AITA for blowing off my best friend due to her mental health issues?

NAH. The friendship is having a negative effect on you. You do have to focus on your life. If you aren’t in a healthy place or are being pulled out of a healthy place, I think it is reasonable and right to protect yourself. You told her your needs. You didn’t stop talking to her without communicating them to her.

My questions and everything that are about how things can go if and when you resume the friendship. What type of mental health care is she doing? It seems whatever treatment she is undergoing isn’t sufficient and she may need to change it or add more intense support. Has she been resistant to treatment or specific treatments? Are her providers any good?

Is she still dating your brother-in-law? Is there another person in her life? I ask because they may be in the position to encourage, arrange and/or support that new treatment. Are you in a position to provide support behind the scenes like researching treatments, looking at providers in the area, and passing that info along?

Depending on her diagnosis, I may have recommendations for literature that have been useful for various people I know. Generally, I have had good luck with information coming from the psychiatric department of Johns Hopkins University. Faculty have written useful books for patients and families for different mental illnesses. They have centers for mood disorders, schizophrenia, etc. You can go to their websites for the diagnosis and find the names of faculty and then do searches for books by them on Amazon.

I’m sure your therapist has given you great advice, so I’ll just state my thought that you should identify that you would need for this friendship to be good for you in the future. Stick to that.

/r/AmItheAsshole Thread