when is it ethical to cut someone off who has mental health issues?

November 22, 2013 11:26 AM

Long story short - I am acquaintances with someone who is crazy. She revealed shocking things to me that I know depict not a normal person's mind (i.e. has sex with five people in one week, things of that nature). I don't judge because she owns her body and has free will, but I know that those are not my values and I can't risk being involved (we had hooked up before, before I realized what she was doing). I'm cutting her off. However, I feel guilty. I am NOT asking whether I should or not -- I am going to -- but I'm interested in discussing the ethics of it. Let's say you have a close friend who has serious issues (mental health issues) and leans on you for support -- when do you say no? When is it okay to cut off ties to give yourself peace of mind, although you are casting away someone who needs help? Discuss.
posted by pando11 to Human Relations (26 answers total)

when is it ethical to cut someone off who has mental health issues?

I am acquaintances...

Right now. Yesterday. Last week. You have no obligation to this person. They're not your spouse, child, parent, or anyone that you need to take care of. It doesn't matter what issues she has, they're not your problem.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 11:28 AM on November 22, 2013 [4 favorites]

Not everyone who needs help is willing to get it. You cannot save everyone. Setting boundaries to protect yourself is perfectly fine and you should not feel bad about it.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:35 AM on November 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

This happens all the time. That's ok. It's not an ethical problem and you don't have to make a big deal about it.

You describe her as both an 'acquaintance' and 'a close friend'. It sounds like she is much more the former.
posted by amicamentis at 11:35 AM on November 22, 2013

...when do you say no?

When the cost of having to help them outweighs the benefits of having them in your life. Despite my phrasing, there's no calculus to it and the "benefits" part isn't about keeping score but rather that there is something to the relationship keeping it going besides you watching out for her. Whatever that is has to be worthwhile, and even if it doesn't become any less worthwhile, it can be overtaken by the 'watching out for' part and then you have to see the forest for the trees.

You seem aware and perceptive and it sounds like you're quite confident that you've hit your limits. That's when it is okay to say "no more."
posted by griphus at 11:37 AM on November 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

I might caution against directly equating "many sexual partners in a short period of time" with "mentally ill". Beyond that, yeah, you get to set your own boundaries on who you interact with. Your own mental health and support are generally of higher priority/protection than someone else's.
posted by HermitDog at 11:37 AM on November 22, 2013 [14 favorites]

A close friend, I would support in a non-enabling way. An acquaintance, I would never return their calls or texts.
posted by thorny at 11:37 AM on November 22, 2013

I don't think promiscuity is a mental health issue, at least not by itself. If sleeping around is the worst dirt you can dish here I think you can file this under "this person does things I do not like/understand" rather than "mental illness," and move on accordingly.

If you are having casual sex with people and then judging them for having casual sex, maybe she isn't the only one needing help...?
posted by kmennie at 11:38 AM on November 22, 2013 [31 favorites]

Are this person and her issues causing you harm or merely inconvenience? The answer is probably somewhere in between those two extremes. The ethics of your decision to cut her off depend largely on where on that spectrum your answer lies.

We all have obligations to one another.
posted by DWRoelands at 11:45 AM on November 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

I have definitely disclosed things to my friends very similar to what you mention here, and if they were judging me "crazy" based on it, I would totally be ok with them never speaking to me again because I do not need that sort of "help" in my life.
posted by Juliet Banana at 11:46 AM on November 22, 2013 [26 favorites]

First off, stop using the word "crazy". It's reductive and it's not helpful.

Second, you can't have it both ways. You can't say that she's crazy for hooking up with several guys in a week AND that you don't judge her. Clearly you do. Stop lying to yourself.

Third, do what you're going to do anyway. It's not unethical. It's outside of ethics, a-ethical, if you will. You're allowed to spend your time with whomever you like. Just don't lie to her and you're good. If you see she's in iminient danger to herself and others, then you have an obligation to step in with regard to ethics, but beyond that, dump her if you want.
posted by inturnaround at 11:49 AM on November 22, 2013 [7 favorites]

After reading others' responses in here I just want to clarify something: from the "i can't be involved" part, my answer assumes this person's behavior toward you is interfering with your life beyond "she tells me things I don't want to know." As in, her behavior puts you into situations where something unpleasant can happen to you in whatever way.

