Unfair to stop friendship due to mental illness?

[dragondepressed]

Over the years I have had people who I thought were my friends sever contact due to my mental illness. Five years ago I was voluntarily admitted into a psychiatric hospital for about three weeks. Then in 2019, I was sectioned for two weeks then I had a psychotic episode in the same year which led to me sending rambling emails to people, thinking I was being accused of horrible things and crimes and going to be killed with machetes and wanting to kill myself before this happened so I would die less painfully. The last 13 years of my life have been ruined by mental illness. One psychiatrist suggested I had Complex PTSD, another mentioned Borderline Personality Disorder, a different one then suggested I suffer from Paranoid Schizophrenia. Throughout all this, I have had 'friends' sever contact and end the friendship I thought we had. I have no friends and I'm probably going to end up like that woman who died in her flat and nobody bothered/cared so her body wasn't discovered for two years. Do people not want to be friends with people going through mental illness?

This is a powerful but true post.

You don't necessarily need to keep people at a distance. It's more about knowing when to allow them some distance. Obviously if you are in the middle of an episode you may not be able to read the situation very well and not see when it is time to allow people to have space. With my friend she tends to get more and more needy when she's not doing well and almost treats people like her therapist rather than her friends, and that is when it can get exhausting but she's not able to see it herself so I create that distance myself by just not answering all of her calls. I always say to my friend to ask herself if her expectations might be a bit too high. Often she will phone repeatedly and expect you to just drop everything and spend hours on the phone, then gets upset if you can't because she thinks it means her friends don't have time for her. But the thing is she's asking for too much time too frequently from people which they just can't humanly give because it's not possible, they have lives too and can't just sit around listening to her on the phone all the time. It's about balance I think. Being a friend can mean different things to different people. To me being a friend doesn't mean being stuck on the phone listening to someone offloading for hours, but to my friend that's exactly what a friend is meant to do.

This is a powerful but true post.

No, reality is much more complicated than that. I've know someone with BPD come off their meds because they felt flat and wanted the high they got from the manic stage of their illness. They ended up becoming floridly manic (I think that was the term the psychiatrist used), music blaring day and night from their flat, threatening neighbours and council workers who tried to intervene. My friend Jo's schizophrenic son refused medication that seemed to be helping him on numerous occasions, usually just at the point when it seemed to be working. He preferred to rely on alcohol and illegal drugs and died in his 40s of an overdose. I think self-destructive behaviour is quite common. It's not lazy but it can be a choice.

In my attempt to learn more about BPD I read the memoirs of Kay Jamison, who is a US professor who suffers from BPD and has made its research her life's work. She talks about the temptation to come off her meds in order to live life on a high — and there have been periods of her life in which she has consciously chosen not to medicate in her desire to try and capture a long-lasting high.

She's a heroine in some quarters and seems like a good woman, but I do wonder what life is like for those around her. Family, colleagues, students, friends: I'd like to see their take on it.

This is a powerful but true post.

Thank you

But genuinely, what are suicidal people MEANT to do? Not talk about it?

Talking about it has been widely discussed and pushed and all mental health professionals/ charities / helplines etc advocate it strongly with slogans such as “ talking saves lives” etc etc

Not many people ( me for one ) feel comfortable talking to random strangers at all on helplines etc and so may choose , with huge fear of the reaction, to confide in someone they know and trust.

Yet reading this . Again, my heart sinks as not taking away from the OP , but I rarely discuss or disclose the full , quite serious details of my thoughts and have been pondering sharing them for a while. Now however, I doubt I will
share . Not suggesting I am suicidal myself or anything.

So yes, back to my original question, what are suicidal people meant to do??

Seek professional help.
For years, I was a huge burden on my friends... offloading my suicidal thoughts and intentions onto them. I lost a few in the process, but the ones that really helped were the ones who called the emergency services.
Being actively suicidal is an emergency. You would not ask a friend to help if you were having a heart attack or stroke.
Unless they have done some sort of reading up on suicide, or did training, your average person will feel well out of their depth when you mention to them your darkest thoughts.

So yes, back to my original question, what are suicidal people meant to do??

Seek help from those trained to deal with suicidal people. Doctors, mental health team, A and E, Samaritans and various other help lines are the people/ places you'll get help from.

It's not fair to burden untrained peope with the stress of feeling responsible for making sure you don't kill yourself . It is too much and it is selfish to put that on others.

What do you expect a layperson to do?
What tools do you think they have to navigate the burden of keeping someone alive?
What about their life and their stresses?
Their work, children, their hobbies for the goodness of their mental health?

