However, helping is not always a good thing. If we offer too much help or have poor boundaries with our support, we don’t give others a chance to rise to the occasion and recognize their own strengths. Thus, by helping we might inadvertently stifle another person’s growth.

We may help out of obligation and a sense of responsibility or even from manipulation. Or sometimes, others may take advantage of our good intentions, and we feel used. Despite best efforts, helping can be complicated.

Providing aid in a way that feels constructive and truly benefits others without harming oneself is a learned skill. One of the best ways to hone this skill is to know when to stop helping someone who’s struggling with mental health issues.

10 SIGNS YOU SHOULD STOP HELPING SOMEONE

1. When the help you’re offering is not helping.

Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson suggests that if you are offering help to someone—a family member, child, friend, romantic partner, or even a stranger—and it’s not helping, or they are not accepting the help, then stop trying!

When you stop helping someone, it does not make you a bad person. The reality is that you might be wasting your time—or despite your best efforts—are possibly making things worse.

Instead, he suggests that you offer to serve those who want it and will appreciate it. He says to heed the wisdom of “Don’t cast pearls before swine.”

2. If you care more than the individual you are helping.

Do you ever feel more invested in helping someone than they are in helping themselves? If so, it’s one of those red flags indicating you need to stop being so helpful.

Withdrawing your assistance may be the best thing you can do for all involved. If you are shouldering the concern and the worry, in addition to taking the steps on behalf of someone else, it basically alleviates them of the need to be invested in helping themselves. You are doing all the work!

Not everybody wants help, so don’t care more than they do. It’s amazing what can happen if you take a step back.

3. You are feeling angry or resentful about helping.

Feelings of anger, hurt, and resentment about the support you are providing are often an indication that something is amiss. Check yourself.

Are you giving too much? Are you helping out of a sense of obligation, or a desire to please or gain acceptance? Is your compassion being taken for granted or your self-care being compromised?

If the answer is yes to any of these questions, put on the brakes. Pull the plug, set some healthy boundaries, or simply say no to any further aid. Take care of yourself and stop helping. Let someone else step up and deal with the matter.

4. When the recipient of your help fails to meet agreements.

When a loved one fails to keep agreements, it’s important to your well-being that you hold them accountable. Continuing to bail them out teaches them that it’s OK to not respect you and break agreements. This kind of behavior isn’t healthy or helpful for anyone.

For example, let’s say you have an adult child who struggles with substance use disorder. You lend them several thousand dollars in a time of need with the caveat that the money be used for rent. However, they spend it on something else—and then come back and ask for more money.

When you realize the truth of the matter, you don’t have to help anymore!

5. When your help fosters dependency and helplessness.

Constructive helping promotes other people’s growth and independence, while dysfunctional helping does the opposite. Providing support and help to others can feel like it’s in the other person’s best interest and the right thing to do because it’s an ego-boosting habit that enables you to feel needed, in control, or like a savior.

However, this can create dependency and helplessness in the recipient of your support. It can lead to real harm by limiting their ability to take responsibility for their own life.

For example, this dynamic in a parent and young adult child is called parental codependency, and it can delay the young adult’s ability to become fully independent.

If you are too helpful, it can enable others to be “small” and less than they are capable of as well as diminish their hope for a brighter future.

6. Your offer of help is exhausting your resources.

Whether it’s your time, energy, or financial resources, help within your means. If assisting someone else is overtaxing in any of these areas—stop!—even if it’s one of your close friends or someone in your family.

If you agreed to do something but the cost becomes too great, whether that’s financial or emotional, you can back out or adjust how much you can help.

If you are harming yourself and your own mental health, that is not helping. The goal is to provide help or support without draining your reserves.

7. If you feel you are being manipulated to provide help.

If you notice that you are being psychologically coerced into doing something for someone that you really don’t want to do, don’t help them!

Typically, manipulation will trigger a gut feeling that something is off. If someone is bullying you into doing something for them, that’s manipulation.

Watch out for people who play a victim, take advantage of you, and manipulate you with guilt. To protect your well-being, set boundaries and hold them, even if the person asking for help gets angry.

8. If you are making excuses for someone or compromising your integrity.

If someone expects you to be dishonest, compromise your integrity, or put yourself at risk, it is definitely in your best interest to stop helping that person.

Constructive helping does not require you to make excuses, keep secrets, tell lies, or anything else that compromises your self-respect.

If it does, it may very well be enabling. It’s OK to talk to the person and let them know you are going to stop helping them.

9. When you find yourself giving unsolicited help or advice.

There’s a 12-step recovery program called Al-Anon. It’s for the friends and family members of people with an alcohol use disorder who tend to get overly involved in taking care of, enabling, or trying to “fix” the alcoholic.

Al-Anon members are advised to refrain from jumping in to help or give unsolicited advice to others. Instead, they are encouraged to tend to their own lives and let others experience the natural consequences of their actions.

We can all heed this wisdom. Parents will often jump in to rescue or give advice to their children instead of simply listening, allowing them to struggle through their own challenges and figure things out, or asking if they want help.

Sometimes it’s easier to try to “help” than focus on feelings of anxiety from seeing your child or loved one struggle.

Letting your children discover the answer to their own problem empowers them to change any behavior that is making them hurt and causing more harm than good.

10. When helping another person is dragging you down.

Psychologist Jordan Peterson also talks about using the “lifeguard rule” to avoid the kind of helping that will increase stress and drag you down. Here’s what he means.

When a lifeguard approaches a person drowning, they employ a firm measure of self-protection by offering a buoy or rope. That’s because a drowning person is in a state of panic. It’s well documented that this panic can cause them to latch on to whoever is offering help and drown them too!

According to Peterson, the lifeguard rule gives permission to the lifeguard to let someone drown if it’s clear that helping will drown them both.

If helping someone is dragging you down, you may need to let go and move on to preserve yourself. A great example of this is giving support to a practicing addict.

If helping the addict is killing you, then it’s a signal to let go and stop helping someone. And, if you find that hard to do, reach out for professional help and get the support you need to move on.

Eliminating unhealthy forms of helping helps you. With all your extra energy freed up, ironically, you may have more free time to help in healthy, meaningful, and rewarding ways.