If she's just telling you things about her personal life that you don't want to know, you can just ask her to stop revealing those details to you because they make you uncomfortable. If she insists on doing it, well, then you are being put in a unpleasant situation and you can call it quits because your friend doesn't respect your boundaries and it doesn't matter if it is about her sex life or Pokemon.
posted by griphus at 11:54 AM on November 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

It's absolutely okay to maintain healthy boundaries with someone who is mentally ill. Sometimes those boundaries will be "no contact". It is not your responsibility to solve this person's problems. If you're looking for permission to disengage then, hey, permission granted.

That said, the others are correct and lots of sexual partners is not in and of itself any kind of evidence of mental illness. Extreme promiscuity can occur in various mental illnesses, sure, but don't kid yourself about being non-judgy.
posted by Justinian at 11:57 AM on November 22, 2013

It's great when people are supportive but mental illness does not give you the right to drain someones life away, and supporting the mentally ill IS draining. I would say feel no guilt whatsoever getting away from it if you can't handle it - you have your own life to lead.
posted by Artw at 12:02 PM on November 22, 2013

I'm interested in discussing the ethics of it

The short answer is that you can cut off anyone who's oversharing and makes you uneasy without giving any reasons. It is ethically totally ok to take care of your own sanity that way.

However, your headline suggests that you are uneasy about not "supporting" her while you expect her to "lean" on you. Ask yourself what kind of support she ideally would need.

So. The long answer is that a partner, a close acquaintance or a friend of someone cannot possibly also be a well-functioning therapist or mental health doctor for that same person. It's a matter of position and/or skills.
It's unethical to suggest that this brand of leaning and support would work in this scenario. It's unethical to try, and ultimately fudge that person's chance for a better outcome by giving well-meant but unprofessionally situated (or performed, or both) support, instead of letting her sort herself out using professional help.
posted by Namlit at 12:09 PM on November 22, 2013

If you don't want to be involved, that's okay. But just because she's promiscuous it doesn't mean she's crazy.

Just cut her off. No need to "discuss the ethics of it." She's probably not going to give the opinion of one of her tricks any credence anyway.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 12:09 PM on November 22, 2013

She revealed shocking things to me that I know depict not a normal person's mind (i.e. has sex with five people in one week, things of that nature). I don't judge...

You are totally judging. In your judgement, this person has a mental illness. Stop pathologising people when their behaviour doesn't align with your expectations. You can learn to make the simple decision you don't want to be friends with people for any reason or no reason at all without calling them crazy or whatever.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:16 PM on November 22, 2013 [6 favorites]

If she is indeed acutely mentally ill and needs help (it's not clear to me whether that's actually the case given your example of what you consider "crazy"), she needs to get professional, appropriate help. What she doesn't need is an acquaintance with questionable boundaries getting mixed up in the situation.

Your hypothetical question seems unrelated to the situation you're in. In the hypothetical question, you ask about a person who is a close friend. The ethical responsibilities you have to a close friend who is in crisis are very different than those you have with an acquaintance. If someone very close to you leans on you while they go through a mental health crisis, that's appropriate (as long as you're not their only form of support). A crisis is generally transient in nature and if you're able to provide support to a loved one without damaging your own self/life, then I think it's the right, ethical, compassionate thing to do.
posted by quince at 12:18 PM on November 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

It's OK when they're no longer actively seeking your help, or aren't interested in or able to help themselves.
posted by cnc at 12:21 PM on November 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

If I have no obligations to someone, I can and will cut ties when their problems are forced to become my problems.

There are other people with whom I find I am maybe a little less compatible with as I learn more about them. Some friendships fade. Generally time is a good way to handle this.

Is it ethical to cut ties? Well, if your actions directly hurt someone that's probably not cool. If their actions force you to be included and actively make you feel uncomfortable, they are possibly hurting you. If their actions have no direct impact on you, but make you feel uncomfortable, maybe you might be judging them a little hard.
posted by Nanukthedog at 12:21 PM on November 22, 2013

I think you should cut her off, not because she's "crazy," but because you don't seem to much like her, and you "respect" her choices only in that kind of "whatever you say, Nutsy" way that people have that isn't really respect at all but more an acknowledgement of, as you say, another person's free will, to use rightly or (in your opinion) wrongly, as they will.

