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I think my friend is having a nervous breakdown

  • 25-01-2017 12:46AM
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43


    I think my friend is having a nervous breakdown and i need help with how to help him.

    Some background my friend (lets call him Mike) has always been a bit negative but a very outgoing guy and always up for a good time. He sometimes gets a little too worked up about little things more than he should. Nothing alarming that would make Mike's personality would stick out from any other of my friends. I did from time to time get the sense from him he was a little frustrated with life and a little unhappy.

    Mike and I and bunch of our other friends had a few drinks on a Sunday about 3pm-9pm, nothing major, i'd be surprised if anybody had more than 3/4 drinks over the course of the day. Mike was doing a dry January but quit on Friday night and was drinking on Sunday. He seemed completely normal all day and when i said goodbye to him on Sunday night.

    I sit in the cube next to him at work. He emailed in sick on Monday morning sayng he was feeling off, nothing too alarming. This morning (Tuesday) he came in about 9am and I said Hi and i was in the middle of some work so i didn't notice anything off about him. He disappeared most of the morning which is the norm as he usually has more meetings than me. But at about 1pm my manager (also Mike's mgr) calls me to meet him in his office so i do.

    He starts telling me that Mike is acting very strangely and he has taken separate impromtu meetings with him, another manager, another manager and another friend of ours. All the people he meet with are friends outside of work and we are a close community. My manager tells me in his meeting with Mike, he was extremely erratic and agitated. He was talking about work issues of how to fix how the office operates to personal issues to politics and making very little sense and he was worried, he wanted me to talk to him and take him home and tell he can take as much time as he needs. I was shocked by all my manager was saying to me, all this came out of the blue. Another manager took Mike to lunch in the meantime.

    I called Mike's roommate to ask him if he noticed Mike acting weird. The roommate said he started acting weird on Sunday night. Basically saying he was acting erratic talking about different subjects and making no sense. I asked the Roomate did he know what could have triggered this? He said Mike called his mom on Sunday night and its the 3 year anniversary of his dad dieing. I've known Mike more than 3 years and he never told me his dad had died. He never mentioned his dad and i never even thought anything about his dad, it never came up in conversation. So kinda alarming he's never talked about his dad.

    Mike came back from lunch and i asked him was he OK? He said yeah, got a lot of stuff off my chest today and that he's going home. He looked super tired to me and i asked him did he want to get a coffee, because i wanted to make sure he as ok. We went to a coffee shop across the street (we didn't have coffee just sat down) and i called another buddy from the office to come.

    Initially Mike was erratic when speaking, even slightly scratching himself. He made no sense at the start of the conversation. He slowly came out of the nonsense, talking about how he pictures everything so negative, he talked about the stress of the job, how he's stressed every night and smokes a ton of weed to relax every night, using it as a crutch. He talked about all the pressure in working building up over the past couple of weeks (everybody was a little surprised as honestly the projects we are currently on, aren't that stressful). He talked about the new girl he was seeing, and he didn't want to become BF and GF because he kept seeing all these negative things about her and that he thought he was horrible to her. He also talked about having a high of the girl being nice to her and that triggered this reaction as he's used to the negative. He talked about how everybody sees him so poorly (he's well respected in work and outside). He mentioned his dad's death as cross he bares. He said he hadn't slept since Saturday night. We spoke for awhile about how he was overthinking everything, he just needed a break and need to focus on some of the positives in his life like the trip he's taking next month with the gf. At times we tried to talked to him but he was just staring off into space and then he would comeback completely changing the subject.

    Sorry if the above is all over the place, I'm just trying to remember all the things he said. It seemed like a million things hitting him at once.

    We went for a walk and got some food as he hadn't eaten all day. He was a little more in tune with us and engaging us in general banter. He started to crash out from the tiredness so we got him a cab home. I called the roommate to give him the latest status and that he was on his way home. The roommate texted me to say he went straight to bed.

    The roommate said he'll work from home tomorrow and make sure he's ok. The roommate has Mike's sister and mother's details if he gets worse.

    Any thoughts and tips on how to help him get over this? I'm hoping its just a bunch of stuff hit him at once and a good nights rest will fix a lot of it and maybe he should get some consuling so that he doesn't bottle things up. But it was very scary to see your friend acting so erratically and completely out of character that it could be something worse.

    Thanks for taking the time to read the above.


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,112 ✭✭✭Danonino.


    You sound like a good friend. Being concerned and even just being aware that he is going through a bad time is half the battle. No sleep is a serious drain when upset, so is weed, more of the former and less of the green will even his mood a bit BUT the hard part is having a trusted group of friends or family that realise he's not himself and are there to listen and you seem to be doing that.

    He will come out the other side thankful and a lot lot happier. People can break, it doesn't mean they are broken. He might feel embarrassed and worried that he was coming across crazy or a drag on everyone. You obviously enjoy his company and care for him so don't be afraid to tell him that, it can mean a lot.
    If he can take time off work then he should do it, just watch that he doesn't hibernate or shut the world out. When you have a billion things on your mind, keeping face can be horribly exhausting, to the point you struggle to focus or make sense of anything. He just needs time to breath and deal with the death of his Father etc.

