(i do post sometimes, especially since i like finding out potential reasons for why people do things)
i (at the time 16m) dated a girl a few years ago (at the time 15f) who claimed to completely lack empathy. she always talked about how terrible she was and how unlovable she was, and wondered why no one liked her.
when i wasn’t there 24/7, she’d abuse substances, harm herself, and the like. she reported hearing voices, had sleeping issues as well.
she also claims to feel no remorse and outright ghosted me after we broke up. we were friends and she suddenly ignored me when she was 16, i was 17 (female then) and right before we stopped talking i found out she was actually straight, not bi or lesbian, and she would send links to gore websites telling me that they were “funny”, “not that bad”, or that she “didn’t feel a thing”.
She has serious issues and you can’t save her. She can hurt you pretty badly on accident if you try
Yes, that sounds plausibly like one of several. BPD or bipolar, or just PTSD from abuse, etc. Orrrr something else or a combination. Obviously none of us here can diagnose that, but by the description she has all the signs of a serious mental illness.
That person desperately needs psychiatric intervention. Unfortunately, many people who suffer mental illness fall into such patterns and as adults end up in jail, dead , or homeless.
Above all: dont ever let her pull you into it.
Hot take: all teenagers are mentally ill
when i wasn’t there 24/7, she’d abuse substances, harm herself, and the like. she reported hearing voices, had sleeping issues as well.
I think that answers your question. We all do real silly stuff in our teenage years but what you’re describing here goes beyond that.
This reminds me of an online thing that I had going with someone that started in my late teens. Even the line about not having empathy was something that I remember, which I never bought. And talking about self harm, suicide, trouble distinguishing dreams from actual events etc. That was a wild ride. I eventually found out, when everything was crashing and burning, that a lot of stories and details of stories were made up too.
Funnily enough, after years of not talking, she’s probably one of my ‘best’ and longest running friends now lol. Someone that I can talk to about anything with (literally the only person I’ve ever discussed gender identity related shit with). I wasn’t born perfect either, and put her through just as much hell, so we’ve both seen and dealt with each other at our worst and lowest, which makes a good kind of shoulder to cry on if you can make it through the other side of that.
And in her case, it was part edginess and part mental health lol. Bipolar and being a teenager that wanted to fit in with the alternative scene and be dark and morbid and shit. Which I actually get to some extent too. When I was young I used to say that I’d be part of club 27 because I thought that a cool thing to say and imagine for myself. Until someone actually pointed out how fucked up it is to go around talking like that.
With such little information my only comment is that sometimes people who feel neglected go for shock value - deliberately saying things they hope will disturb someone enough to pay attention to them. This in turn can have roots that go in all sorts of directions. People are complicated and it’s really pointless to say here’s behavior A, it must have cause B. That’s why profiling is wrong, whether it’s cops or people who extrapolate your whole personality from a comment.
I’m not a psychologist, but some of those things could be symptoms of a Borderline personality disorder.
Mental illness
teen with a bad home life acting up out of attention, smells like
When kids at my school were being edgy, they say things like “[Brutal Dictator in history] did nothing wrong” (cringe, I know, but they’re kids, they probably didn’t actually mean it)
But these kids never talked about self harm
Self harm is not “Edginess”, it can be life/death