(Side note: You are judging. Don't pretend not to judge as a general matter; be at peace with judging and question, if anything, whether you're judging the right things.)

I echo the observation that while promiscuity (for lack of a less judgy term for what you're describing) might be a sign of an unquiet mind, it might not be, and I'm a little surprised that you assumed everyone would agree with you that it meant she was sick.

These things are, to me, worth unpacking not because of this individual situation but because the way you're presenting the question makes it seem like you've created a wall between what you officially believe is the right thing -- not judging, not cutting people off, supporting friends/acquaintances, limiting your sexual partners to those about whom one is reasonably serious -- and its application to individual situations in your own life. On the one hand, you say you have made up your mind about what to do; on the other, you say you're worrying about the ethics of it. This, to me, is curious, as I usually encounter people doing it in the opposite order.

The ethics of it and whether you should do it are, in a situation like this, kind of the same thing. If you concluded it was unethical, would you still do it? If you conclude it's the right thing to do, does that not answer the question of whether you think it's ethical?

To me, it's not unethical to end relationships with people who are struggling to whom you have made no particular commitment to provide support, but ethics requires you to do it in the least painful way you can.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 12:23 PM on November 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

So... it's okay for you to have casual sex with her, but not ok for her to have casual sex with other people? Your perceptions seem pretty skewed here.

You don't have to be friends with anybody you don't want to be friends with, but you might want to reconsider calling somebody crazy for doing the same kinds of things you yourself have done.
posted by zug at 12:26 PM on November 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

Regarding this and your previous mefi question, I think you should be more interested in the ethics of the armchair psychology diagnosing you do to people in your life that you do not see eye to eye with. This is not a heathy way to look at others.
posted by tenaciousmoon at 12:28 PM on November 22, 2013 [5 favorites]

Other people are kind of dancing around this, but i'm going to say this simply. Having sex with five people in a week is not crazy.
posted by empath at 12:29 PM on November 22, 2013 [8 favorites]

I think it may be a win-win for you to cut contact with this person. You're clearly not in a position to be accepting/supportive. My guess is that keeping you around would be worse for you and for her.
posted by gohabsgo at 12:42 PM on November 22, 2013

Well, first off, looking at your questions here, you have a habit of calling people crazy when you disapprove of something they've done. Some flirty guy was a psychopath, now this friend of yours is crazy. If you want to discuss ethics, the first thing you might want to do is look at your behavior.

Millions of people have "mental issues". These range from chronic depression all the way up to actual sociopathic tendencies. When you use 'crazy' as a substitute for questionable (in your value system) behavior, you expose your own ignorance of that simple fact. You do a disservice to those people who suffer from actual mental illnesses by adding to the existing social stigma.

At the same time, you are lacking in empathy for your 'friends'. You absolve yourself from responsibility for this by stereotyping them with careless, dismissive labeling that allows you to feel superior to them. That is not what I would consider ethical behavior.

As for this specific situation, if your friend makes choices you consider immoral, you can certainly cut her off. Personally, though, if I felt that a friend was making bad judgments because she was actively self-destructive or had other issues that pointed to a real mental issue, I would try to help her by counseling her to seek professional help. If she is just an acquaintance, rather than a friend--well, I might not feel it was my place to do that, but I hope I would encourage her to reach out to family and close friends before I just dropped her. But that is just my ethics.

That is all supposing, too, that this woman is not relying on you so much that it compromises your own mental health, or asking you to cross a legal, moral or other hard boundary you have set for yourself.

If she is draining you emotionally or mentally, if course you have to put your own health first.
posted by misha at 12:44 PM on November 22, 2013

This is a weird question. If you've already decided that you're going to cease contact, that's it, end of story, what's the point in us talking about it, really? This is a poor use of AskMe.
posted by clockzero at 12:45 PM on November 22, 2013 [3 favorites]