Too much hard work being friends with a mentally ill person?

[jumanjigertrude]

According to lots of people. Mentally ill people should only associate with professionals and should not seek help from friends or family, lest they cause them too much distress or disruption in their lives. The bad times outweigh the good times when dealing with people suffering with mental illness. It is too draining to deal with them. If that is the case, what are people going through mental illness supposed to do? If nobody wants to associate with them and treats them like a pariah, then what's the point?

I have several friends with depression and anxiety. One with agorophobia.

I am not sure I've heard anyone say that.

What I have heard is people saying it's ok to step away where that friend's MH issues is having a negative impact on the friend. Which I agree with.

We all have mental health, it goes through healthy and unhealthy periods to a greater and lesser extent. All of our friends and acquaintances manage and balance their mental health, hopefully with the correct supports, when required.

No one is a punch bag for other people's mental health. Unqualified people cannot be responsible for the MH of others. People can support to the extent that they are capable. If anyone of us feels overwhelmed by the MH struggles of another person, we are entitled to prioritise our own health first.

Every human has MH.

I've never heard that, and I have MH issues

Where have you heard that op? I have never heard anything like that!

Totally agree. I have a mental illness as do many if my friends. I can with my issues and with theirs. Not a problem.

But I've had friends step away from me (in bad times, I'm not hard to deal with as a general rule!) and that's fine.

Not everybody can or wants to be friends with someone who has poor mental health and that's not something they should be ashamed of or have to fight against.

You would not ask friends to treat you for cancer or fix your broken leg or be a professional therapist.
It s a balance.
An ill person may needprofessional help
But friends can support as they are able and willing. They can also set boundaries.

People are free to protect themselves from any aspect of a friendship that they feel overwhelmed by.
Some people are scared of mental health problems, fear making things worse by saying the wrong thing etc.

Who are these 'lots of people' that think that?

Straw man argument.

There are times when I step back from friends in a crisis that is more than I can support and it puts my wellbeing at risk.

There are times my friends step back from me, because my mental health crisis is a bigger drain than they can cope with at that time.

The rest of the time we support each other with love and compassion. We don’t judge anyone for stepping aside when something is too much for them.

It’s not a case of All In Or All Out.

Of course, mental health professionals should always be sought out first. However, there's a lot in the media about reaching out to people when you're struggling but that can be detrimental to someone else's wellbeing. There's also completely cutting people off completely which can lead to more isolation which surely won't help? But if boundaries need to be clearly made, then it's understandable.

I have mh issues. And I have a friend with mh issues. Sometimes I cannot support them because it's too triggering for me. What do you expect me to do?

Yes it is a balance and not a case of "All In or All Out". However, it does seem to be the latter most of the time.

It’s very easy to feel like this when you are battling mental health issues. By their very nature they feel very isolating because you feel like no one understands.

in my experience however from both sides of the table, people really do care and want to support, even if they don’t know how.

Are you referring to threads on MN, often where the person with the mental health issues is the male DP of a poster? Because in most of those cases, the mental health is being used as an excuse to abuse someone.

Being supportive and helpful to a friend or family with mental health issues is very different to a) being a carer or b) being expected to put up with shit behaviour.

And from my perspective, I'm tired of people using mental health as an excuse for poor behaviour.

Yes professional help is important but Being able to talk to friends and family is essential if you have MH issues. Withdrawing leads to more problems.

If the friend doesn't want to know then it's up to them but not really a good friend if they cut off someone in need.

According to who? I've literally never heard anyone say this. Certainly not the many friends I have who have supported me through sustained periods of poor mental health and hospitalisations. Someone may have said it to you, but that's indicative of your relationship with the person. It doesn't apply to the majority of people.

This makes zero sense

There are so many nuances to this though. There are cases where people are struggling and think that their struggles are obvious, but actually they are masking better than they think. In those cases, sometimes they need to speak up and ask for the help they need. You can also get people who get stuck in "trauma cycling", and keep talking about the same thing over and over. This often isn't helpful for the person involved, and can be draining for others. Then, as other posters have said, you also get cases where the emotional crisis is beyond what someone else can deal with, so they have to step away. It's complex.

Never heard that.

However I think sometimes people who are mentally unwell can be a bit draining and sometimes be selfish friends- not deliberately but sometimes it can be very one sided friendship. And it's very difficult to sustain that and feel responsible for someone when really they need some professional help which I just can't give them.

Its absolutely not that people don't want to help and support their friends but that it can sometimes be a very fine line before the helper is struggling and feeling like they need some help. It's ok at that point to put yourself first and put boundaries in place. For example I had a friend who would literally phone at all hours of the night and expect me to just drop everything at a moments notice and have the same conversations for months on end without actively making any positive changes. She would want to meet up almost every other day and it became exhausting and wasn't actually benefitting either of us at all.

I'm sure she maybe thinks I was very selfish or I wasn't there for her and we aren't as close now but the truth is I was starting to develop MH problems because of her reliance on me and I had to create some distance.

I’ve had MH issues myself so I am compassionate towards people but there is a limit. I’ve had to distance myself from people who were a constant, long term drain on my emotions and who expected too much from a friendship. I’m not a therapist or anyone’s saviour. It’s important to know one’s own limits.

That isn't necessarily true.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that. However, one of my friends is biploar with an alcohol issue. When she's bad I have to step way back because I'm a recovered alcoholic and it's triggering (horrible word but hopefully you know what I mean) for me.

When I was much younger and had a bad eating disorder, some of my friends stepped back and I don't blame them. I was very difficult to be around and looking back, things that young women do together e.g. clothes shopping, going to get food, were a bit of a minefield.

As long as friends aren't substitute therapists and there are boundaries which are respected, then absolutely no reason people can't be. Reaching out should be seen as asking for someone to help you help yourself though. Friends are not mental health professionals, and it can be very emotionally draining to have a friend who is always in crisis and only ever talking about themselves and their problems.

Why don’t you tell us what has happened op? It might offer some insight and more support if we understand why you feel like that. Do you feel let down and isolated because you are unwell at the moment?