    Edit: If he does get more detached or slips into a more depressive state you need to hammer it home to him that you will not think any differently of him and there is no Shame in seeking help from his doc etc.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 217 ✭✭Skibunny77


    Have seen this loads in work - the most seasoned weed smokers can become paranoid, erratic, thought disordered and unable to control their emotions. It can lead to an acute psychosis, loads of information available for your mate to review online. Advise your mate to stay off the weed to see if his mood settles. If things don't, I'd contact his family and Gp for further advice.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,134 ✭✭✭Lux23


    I think you should talk to his roommate about contacting his mother. The weed is one thing, but not talking about his father's death with close friends is a real issue for me. I lost my Dad just over two years ago and it is something I talk about regularly.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 182 ✭✭casscass4444


    I'm not saying it is,but sounds like drug induced psychosis combined with exhaustion and stress.your friend needs to stop the weed straight away.
    Most people see cannabis as a harmless drug but the truth is that it effects everyone differently and can have devastating effects on some people leaving them paranoid and can cause the development of mental illness in people genetically prone to it.
    Google thc or cannabis and mental illness.strong links suggested now between cannabis use and schizophrenia in some individuals.burning the candle at both ends comes to mind.hope all works out


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,756 ✭✭✭zoobizoo


    Having had a friend who goes through bi-polar episodes every couple of years, which sounds somewhat similar, I would advise:

    - Do not wait for it to get worse - these things can escalate very quickly
    - Call the mother
    - Get her to contact his GP or find out who his GP is

    It is scary and you've done a great jobs so far.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43 scared_silly


    Crazy day.

    I went to bed last night thinking a good night's sleep would help a lot. I woke up at 8am to a bunch of missed calls and texts. At 4am Mike had knocked on the door of the roommate asking him to drive him into the office so he can talk to people to sort the company out. The roommate called me and another buddy. Luckily the other buddy woke up and went straight to Mike's apartment. He was ranting and raving about fixing the company (a company of 50k employees) to the other buddy. This went on a awhile.

    At about 8:30 i met up with Mike and my other buddy were in the coffee shop across the street from the office. Another 2 buddies from work came across the street to talk to Mike too. He wanted to go into the office and have a heart to heart meeting with the head of our department (mike would know the Head but nothing more than saying hello in the hallway). We physically had to stand in front of him to prevent him heading into the office. We convince him to take a walk.

    We walk him in the direction of the hospital but he refuses to go in, because "he's fine now, he's figured life out". Luckily one of the buddy's friends is a psychiatrist at the hospital who can meet Mike for a chat. After about an hour of talking with him, we convince him to go meet the psychiatrist. He talks with the psychiatrist for an hour and he comes out with her and she says we compromised, we won't commit him if he agrees to come back again in 2 days for an appointment and that we stay with him till his mother gets here. (the roommate had called his mom earlier in the day and the mom and sister we're driving 6 hours to our city). The psychiatrist gives him sleeping tablets to take. All through this he's still talking gibberish.

    We get him home and we wait for his mom and sister to come. He takes the tablets and within 30 mins he's asleep. 4 hours later the roommate opens the door to check on him...he was standing by the door listening to us talk in the living room (so we don't even know how much he slept). His mom and sister are arriving in 30 mins so he jumps in the shower...thank god as it gives us a chance to head downstairs and talk to his mom and sis freely.

    We met with the mom and sister, told them as much of the story as I could. They said the noticed him acting weird in phone calls the past week so much so that his mom considered coming to to our city on Friday for the weekend. They are a little scared and completely caught off guard by the whole thing, like us, they never say any history of this or any warning signs.

    We got back upstairs and Mike is trying to act normal (even though its obvious he acting completely weird). We told them, even if he says he's ok, he's not, they understand.

    I left and text them on all the numbers of the people who were helping Mike.


    There are lots of other tidbits I'm forgetting so i'll ill try to list them here:

    My manager texted me during the course of the day that Mike had emailed my manager's, manager's, manager (not the head of the dept, different dept) a very cryptic message at 4am. So far we have mostly contained this to people we are friend's with which makes it easier for Mike to come back to the office after this but we have no idea who else he's emailed in the middle of the night. We let his mom know this that she needs to watch him on the phone, if this continues, its harder for him to go back to the office.

    Hes not eating or sleeping, we think he's only eaten once in the past 3 days and slept a handful of hours.

    He keeps talking about "getting the joke now", "its all a metaphor that he understands", "he understand's life now". etc. Disillusion statements.

    We took all his weed away.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 179 ✭✭Minera


    I'm sorry for your friend he sounds very unwell, sleeping tablets are not working contact you psychiatrist friend to tell him. The less he sleeps the more manic he will be, and his loss of touch with reality could have very dangerous consequences


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,352 ✭✭✭SAMTALK


    I'm not equipped to advise you OP on this but I just wanted to say well done to you all for helping your friend.

    Its great to see so many of you looking out for him as he obviously is in a bad way.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43 scared_silly


    Thanks for the replies guys, i appreciate it.

    Things have gotten worse and Mike had to be taken to the hospital by his family. At this stage, Mike is in the hands of medical professionals, so I don't believe anybody here would be able to help diagnose the situation better than them. So if i continue posting more info, i only run the risk that somebody would be able to identify Mike and making the situation worse. FYI i did change a lot of trivial info in my previous posts just to remain anonymous.

    Thanks everybody for their time, its much appreciated in a difficult time. Mods can you please close the tread?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,740 ✭✭✭brevity


    Best of luck "Mike"


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,518 ✭✭✭✭dudara


    Closed at OP's request

    dudara


This discussion has been closed.
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