The following excerpt is the foreward by Howie Mandel from Too Close for Comfort: Coping With a Dependent Loved One by Dr. Tamir Aldad.
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I’ve spent most of my life talking about what’s going on inside my head.
If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you know I’ve been open about my struggles with OCD (obsessive–compulsive disorder) and anxiety. I’ve talked about the intrusive thoughts, the need for control, the rituals that don’t always make sense to anyone else but feel necessary to me. For a long time, just saying those things out loud felt like progress. And in many ways, it was.
But there’s another side to that story that I didn’t fully understand until much later.
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Mental health doesn’t exist in isolation
It doesn’t just live inside one person. It shows up in relationships. It shapes conversations, routines, expectations, and sometimes even the roles people take on without realizing it. The truth is, when one person is struggling, the people around them often begin to adjust in ways that are subtle at first and then, over time, become part of the fabric of everyday life. Not because they’re weak.
Not because they’re doing anything wrong. But because they care.
Looking back, I can see how the people closest to me learned to navigate my world alongside me. There’s a kind of quiet strength in that. A willingness to adapt. To support. To make things work. And while that kind of love is incredibly powerful, it can also be complicated.
That’s where this book comes in.
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Understanding the person who is struggling
Dr. Tamir Aldad takes a perspective that we don’t talk about nearly enough. We spend a lot of time trying to understand the person who is struggling. We talk about diagnoses, symptoms, treatment plans. But we don’t spend nearly enough time talking about the people who are standing right next to them, doing their best to help, often without a clear roadmap.
What I appreciate about this book is that it doesn’t point fingers. It doesn’t assign blame. Instead, it shines a light on patterns that are incredibly common and yet rarely named. It helps explain why well-intentioned support can sometimes turn into something heavier. Something that feels less like helping and more like carrying.
And more importantly, it offers a way forward.
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Learning to show up in a healthier way
If you’ve ever found yourself adjusting your life around someone you love, trying to keep the peace, trying to make things easier, trying to do the right thing without being entirely sure what that is, you’ll see yourself in these pages. And you’ll likely feel something even more important: understood.
This book isn’t about stepping away from people. It’s about learning how to show up in a way that’s healthier, clearer, and ultimately more sustainable for everyone involved.
I’ve had the privilege of sharing my story publicly, and I know how powerful it can be to put words to something that feels hard to explain. What Dr. Aldad has done here is give language to a different side of that experience. One that matters just as much.
Because mental health isn’t just about what happens inside a person. It’s about what happens between people.
And understanding that might be one of the most important steps forward we can take.
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Dr. Tamir Aldad is a board-certified clinical psychiatrist. As the Founder and CEO of Mindful Care, Dr. Aldad pioneered the nation’s first same-day mental health and addiction treatment urgent care model, expanding access to care across multiple states. Under his leadership, Mindful Care has grown into a multi-state network, serving thousands of patients with integrated psychiatric, addictio, and therapy services.
Too Close for Comfort is available on Amazon. Dr. Tamir Aldad will be at LA’s Barnes & Noble at The Grove October 7.