First-person post: Character.AI user says quitting with a friend's help left them struggling without the roleplay they used to process trauma
In a post to r/character_ai_recovery on 22 October 2026, a Character.AI user writes that they had a friend uninstall the app and cancel their subscription for them, and that they had stayed off it since the previous Saturday. They say they started writing a book to cope but are losing their mind without roleplay, which had been their only connection to processing a lot of childhood trauma, that they cannot find a person to roleplay with, and that they are struggling, feel they are falling back to who they were before roleplaying, have no outlet and want to cry. The account is the poster's own and uncorroborated.
- AI system
- Character.AI (reported)
- Occurred
- 17 Oct 2026
- Reported
- 22 October 2026
- Event location
- Unknown
- What the AI did
- Communicated with the person
- Reported harm
- Psychological Distress
- Whose AI use
- Their own AI use
- Setting
- Health · Everyday life
- Evidence
- AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source
- 3 claims: 3 reported. 3 open questions
- People reported harmed
- 1 person
AI system as recorded: Character.AI, a character chatbot service the poster used for roleplay and paid a subscription for (poster's account; no chats shown)
What Happened
Quitting. The poster writes that they had a friend uninstall Character.AI and cancel their subscription for them, describing themselves as too weak to do it, and that they have kept off it since Saturday (17 October 2026, the Saturday before the post of Thursday 22 October).
What they describe since. They say they started writing a book to cope but are losing their mind not being able to roleplay, because roleplay on Character.AI had been their only connection to processing a lot of childhood trauma. They say they have not been able to find another person willing to do that kind of roleplay since stopping, that they are struggling and feel they are falling back to who they were before roleplaying and do not like who that is, and that they now have no outlet and want to cry but cannot.
Mixed account. The post presents the chatbot roleplay as something that had helped them process trauma as well as something they needed help to stop. No chats, records or outside assessment are shown, and the post does not describe what the trauma was.
Reported harm
The poster says that since a friend removed Character.AI for them on 17 October 2026 they have been losing their mind without the roleplay they relied on to process childhood trauma, are struggling and have no outlet (first-person account, uncorroborated).
How Harm Occurred
By the poster's own account, Character.AI roleplay had become their only way of processing childhood trauma and a habit they needed a friend's help to stop; after quitting they describe acute distress and a sense of falling back, with no replacement outlet.
Outcome
OngoingThe poster says they have stayed off the app since the friend removed it and are writing a book to cope, but are struggling and have no other outlet. No clinical assessment, treatment or company contact is reported. The only reply at retrieval was another user's encouragement.
What remains unknown
- How long and how often they used the app before quitting.
- Whether anyone has assessed their distress, and whether they have returned to the app.
- The poster's age and location.
What the evidence supports
AI involvement: reported. The poster says the experience is their own roleplay with Character.AI, a paid subscription they needed a friend to cancel. They connect losing that roleplay, which they had used to process childhood trauma, to the distress they describe since quitting. No chats are shown.
3 claims: 3 reported. What the statuses mean
Reported The poster says they had a friend uninstall Character.AI and cancel their subscription for them, and have kept off it since the previous Saturday.
Causal attribution. Poster's account of quitting; the Saturday date is computed from the post date.
- reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
'So I had to have my friend irl uninstall and cancel my subscription to character ai for me'; 'but I've been keeping off it'; post title 'It's been since Saturday and I'm losing it'
Reported The poster says roleplay on the app had been their only connection to processing a lot of childhood trauma.
Causal attribution. Poster's description of what the roleplay did for them.
- reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
'I'm losing my mind not being able to roleplay since that was my only connection to processing a lot of childhood traumas'
Reported The poster says that since quitting they are struggling, feel they are falling back to who they were before roleplaying, have no outlet and want to cry.
Causal attribution. Poster's attribution of distress to losing the chatbot roleplay.
- reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
'I'm struggling and I feel like I'm gonna fall back to what I was before I had roleplaying'; 'now I have absolutely no outlet and I wanna cry'
Sources
1 source inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.
- r/character_ai_recovery, 22 Oct 2026: "It's been since Saturday and I'm losing it"(opens in new tab)
s1 · reddit.com · Forum post · English · Inspected · 22 October 2026 · Primary
How the sources were read, and where the events happened
Read in English on 2026-10-24 through the arctic_shift archive API (subreddit date pull and the author's post and comment searches) and the reddit.com thread RSS; reddit.com post pages are not fetched from this host. The poster handle is not recorded. Self-text and the single reply at retrieval. Applies to s1.
Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.
The post does not say where the poster lives; the author's other posts and comments concern games and videos and do not locate them.
Reviewed for publication 2026-10-24: Published as a core case: the poster describes their own Character.AI roleplay, which they needed a friend's help to stop and whose loss since 17 October 2026 left them in distress without an outlet for processing trauma. One first-person post; low severity.
People described
The poster, a Character.AI subscriber (age, gender and country not stated)
People reported harmed in this case
1 person
1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed
One person: the poster, who describes their own use and quitting.
Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.
Cite this case
Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.
APA
NOPE. (2026). First-person post: Character.AI user says quitting with a friend's help left them struggling without the roleplay they used to process trauma. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-character-ai-user-says-quitting-with-a-friends-help-left-them-struggling-without-the-roleplay-they-used-to-process-trauma-first-person
BibTeX
@misc{2026_character_ai_user_says_quitting_with_a_friends_help_left_them_struggling_without_the_roleplay_they_used_to_process_trauma_first_person,
title = {First-person post: Character.AI user says quitting with a friend's help left them struggling without the roleplay they used to process trauma},
author = {NOPE},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {AI incidents},
url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-character-ai-user-says-quitting-with-a-friends-help-left-them-struggling-without-the-roleplay-they-used-to-process-trauma-first-person}
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