Is it ever ok to cut someone out when you know they need help cos you can't cope with them any more?

[ilovecaboose]

Say you have a friend. That friend had a terrible life growing up, that just got worse and worse. You have been close friends for years, through thick and thin kinda thing.

As a result of problems/issues from things that have happened to them, they feel a need for control including you and everything you do - but subtely. By putting you down if you do something they don't agree on and other tricks like that. They also have a habit of exploding if things go wrong/don't go their way and have screaming fits/smash things up/threaten to harm themselves.

You know they need help, but they won't accept there is a problem and so refuse to get it. Any comment about this leads to an explosion (so does any comment that counts as criticsm).

In the end you cut them out your life - knowing that this could have serious consequences - you don't know what will happen to them.

Is this ever ok? Deliberately cutting someone out who needs your help?

Opinions please

BEar in mind the person does not realise they are exhibiting this behaviour/that there is anything wrong with it.

I dont know what I would do. I think you have to do whats best for YOU in the end though, especially if you have a family as your family should always come first

Thanks for that. Thats what I did (this was a few years ago). Just feeling guilty about it. The people in question (two seperate people) lived with us (at seperate times) so there was basically no break from it.

Second one I cut off when I had ds.

I still worry about what is happening to them and would get back in touch to find out if they are ok but:
Friend A - worried I would get stuck back in again- but then again I wouldn't be living with them and I have ds as an excuse to not be with them 24/7.
Friend B - would not talk to or even look at me for what I did.

I still don't think I did the right thing, that is the problem. I keep thinking that if I had not been so selfish as to put me first and was a more considerate/caring person then I would not have done so.

Another girl I went to school with killed herself a couple of years ago. We were acquaintances not friends, she had similar problems which is why I would not be friends with her. I worry these people will do similar.

There are some things I really regret.

I dont think what they do 'after' is your responsibility though! If you are having real emotional problems coming to terms with this then maybe a short course of counselling would be useful for you? I am estranged from my Father and after counselling I have realised I did the right thing cutting off from him in the first place. Being friends with someone who manipulates you, whilst you do all the giving is very grim indeed and you most probably did the right thing. You just need to believe that yourself

being a friend is give and take aswell. From what you have written, these dont seem like 'friendships' at all

Yes it is.

I had a situation quite a few years ago with a very old friend of dh's. He got worse and worse and we had to screen our calls, he was virtually stalking us. All his friends dropped him, we were the last people he had left. He was unbearable to be around and he frightened me. We ended up cutting him out after a LONG time and much angst and soul searching.

He was sectioned not too long after and had been living in a hostel. He was arrested for making death threats to people and was diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic. We know a few people who have bumped into him and tried to help him but he is beyond help, paranoid and delusional and really unpleasant still.

We tried all sorts with him, suggesting that he had counselling or sought help but he could not accept he had a problem.

I still feel bad about it but you are ultimately not responsible for this person and if they are literally ruining your life then you have to cut them out.

I did something along these lines with a woman I'd known since we were both teenagers. In the end I found the sheer ungiving neediness, and her utter refusal to take any action to tackle her situation, just more than I could handle. I had two small children and felt that enough energy was being drained out of me as it was; it's not that I don't want to listen to friends in trouble or depression, far from it, but X was just leeching off me and then trying to make me feel guilty for not wanting to see her. I had enough.

Yes. There was a thread on here yesterday, I think it was in miscarriages/bereavement, from a poster who had a friend who was increasingly nasty.

Now this friend was probably unbalanced, but unwilling to see that or get help.

So there's not a lot you can do but cut her out unless you're willing to put up w/the behaviour.

I had the 'stalking' problem with friend A - had to get an answerphone, change my mobile number. Luckily she never came to the house.

The stress of the friendships and what went on after affected my mental and physical health. With my ds this is not something I want to go back to. I know that.

I feel guilty at the moment and keep having dreams about them. I'm also quite lonely which I don't think helps. I also know they haven't got family to rely on and know how they tended to drive friends away. I also know that they can't cope on their own.

I've been trying to ignore it but its not working and I think I may try to find someone to talk about it with.

Message withdrawn

I had a similar situation to Motherinferior with an old friend. I cut her out of my life for two years. We met up again after than and rekindled and remade our friendship. We are now close again but I think losing my friendship was one of the things that made her take a good look at how she was behaving and realise she needed to change.

I don't think you should feel guilty. I gave my friend a lot of support but in the end I had become a crutch that was helping her to stay in the same place and not begin to tackle the issues she had.

Also, I think one needs some emotional reserves to deal with the people one knows and loves dearly who go through periods of needing support. I realised I'd rather free myself up from dodging X's calls in order to be able to support Y and Z who were going through tough times.

I think that by continuing to put up with this type of behaviour you encourage it, so yes, you've done the right thing - don't feel guilty. I've had to phase people out for similar reasons and wouldn't hesitate to do so again.

I also had a friend commit suicide, although he wasn't one of those troublesome friends. Ironically, I was being badly stalked by one of the 'terrorist-friends' you have described, so didn't have time or energy to return my nice friend's phone calls. I still feel guilty about that, but even so, I may not have been able to save him if I had been available. I think ultimately, people are responsible for their own lives.

