I am currently reading "Crazy," by Anne Reed. Connor, one of the main characters, has a close friend named Isabel, another main character. Isabel is severely bipolar, and Connor is trying to help her through all of her highs and lows. But, Isabel always tells him to leave her alone, that she doesn't need his sympathy, and so on. Connor keeps trying to help, and Isabel won't let him.

Towards the beginning of the book, Connor realizes that Isabel's problems are getting to be too serious for him to handle, so he asks if he can talk to his mom (a therapist) about her. Isabel immediately responds with "Just because you can't figure me out doesn't mean I'm crazy. How could you even say something like that?" Connor feels the need to apologize, even though he was only trying to help. How was he supposed to know it would upset her so much? I think that Connor feels the need to always give in to Isabel, even when she gets mad at him for helping her.

Every once in a while, Connor gets fed up with trying to help Isabel and her always rejecting or insulting him for trying to help. Towards the middle of the book, Isabel asks Connor to forgive him for something that she had done, and he doesn't. He tells her, "No. I will not forgive you. I am sick of always forgiving you... I have to pretend it doesn't hurt because I'm afraid that if I tell you how I actually feel, you'll run away even more. You get mad, and I apologize for things I didn't even do wrong... Everything is always about you." Connor finally tells Isabel how he really feels, and how he can never even do that because he's afraid she'll get mad. It was extremely brave of Connor to finally admit everything he'd been thinking, since he had always been so afraid to.

In the book so far, Connor continually goes back and forth between always forgiving Isabel and giving her everything she needs, and telling her how sick of it he is all the time. Isabel is always surprised and upset when he reveals how he's been feeling, but its because she only thinks about herself whenever she makes any decisions. She never thinks about anyone else, especially not Connor, so she really can't be too surprised when he tells her that he doesn't want to be treated so badly anymore.