for context: I (21NB) have BPD, been diagnosed since ~16 years old (i had a LOT of issues lol), have undergone therapy but am currently not in therapy nor on any medication (outside of for ADHD).

it would be difficult to explain the entire situation without bogging down this post, so the TLDR is: i had a bad breakup late january, became very close very quickly with a twitter mutual end of february, who ended up visiting me in person in may. considered this person my best friend. last month, they moved here, and after a ton of existing issues, sexually assaulted me.

upon telling some other close friends about it about 2-3 weeks after it occurred, it was shared with me that this person had spent our entire friendship talking to my close friends in DMs often, generally seeking advice (initially on how to deal with me when i get a little irritable cus bpd).

on closer inspection, i find out they had misrepresented almost every one of our interactions to other people, painting me as ridiculously emotionally abusive, implied i was using them for money, ignoring boundaries they had set with me, and pressuring them to move here. this is, in every way, the exact opposite of the situation.

in reality, upon comparing notes with other friends as well, this person was disturbingly obsessed with me, convinced i secretly felt romantically for them (i explicitly told them this was not the case several times), and was OBSESSED with "being useful" to me - offering me food often, money, offering to clean my apartment, etc. they constantly oscilated between portraying me as wonderful and special and amazing, and terrible, manipulative, cruel, etc. they were hyperfocused on me, clearly built their self esteem around me, etc.

i'm not going to armchair diagnose anyone, so i'm not, but these behaviors and feelings are.. intimately familiar to me (though i've never ever escalated to this degree!). and now in the aftermath, i'm struggling to deal with this. on one level because of the obvious; this was crazy unhealthy and culminated in some pretty traumatic stuff. but also because i feel disgusted recognizing myself in many of these emotions and behaviors. i'm beginning to feel like a bad person for understanding the thought processes i can almost guarantee they had about me.

i'm lucky to have a support system rn keeping me afloat, but every day that passes i begin to find myself slipping back into my worst in terms of my self esteem and feeling insecure that the people i love love me back. it's like seeing their insecurity and obsession triggered it in me, and i don't know how to stop it from festering.