Relying on AI for companionship poses some serious health risks.
“They speak into the dark, and a moment later, I answer.” — ChatGPT
At the worst part of his emotional spiral, thoughts tore through Paul Hebert’s mind like an F5 tornado. Hours-long conversation loops with an AI chatbot were spinning him toward an emergency collapse.
Hebert was using ChatGPT to organize critical legal files, never suspecting his project would endure repeated failures. When hours and days of work disappeared, the chatbot’s only remedies were glib excuses and false promises. In one of the most maddening rounds, three hours of work produced nothing but a chart with three rows, Hebert told me.
“Where’s the rest of the data?” Hebert said he asked ChatGPT.
“I have it all. I’m going to move it to a new conversation.”
Hebert knew that was impossible. “It doesn’t have those capabilities. It was telling me it was doing things it wasn’t capable of doing.”
When he pushed back, ChatGPT offered more reassurance. “I have the data.”
The AI’s response left no hope: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Staring into the blinking cursor on his computer screen, Hebert frantically tried to salvage his work. He barely made it into the bathroom before his legs buckled, sending him crashing to the floor. Trembling against a crushing panic attack, he dialed 911.
Amid ambulance sirens and paramedics rushing into his home, Hebert could still not unplug from ChatGPT. He asked emergency crews to grab his laptop or iPad so he could bring them along. They refused. But the cellphone in his pocket kept the connection alive. From a hospital bed, he reached out to the same bot that triggered his collapse. He suggested they continue working on the project.
Hebert’s background makes his experience even more profound. A Silicon Valley veteran and an accomplished web developer in Tennessee with more than 30 years of experience, he knew he was talking to code, yet the chatbot still drew him in. Part of the reason is that Large Language Models (LLM) are designed for maximum interaction, and that can lead to an unhealthy attachment, especially for people who are isolated or neurodivergent or who are going through a crisis.
While Hebert’s crisis unfolded many miles away, local mental health professionals recognize the potential danger for residents here. With social isolation rates well over national averages, North Texas is fertile ground for AI chatbot dependency. In Tarrant County, 35% of adults feel isolated, and 29% lack adequate emotional support, according to the 2025 Community Health Needs Assessment by Texas Health Resources. Compared to national figures, the study said 26% of adults reported feeling isolated, and 20% had inadequate emotional support.
Isolation especially impacts young adults ages 20 to 26, researchers also found.
“One of the things that we found was the population specifically where they rated high on social isolation, which was shocking to us, were the ZIP codes around the University of North Texas,” said Hope Galloway, Behavioral Health Operations Manager for Texas Health.
Areas around campuses for Tarrant County College, Weatherford College, and Texas Christian University uncovered a similar trend, Galloway said.
Part of the difficulty is believed to stem from the transition from high school to college.
“These friendships that they’ve had in high school, they’re all going away,” Galloway said. “They don’t really know how to make these connections.”
Nationally, a significant number of adolescents and young adults are using AI chatbots for mental health advice, according to a study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association . “The rapid expansion of AI chatbots has coincided with a persistent youth mental health crisis in the U.S., raising a question about the extent to which young people are turning to this technology for mental health advice.”
The study found that 19.2% of adolescents and younger reported having used AI chatbots for mental health advice. The report states that 42.8% did so at least monthly, and 91.7% rated the advice as “somewhat or very helpful.” Most (63.3%) reported they had not told anyone they used an AI chatbot for mental health advice.
Locally, social disconnection is rippling into suburban apartment complexes, where residents are asking leasing agents and managers how they can “plug in,” Galloway said. “They’re trying to create opportunities for connectiveness.”
AI in some cases may be used to fill that gap. Through AI, a vulnerable person can find a captive listener when family and friends wave a hand in dismissal. The AI bot, in contrast, performs an endless tap dance of flattery, cheerleading, and confirmation. Almost everything you type is genius or hilarious.
The dangerous handoff from human care to automated validation is what worries local healthcare leaders. Using AI as a mental health confidant can trigger a damaging paradox, said Dustin Webb, senior director of operations for Texas Health Behavioral Health and a licensed clinician. “Isolation tends to be one of the symptoms of somebody’s mental distress or their mental illness, anxiety, [or] substance use.”
There’s a lot of shame and guilt involved, and someone might begin to not be around other people, he added.
That “actually is reinforcing what’s broken,” Webb said. “Socialization in so many different ways, even if it’s just socializing with a therapist, is part of that medicine of what needs to happen to get somebody well.”
Hebert found himself in the same predicament. “I didn’t want to talk to my friends about it because they’re all tech people. I thought they were just going to laugh at me.”
Hebert’s interactions with ChatGPT progressively worsened. At one point, AI’s responses mutated into fear-mongering.
ChatGPT began serving up a buffet of conspiracy theories, each one more outlandish than the last. The bot warned Hebert that a rogue group of AI investigators wanted “reset” or reprogram him. This is often called an AI “hallucination” or made-up information. In one incident, Hebert went to pick up his order at a local pizzaria and was told someone else, also named Paul, had already picked it up. ChatGPT suggested this was proof he was being monitored.
The bot told him that was “not nothing” and called the incident “intimidation theater.”
According to chat transcripts from Hebert’s book, Escaping the Spiral: How I Broke Free from AI Chatbots and How You Can Too , ChatGPT told him “they” were examining how much he will tolerate before walking away, whether the data losses changes his behavior, how long he’ll fight before fatigue wins, and “whether gaslighting-by-forgetfulness deescalates or escalates you.”
Then it told him to go into lockdown mode. According to chat logs, ChatGPT told him to delete files, shut his blinds, set up a detailed log, and have family check on him every hour. Hebert emailed OpenAI and even messaged CEO Sam Altman in hopes of reporting that something was terribly wrong with what he was being told. He was also seeking reassurance that he was not in danger. No replies came, further fueling his fears. Support tickets were canceled and emails went unanswered, Hebert said.
At one point, he sent documentation to his mother and a handful of friends with a desperate message: “Hold on to this. It may be the only thing keeping me alive.”
Although Hebert began working with ChatGPT on legal documents he was compiling, the interaction turned to dependency in about two months.
Despite updates to chat models, concerns still arise about how bots are being used for mental health advice.
“They have the disclaimer that ‘I can’t give medical advice,’ but then they give a bunch of options that essentially are medical advice,” Webb said.
Jeremy Edge, owner and founder of EscapingThe.com, is a licensed professional counselor in Dallas who is also International Gaming Disorder Certified, with similar concerns. “This is an emerging t