I don’t know how else to help or do anything. My friend Jaiden (24F) lives in another continent to me and was born there. We met on the Reddit sub r/raisedbynarcissists where she shared her story and we began to talk in the Reddit DMs. Eventually, we exchanged Discords, where we talk now.
Jaiden has ADHD, C-PTSD, autism, and BPD. According to her, she is also very poor and comes from a very traditional, homophobic, transphobic, family of Neo-Nazis who don’t accept her identity as a trans lesbian.
She has a history of getting upset and lashing out, though it’s less so now. She vents a lot and a lot of people also leave her or don’t like her much. Someone once said “Jaiden’s a little goofy but honestly she’s been through so much.”
I’ve been careful on what to say to her, since in the past, she has said it was abusive to call her goals unrealistic. She is a really ambitious person and her goals are stuff like this:
Be the best at every field
Be extremely beautiful
Be worshipped and loved
Be showered in free gifts
Be loved by people of all orientations and genders
Be really buff, strong, and famous (apparently her friends are famous or well-known)
She always talks about her goals and tended to used to lash out whenever I couldn’t think of whether or not she could achieve her goals, so I said yes. She always asks me whether or not she can achieve this, but she does nothing to try to achieve them and just complains a lot.
Furthermore, all orientations can’t be attracted to her (maybe they can). For example, she’s a woman. Straight women and gay men wouldn’t be attracted to her. She wants everyone in the WORLD to be attracted to her, which is an absolute impossible thing.
Her list is the following:
"- Game modding
- Game developing
- Programming
- Music production
- Learning multiple musical instruments
- Singing
- Sewing
- Graphic design
- 2D AND 3D animation
- Art
- Sound design
- Songwriting
- Fashion design
- Filmmaking and TV show creation
- Tech stuff
- Writing
- Activism
- Being a great politician
- Being a YouTube creator
- Being a great actress
- Being a great Twitch streamer/gamer
- Being a great comic artist
- Being a great photographer
- Learning multiple languages
- Cooking
- Being the best martial artist at kung fu, taekwondo, karate, judo, jiu-jitsu, and krav maga
- Being a great multi-sport athlete (specifically being a great bodybuilder, a great basketball player, a great American football player, a great real football player, a great boxer, a great volleyball player, a great track-and-field athlete, a great skateboarder, a great tennis player, a great runner, and more; but mostly bodybuilding and basketball)
- Becoming extremely strong and muscular, to elite levels.
- Having the most gigantic collection of everything (movies, music, games, literature, comics, toys, art pieces, weapons, etc…)"
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Delusions of grandeur and delusions of persecution are both symptoms of BPD. Both are normally associated with the ‘highs’ or mania. Does your friend ever go through periods of the opposite. Are they medicated for this condition?
I don’t think so, she’s poor with an abusive family so she can’t get much help
Well, I’m not a doctor, but if you asked me, there’s your problem. There is literally nothing you can do for someone in that situation that doesn’t involve professional help and medication.
I would tell her it’s unrealistic to expect all of that all at once and ask her where she wants to start. Pick the top 3, focus on those.
I’ve tried telling her, she doesn’t wanna carry out the goals, just talk about how she wants to do them and constantly vents
Maybe take an affirmative tack… “I want to help, but I can’t help with everything, which one can I help with most?”
She always asks me whether or not she can achieve this, but she does nothing to try to achieve them and just complains a lot.
Up until this part, I really wondered why you felt the need to tell her about the unrealistic nature of her goals.
I don’t think you would be the asshole (provided, you know, you put it in a reasonable way). It does seem like she’s trying to get something out of you that you’re unable to give.
Since she keeps pressing, I think I’d deflect. “It’s more important what you think you can accomplish. I’d love to hear your plans for accomplishing them.”
If what you’ve described is accurate, it literally doesn’t matter what you tell her
To speak your mind on the viability of something does not necessarily make you an asshole although how you deliver the message is probably a big factor
Your friend seems to have a very inflated sense of her own importance that doesn’t match reality. The delusional unchallengeable grandiosity and attention seeking are red flags.
You have to work on acceptance, maybe. You can’t fix someone else, you can just put information out there for them. Obviously it is impossible for one to master all those fields and to be worshipped be everyone.
The caveat of course is how you are communicating this: it is very much possible to learn about many of those fields to a reasonable degree. This requires compromise of course (“jack of all trades, master of none”). It is possible to have a wide variety of people who care about you deeply. To this point to be loved regardless of orientation is probably the statement of the most contention and nuance, I do see what she could mean there. It is possible to be loved by people of all orientations and genders if you find people with an open mindset, though there is a great deal of debate to be had here. This is dependent on how she interprets that statement and I do understand why it may come across as confusing