I think sometimes, some people attract certain types of people, for example I find that for some reason I always get the people who are always ill fannying about around me, you know the type? Always at the doctors, always got a head ache, always hurt their knees, always got a bad neck, always up and down from the hospital for this test and that test when you know there is nothing wrong with them? I used to find myself getting into the same old conversations, moaning about how a certain doctor hadn't done enough to cure whatever happened to be wrong that week, or running around getting shopping for the ones that were bed bound on "doctors orders", and one day I just thought, why is it always me that has to put my life on hold for them all? Why is it that the odd time when I am ill no one ever knocks on my door asking if I need anything from the paper shop? Why is it always them talking at me whilst I am sat there trying to predict what they want me to say? So I stopped doing it. I don't do the nodding along, pandering to all their needs, worrying about them at all hours of the night.

My life 100% better, they get on with theirs the way they choose to. I am not responsible for them.

You are not responsible for them.

Gosh. One of my friends once phoned me up at 6 am to listen to her son's (perfectly normal!) breathing, then demanded to know what was wrong with him and why he kept waking up, and was he going to have an asthma attack and was he going to be sick. I was 6 months pregnant at the time, with a toddler of my own who didn't rise until 9, but she saw nothing odd in what she was doing to me. I had to start unplugging my phone at night!

I told her, eventually, that she needed to see a GP, she did, and ever since her anxiety levels have gone down I very rarely see her, and TBH I feel used.

But, I think if it had continued I wouold have had to drop her, because she was stealing my energy, literally. she would ring up and say "Hi how are you? We are dreadful here....(20 minutes moaning) ...oh I have to go, bye"

I never got a word in edgeways!

Look at it like this. Friends have ears, not just voices. You are not a social worker, a friendship is not all giving, you can be a good friend without sacraficing your happiness.

NJ you just said what I was trying to!

this friend of mine never knew, and still doesn't know, that we had to take ds1 to hosital once, she never asked and probably wouldn't have listened if I had tried to tell her!

I've done it because they needed to find proper help rather than relying on me. It was temporary though.

i think sometimes you have to, for your own sanity.

i'm in a similar situation with a friend now. she's alwasy been a taker more than a gived in friendship terms. over the last couple of years her life has been a bit car-crash-esque - relationships, job and home-wise. she tends to call or show up shen she needs something (recently has been: when she needed somewhere to stay, when she needed someone to drive her around looking for a car, when she needed someone to drive her around looking for a flat). never says thanks. always takes me for granted (am sure she thinks i have an easy life and should therefore give unconditionally). i am tired of 'being there' and getting nothing back (e.g. no card for ds's 1st birthday, which really annoyed me).

so, a long answer, but - yes, i think so

more than a giver

Having old friends is like having a habit; it's very hard to step back and see whether it's a good habit or a bad habit. Some people are just energy vampires, leeching it out of you and never giving it back. While there are periods in any person's life when they need a little extra support from friends, if it continues and continues, it is not a friendship, it is a dependancy.
I went through a stage where it seemed that all my friends were 'lame ducks'; all very needy and demanding. I started to look at myself and wondering if I was 'attracted' to these types of people because of some deep-seated need in myself to be 'useful'. (I can probably trace this back to being rejected by my father )
I am a naturally helpful person, a people-pleaser, but I realise now that I cannot help everybody and it isn't my 'job' to be a free counselling service to all life's waifs and strays. I know this sounds hard, but I had to toughen up as other people's problems were begiining to affect my mental health.

I have recently had this situation ilovecaboose and have all but cut contact. The thing was it was not just about our adult friendship but I did not like the friendship that dd was having with their kids, especially the younger.

I felt I was maintaining a friendship that stressed me out and thats not helping either person.

I think sometimes you have to for the sake of your own immediate family. My mother had to do this to a member of her own , something I didn't find out about until many years later.
Of course you feel sad and guilty but you know, sometimes, as Soupy says, cutting off such contact temporarily can be the catalyst the person needs to get professional help.
Friends can and do support - they should not bank-roll, psychoanalyse, house or act as punch-bags for people who are too disturbed to understand the boundaries of friendships.

i'm afraid i did. i had to cut ties with a friend who was really draining. constantly depressed, moaning, letting me down. it got so bad eventually i dropped her. BUT she got help and has turned her life around and we're friends again! was a bit awkward initially, but she's back to the way we were when we first met. big relief!

fullmoonfiend - what you said about being a 'people pleaser' makes sense. I always have been, though I have improved slightly since ds cos he comes b4 everyone in my mind so everyone else has to come second.

I been on the phone to a friend (one of only 2 I see regularly now - met both in past yr) a couple of times a day for the past week who's life has been suddenly turned upside down. The difference between her and these friends is astonishing. She is very greatful for any time I spend with her and feels she is in my debt for helping her. She knew I was feeling lonely recently so she arranged a babysitter for tomorrow night so she could come with me on a night out. In the middle of all she is going through.

My other friend knew I was worried about being isolated when my parents went away for a month this summer - so she came over quite a bit and spoke to me a lot on the phone to make sure I was alright.

The difference in having these friends in comparison to the others is amazing. I'm just gonna concentrate on that for the time now I think.

Thanks for all the responses by the way - it really has made me feel better about the whole thing, so thanks.