Hard times

You need to step back from supporting someone

You've been the one they call, at every hour, for months. You're exhausted, you've started to dread the phone, and you feel like a monster for wanting a limit.

What they need from you, and why

Someone leaning on you this hard is frightened of being too much. If you've never said a limit, they may have no idea what this is costing you, because every call felt like one call. And under your exhaustion there's usually guilt: good friends, you tell yourself, don't have limits.

What they need is the care and the limit together, said early and calmly rather than after months of silent resentment, and a clear picture of what you can still do. The Mental Health & Crisis Support module's BOUNDARIES memory aid starts with being clear about your role: a friend, not a therapist; someone who can listen and help with practical things, not manage their mental health day to day. It also describes how support that never has limits can slide into enabling, standing in for the professional help that would actually move things.

Christina Maslach's research on burnout in the helping professions found a predictable pattern, exhaustion, growing cynicism and a falling sense of doing any good, and showed it is a response to demands that can't be sustained rather than a personal weakness. Marsha Linehan's dialectical thinking gives you the shape of the sentence: "I care about you AND I have limits on what I can give". Both halves are true, and the module's advice is to say both.

Understand it properly

First

Decide before you talk what you can keep giving and what you can't, in concrete terms: how often, when, and what kind of help.

You could say

I care about you, and I want to keep being there for you in a way I can actually keep up.
Care and limit in the same breath is the whole message; either on its own is a different conversation.
I can be your friend through this. I can't be your therapist.
Being clear about your role is the first item in the module's memory aid, and it's a relief to both of you.
I can check in on Tuesdays and Fridays, and I'm there for an emergency. I can't do calls after ten.
A pattern you can sustain, said in concrete terms, is what the module recommends; a vague "less" just makes you both anxious.
Who else is in your corner? I'd like to help you build that up.
Helping someone widen their support is support; being the only support isn't sustainable for either of you.
I think what you're carrying needs more than a friend can give. Can I help you find someone?
The module says the most helpful thing is sometimes to step back and encourage professional help rather than add more of your own.

If it goes badly

Three ways this can turn. Read the one that happens; the others can wait.

You've said something like

I care about you, and I want to keep being there for you in a way I can actually keep up.

If they say you're abandoning them when they need you most
I'm not leaving. I'm telling you what I can do so that I can keep doing it.
Their fear is being dropped; naming what stays answers it better than defending the limit.
If they go quiet and pull away
I can feel you've gone quiet, and I don't want that. The limit is real, and so is the care.
Both halves need saying again; the module's rule is that a boundary is held with love, consistently, whatever the reaction.
If they tell you something that frightens you
Thank you for telling me. Are you thinking about suicide?
A limit never cancels safety: ask directly, and help them reach a crisis line or your local emergency number if they're in danger.

Send them to yourself, or to someone helping you.

Try not to say

"I can't deal with you any more."
It turns a limit into an abandonment; the module's own contrast is "I need to look after myself so I can be here for you".
Going quiet and hoping they notice
They feel the distance without the reason, and read it as proof they're too much.
Setting the limit, then answering the 2am call anyway
A limit that moves teaches them it isn't real, and leaves you where you started.
Apologising all the way through
A string of sorries says the limit is unreasonable, and it isn't.

Afterwards

Keep the check-ins you promised, every time; the limit only works if the care side is real. Hold the line without a speech when it's tested, and don't apologise for it again. Build your own support: the module is blunt that supporting someone through a mental health crisis is heavy work, and that you need people who aren't also supporting the same person, time away from it, and sometimes a counsellor of your own. If what they're carrying is more than a friend can hold, keep helping them towards professional help rather than quietly becoming it. And if they ever talk about not wanting to be here, ask directly and treat it as the emergency it may be.

Understand it properly

The words above come from these. A section is about ten minutes; the whole module is there when you have longer.

Where this comes from

Deeper Dialogues, Mental Health & Crisis Support: warning signs, asking directly about suicide (Dazzi et al., 2014), stigma (Bruce Link), and encouraging professional help

We gather and pass on what researchers and support organisations have found. This isn't a replacement for a doctor, counsellor or support service.

What they need from you, and why

You could say

If it goes badly

Share these words

Try not to say

Afterwards

Understand it properly