Regarding the mental illness, I’m drawing a blank on the solution. I guess it’s like addiction. Be there to help people when they are ready but the amount of resources including time and energy you are willing to sink into it will depend on how close they are to you or how much of an impact they have on your life. In this case it also means setting up your life so that things you can’t change affect your life as little as possible.

I actually can think of a couple of “solutions” that might work. I don’t have the stomach or ethics to implement any of them and would consider the cure worse than the disease at worst and a Pyrrhic victory at best.