BUT it’s also true that after years of being hurt by her emotionally, I knew that being honest would hurt her too. And a part of me did want some kind of justice and wanted her to feel at least a fraction of what I had to endure. So it wasn’t the main reason I told her, but yeah… that part of it was probably an AH move.
goneawry_ wrote:
YTA for how you handled this and your intention to hurt her. I can understand why it was important for you, as a friend, to discuss your concerns and observations with her, but this was not a conversation for a loud public place. Trying to hurt someone by publicly humiliating them with a medical condition they can't help is cruel.
Clearly your friendship wasn't an easy one, but you must have had your reasons to choose to maintain a friendship with her and accept her behavior. She's responsible for how she treated you, but don't resent her for censoring yourself to maintain the friendship, that was your choice.
OP responded:
I don’t hold it against her. Really, I don’t. It was my conscious decision to carry more in this relationship because I loved her as a person and acknowledged her illness. But when she herself stopped acknowledging the illness, I felt used, because I was still taking on more responsibility while she didn’t even see it.
Naainsky wrote:
YTA. You sunk years into an unhealthy relationship and are trying to convince yourself it was a good, moral choice. You finally had enough and hit back, figuratively, and are trying to frame it as a good choice.
You don't want to think of yourself as a person who makes less than rational choices, who is sometimes a bad person, and so you're here trying to get brownie points. I think you need therapy to get a handle on your internal processing.
OP responded:
I did. Therapy led me set boundaries, which ultimately led me to end this friendship.
BigBennyT wrote:
Wanting the friendship to be over because it's exhausting is not an AH thing to do. Yelling at someone that they have BPD in a crowded cafe with the hopes it will hurt their feelings absolutely is.
Ok_Junket_5356 wrote:
I mean, obviously YTA? You said that you wanted to hurt her, and you did it publicly. She’s the AH as well of course for how she’s treated you, but for you to intentionally embarrass her is awful. I hope you both learn from this, and in the future you manage your friendships better. Also, you do not know what her diagnosis is. You have no clue, and to say it so matter of factly was wild.
Thewhatandthewho wrote:
YTA, purely because you wanted to hurt her. I get the resentment but be an adult and learn to end friendships if its pissing you off that badly. Hurting others because you choose to bottle it up and be a people pleaser is your fault not theirs.
NoWillow714 wrote:
YTA because of your last sentence. I was with you until that. Intending to hurt someone, and hoping that your actions hurt them most definitely makes you an AH. This was obviously an unhealthy friendship to be in, and you have every right to end that, but wanting to hurt someone you “care” about is wildly wrong. I hope your ex friend gets the help they need, and that you learn from this experience.