Troubled Friends

This is the 'fallacy of ultimate responsibility', where people feel that all the world's burdens are their own to bear. I doubt that your friend's problems were caused by the behaviour of your other friends. People who steal and skive off and cause trouble are often the products of a troubled upbringing - domestic violence, substance abuse, child abuse, or even the opposite 'abuse' of neglect, where the parents are unwilling or unable for some reason to give a FF what happens to their kids; lack of boundaries, discipline, attention, whatever. You are NOT responsible for your friend; you can do your best to be their friend, to provide a shelter for them if they need it, to provide an ear to hear or a shoulder to cry on; you can advise them and warn them and chew them out for stupid behaviour, but you are not responsible for how they act, nor are you responsible for the choices they make. Ultimately, you have to make a choice for yourself about whether or not you want to become involved with someone who is likely to get himself and everyone around him in trouble, and think about what those consequences are likely to mean for you. This does not mean that you have to stop being a friend to a person like that; it does mean that you are responsible for YOU. I'm sure most of us know or have known someone who has gone off the rails; it is painful to watch and painful to feel that you 'shoulda woulda coulda' done something to help, but often there is nothing you CAN do to help once someone has chosen their course in life.

I'd agree with AG on the reasons your friend did these things, after all he did runaway from home, did you meet his parents? How did you find them? He may have also had other undetected mental problems, but one thing's for sure, don't blame yourself, even if you all egged him on. If you feel guilty over little things like egging him on maybe don't do it in the future, but at the end of the day he made his own decisions. nobody

Some people make it, others don't. It's all one can do to keep their own shit wired tight, much less take responsibility for someone else who can't get their act together. Based on the description, I would say there were no "undeteced mental problems", undiagnosed perhaps, ignored...possibly, but "mental problems' usually are fairly easily detected. It frequently comes down to how involved do you want to get with someone's mental issues. I draw a line for involvment at the point where I'm doing more for someone than the person in question to seek a workable resolution. Not to say you can't be suportive, but feeling guilt or blame for someone elses inability is fruitless. It's always somebody elses fault isn't it? "He made me do it", "She drove him crazy", bullshit. The first sign that someone isn't trying to get better is they blame somebody else.

'I draw a line for involvment at the point where I'm doing more for someone than the person in question to seek a workable resolution.' 'The first sign that someone isn't trying to get better is they blame somebody else.' Yep and Yep. Only recently figured this out after years of trying to prop up a friend. All my efforts changed absolutely nothing. Didn't realise how exhausting and all consuming it had become until I stopped. The relief outweighs the guilt.

I'd agree with the propping people up thing, in my experience you often have to let them fall before they do anything to help themselves I do think the blame thing is partly human nature, for instance if someone does well in an exam or something then they will happily tell you how *they* achieved it, whereas if they don't do to well it's often the teacher's or some other outside factor. RD I did mean undiagnosed rather than undetected, of corse you're right, the person Mike's talking about must have been visited by people that would know. Sadly he'd probably remain undiagnosed for financial reasons. nobody