To an extent, I really do agree with what you on this. I think I benefit from being in therapy and learning how to better deal with other people's out of line behavior. I really do think I've become better at maintaining my boundaries, dealing with confrontation, and protecting myself. However, like mcl, I also find it quite irritating that people in my life (with serious mental health issues) refuse to seek treatment and/or refuse to take prescribed medication and, as a result, make my life more difficult by putting me in the position of having to reassert my boundaries over and over again, remind myself that their behavior is manipulative and I should not engage, or weigh my options '"do I come to the rescue when they call" or "do I refuse to enable them, but know that they will be verbally abusive to me if I refuse to help."

For instance, as I mentioned in my own recent post, there is a (former) friend who is beginning stalker-like behavior towards me and is dumping all of her emotional problems on me and trying to manipulate me-- making me feel sorry for her so I will continue a friendship with her even though I do not want to and it is not healthy for me. I have told her that she really should be in therapy and I would be happy to have my T give her a recommendation. She said she knows she is mentally ill but feels she is "beyond help" so she refuses to see a therapist--- however, she tries to use ME as her therapist by spilling all of her emotional problems to me and asking me to help, when I'm not qualified and it actually scares me. Thus, I've been using MY therapy sessions talking with T about how to protect myself from this person--- when I need to be using my (expensive and precious) therapy sessions to deal with my own issues. So, mcl, thank-you for bringing up this topic-- it was helpful for me to hear you phrase things the way you did and it showed me that I'm not the only one who feels this way!