I suffer from mental illness but have had therapy, medicated and when things start to tilt - I go back and get more medication/help. As my condition is genetic, my childhood was difficult because one of my parents had the same condition but there wasn’t the medical support, innovation that there is now. It was awful managing their health as a child and now adult as they’ve never been on the right path medically.
My siblings also have the same condition and I’ve had to step back after twenty years with one of them to force them to do what O do. Sounds awful but their illness makes everyone’s lives a misery, the support the need - despite my best efforts is 24/7 and there was a point where I had to give up to get some joy out of life. Now they are on the path at least.
OP, I’m so sorry you are lonely - the more treatment you get, the more support you get, the more your life will improve and your friendships will get easier. It’s not your fault, but people just aren’t equipped always to be the friend you need. I wish you huge luck with recovery and I promise you - you will have friends and it will get better.

But genuinely, what are suicidal people MEANT to do? Not talk about it?

What use is trauma dumping on people around you going to do? It’s not going to improve your mental health.

But genuinely, what are suicidal people MEANT to do? Not talk about it?

I'd suggest the best thing you can do is talk to people who are distanced from you and trained to cope with the emotional stress of having someone with suicidal thoughts confide in them. Family and friends are often too close and emotionally unprepared to cope with the revelation that someone is suicidal. I'd suggest you talk to a professional for your own sake — because the professionals will know the best way to support you — and for the sake of your friends and family, who can be so easily overloaded.

When you tell friends and people close to you that you're suicidal a high proportion of them are likely to feel that you're asking them to save you from yourself and that's very difficult to cope with. I'd suggest that if you are going to tell friends, @JammiDodgers, try and be clear about what you hope to get out of telling them. Are you looking for relief, for practical help, for understanding? I think you need to be really clear with them that you're not expecting to be rescued, because I think a lot of people hear a cry for help and feel that they're being asked to take responsibility for something too big and scary to cope with.

Have you thought about speaking to a psychotherapist, Jammi? You pay them to listen and to cope with the emotional burden of your feelings and to support you professionally. They may be able to support you to talk to the people around you in a way that won't leave them feeling overburdened. I wish you well and hope you find the support you need.

I agree with this.

Suicidal people should talk about their feelings, absolutely - but with the right people, who can give practical support and answers, and who they aren’t making feel uncomfortable or helpless

I feel like I am very much hijacking the OPs thread and apologies for this- I probably will start my own thread.
My mental health is hanging by a thread as it is. I do not trauma dump or discuss on a regular basis with anyone any thoughts that may be difficult for them to deal with . Absolutely not. I was just asking a question, that was all.

I'm sorry to hear about how bad things are for you, Jammi. I don't know your situation, but if you work for an organisation that offers staff health support, can they refer you to a suitable professional?

You say you don't want to talk to a stranger, but there's safety in talking to someone who doesn't know you and whom you won't have to meet again if you don't want to. I wish you the best.

What 90% of responses make clear. Lessons to be learnt.

1. It is detrimental to be friends with someone with a mental illness.
2. Being upfront about your past mental health problems will scare people away.
3. People suffering from mental illnesses are a burden on friends.
4. Being friends with someone with a mental illness can be too intense for most people.
5. The negativity and danger around extreme behaviours during a psychiatric episode are unacceptable. Of course, any dangerous situations that one has been put in are unforgivable.
6. The bad times outweigh the good times when it comes to dealing with friends with mental health problems.
7. Mental illnesses can make people selfish and attention-seeking.
8. People going through psychiatric episodes are unable to keep boundaries in most cases.
9. It is too draining to deal with a friend who has mental health problems.

10. Any support given by the mentally ill friend to the other friend is negated by their mental illness, as it is too draining. 11. It is too much pressure to deal with someone mentally unstable, especially if one has their own problems in life to deal with. 12. There is the very real, possible danger of mentally ill friends dragging you down with them. 13. People with mental illnesses tend to be abusive and use others. 14. It is too much hard work to be friends with someone with a mental illness. 15. To protect one's own mental health, it is best to avoid being friends with someone with mental health issues. It's not just about them. 16. Only confide in mental health professionals and mental health helplines. DO NOT CONFIDE IN FRIENDS ABOUT YOUR SUICIDAL FEELINGS AND STRUGGLES. 17. FIRST SEEK HELP FROM MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS TRAINED IN MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS AND SUICIDAL FEELINGS: FRIENDS AND FAMILY ARE NOT TRAINED TO DEAL WITH THIS. IT CAN JUST MAKE THINGS WORSE AS THEY WILL BE FRIGHTENED.

Is this a way of calling out people who genuinely struggle with the mental ill heath of others? And saying to those with MH issues that no one but professionals care about them.. because that is simply untrue.

I have MH difficulties. I'm not equipped to deal with the struggles of others.