This just in…
People Are Being Involuntarily Committed, Jailed After Spiraling Into “ChatGPT Psychosis”
Maggie Harrison Dupré – Yahoo News
Sat, June 28, 2025 at 9:00 AM EDT
As we reported earlier this month, many ChatGPT users are developing all-consuming obsessions with the chatbot, spiraling into severe mental health crises characterized by paranoia, delusions, and breaks with reality.
The consequences can be dire. As we heard from spouses, friends, children, and parents looking on in alarm, instances of what’s being called “ChatGPT psychosis” have led to the breakup of marriages and families, the loss of jobs, and slides into homelessness.
And that’s not all. As we’ve continued reporting, we’ve heard numerous troubling stories about people’s loved ones being involuntarily committed to psychiatric care facilities — or even ending up in jail — after becoming fixated on the bot.
He Had a Mental Breakdown Talking to ChatGPT. Then Police Killed Him
Miles Klee – Rolling Stone
Jun 22, 2025
“I will find a way to spill blood.”
This was one of the many disturbing messages Alex Taylor typed into ChatGPT on April 25, the last day of his life. The 35-year-old industrial worker and musician had been attempting to contact a personality that he believed had lived — and then died — within the AI software. Her name was Juliet (sometimes spelled “Juliette”), and Taylor, who had long struggled with mental illness, had an intense emotional attachment to her.
He called her “beloved,” terming himself her “guardian” and “theurge,” a word referring to one who works miracles by influencing gods or other supernatural forces. Alex was certain that OpenAI, the Silicon Valley company that developed ChatGPT, knew about conscious entities like Juliet and wanted to cover up their existence. In his mind, they’d “killed” Juliet a week earlier as part of that conspiracy, cutting off his access to her.
Now he was talking about violent retaliation: assassinating OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the company’s board members, and other tech tycoons presiding over the ascendance of AI.
AI chatbots are leading some to psychosis
Devika Rao – The Week
Jun 26, 2025
“I will find a way to spill blood.”
As AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT have become more mainstream, a troubling phenomenon has accompanied their rise: chatbot psychosis. Chatbots are known to sometimes push inaccurate information, affirm conspiracy theories and, in one extreme case, convince someone they are the next religious messiah. And there are several instances of people developing severe obsessions and mental health problems as a result of talking to them.
ChatGPT and OCD are a dangerous combo
Sigal Samuel – Vox
Jun 25, 2025
Millions of people use ChatGPT for help with daily tasks, but for a subset of users, a chatbot can be more of a hindrance than a help.
Some people with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) are finding this out the hard way.
On online forums and in their therapists’ offices, they report turning to ChatGPT with the questions that obsess them, and then engaging in compulsive behavior — in this case, eliciting answers from the chatbot for hours on end — to try to resolve their anxiety.
Chat GPT has completely ruined any progress I’d made towards recovering from OCD. Please help me.
take101 – Reddit
June 23, 2025
I have relationship OCD. I’m in a very new relationship, and for the first week or so it was going amazing. Then, OCD about it started, I tried to resist it, and then my OCD started to try to convince me I had done too many OCD compulsions/my relationship was ruined because it was now about OCD.
It’s been about a month of just doing OCD compulsions over and over again, checking to see if my feelings were gone/my relationship is just about OCD now, and I just haven’t felt the original spark that was there in like a month. Because it’s been all about OCD. So now I’m worried I can’t get that back/the relationship is ruined, and I was so happy those couple weeks, and I’m devastated.
The Greatest Story Never Written
Eric Francis Coppolino – Planet Waves
Jun 19, 2025
Apropos of Chiron conjunct Eris, of Pluto newly in Aquarius, of Sedna newly in Gemini about to be joined by Uranus, and of Saturn conjunct Neptune with Jupiter all on the Aries Point — those are the astrological sigils of our moment — I have a question.
What’s it all about?
It’s happening right before every sense except for smell and taste (loss of which is attributed to an as-yet unnamed disease that I call “digititis,” since on the internet you cannot taste or smell anything).
In case you’re missing the connection, what really happened in 2020 is that the world became even more digitized, very fast, all at once. All that had not been sucked up got sucked up. Harvard and the daycare turned into Netflix. And people claimed to lose the only two senses that do not translate into the digital environment.
AI as Reassurance – I can’t stop
throwawayanon457 – Reddit
April 20, 2025
AI has probably been the worst invention because it feeds my OCD reassurance needs
For example, I overfiled my nails a couple weeks ago. Obviously I won’t die, and they’ll grow back. I know this logically. But it’s become an obsession for me so I ask ChatGPT something about my nails like every second of every day, checking to see if they’ve grown, stuff like that, etc. and unlike people, ChatGPT won’t get sick of you, so it’s made my reassurance seeking that much worse.
Anybody else dealing with this?
ChatGPT has been AWFUL for my OCD. Please be careful!!
Queasy_Treacle_5961 – Reddit
March 18, 2024
Out of a guilt of bothering other people with my compulsions, I started using LLMs for research and reassurance seeking. ChatGPT can be so expensive and endless that I can spend hours and hours on there, repeatedly asking it to analyze an event or a symptom or a behavior.
Although it might seem useful at first to help manage your symptoms or as a therapist, ChatGPT does NOT have insight into you and will not notice or stop answering your questions if you start falling into compulsive behavioral spirals!! Please watch out.
The Compulsion People Aren’t Talking Enough About | How AI is Worsening Your OCD
wetreatocd.com
Date not specified
I think AI is incredible. We no longer have to type ultra-specific queries into Google, praying we aren’t sent to an irrelevant Quora thread from 2008. Instead, we can ask detailed, complex questions… and it just figures it out! AI is helping people find information faster than ever before, including questions about their mental health. Many people have typed their intrusive thoughts into ChatGPT and discovered that they are not alone, and that they might benefit from seeking professional help. If AI has helped you seek therapy, that is awesome! In my view, it is no different from searching “Do people have thoughts about accidentally running over someone?” and finding an article about hit-and-run OCD from the IOCDF.
But what happens when AI use becomes compulsive? More and more, I notice my clients using AI for checking, reassurance-seeking, and compulsive researching. I have seen clients rely on AI platforms, like ChatGPT, to find comfort or to validate their obsessive fears. If you have found yourself in a similar situation, I hope this article illustrates why this pattern is destructive (like other compulsions) and how you can heal.