I think my friend has schizophrenia, however will not seek professional help.

Hi @MistSalJ and welcome to the forums.

Thank you for sharing what you've been going through with your friend. That's a really difficult place to be in, particularly when you feel that they would benefit so much from some help.

Having someone involuntarily sanctioned is a tricky thing. It is in place to physically protect someone, or those around them from imminent serious harm. It can keep people safe from hurting themselves and others, and it's important that it exists for those situations, but it can also be a pretty traumatising thing to go through.

It's completely understandable to be looking for solutions and ways to help your friend, and it's so lovely to see that you're here wanting to connect with others and find some options. It's really hard, but sometimes in cases like this the best thing you can do is to be there and be ready to help them link in with supports when/if they're ready. You could perhaps give your local crisis line a call to ask them about what supports are available near you, so that you're ready with that knowledge to pass on to your friend whenever they're ready?

It sounds as though you're already being such a good friend to them and sticking by them when others haven't been able to. I hope that you're also making sure that you're taking care of yourself and seeking support for this when you need it.

Hurting reputation would not be normally be classified as hurting oneself for mental health treatment.

I was diagnosed with schizophrenia last year and detained under the mental health act.

I did some unhinged social media posts when unwell. I was also sending lots of unhinged SMS messages to friends and family members.

In my case people started documenting and diarising my actions. They called community mental health teams for advice. I was referred to mental health triage teams and community mental health teams without my knowledge. That’s one path to start documenting the actions and get ready to or make referrals to triage services or the community mental health teams.

I ended up getting hospitalised for a number of months which led to my diagnosis.

From my persecutive, and in hindsight, from someone on the other end. I wished they had directly engaged me and staged some type of intervention prior to that. Call out the behaviour and say what bits are problematic.

My suggestion would be tell them clearly you see the social media posts as problematic. They’re either harassing other people. Or that you perceive they could be damaging their reputation. This could impact their relationships, the number of friends or ability to find work. And you suggest they stop. The person may react. I don’t know how I would have reacted.

But it’s a regret or wish I had when unwell that people had been more direct in engaging me on what the behaviour was they didn’t like (social posts or SMS), what it meant (they perceived I was unwell) and what they wanted to happen (they wanted it to stop).

Depending on how severe they are, you could call a community mental health team for advice. Or document their actions as happened to me. As other options.

That was a very insightful post @Former-Member . Thank you so much for sharing. It makes a lot of sense.

All the best @MistSalJ . Hope it all works out well for you and your friend.

Hope you stay connected.

Hey @Former-Member , the post above was for you from @MistSalJ . Just tagging you in case you missed it.

If you have reason to believe they need help, anyone can call up and make a referral.

Thanks @tyme

@MistSalJ It’s unfortunate the direct approach to engage them hasn’t worked.

It can be hard. I struggled to get admitted once when I presented myself at hospital voluntarily. I recently read the discharge summary and it said I was clearly stating I was not suicidal and to return if I became suicidal. Despite the fact I was saying I was not ok, had not been well for some time and wanted to go into hospital.

It’s not just if they do hurt themselves or someone else. If there’s a belief they MAY hurt someone else, they can get detained “for the protection of others”.

Or that any deterioration occurring if they continue to deteriorate and occur could result in this.

Thankfully, I didn’t hurt myself or anyone else when I was admitted as an involuntary patient.

If people are getting restraining orders on your friend there seems to be evidence of beliefs they may hurt someone else. If it escalated to the point they did hurt someone else, that could be a crime.

No, I don’t think it has to be a family member who does the referral. It may carry more weight when trying to explain a deterioration if it’s coming from someone who knows the person well and is in regular contact. And by documenting the actions & diarising, you can explain and show if there is a deterioration in progress. I think that was used for me to show I was in a state of decline and wasn’t stable and it could continue on that trajectory or get to a crisis if I wasn’t admitted.

I’m doing much better now. I’ve got a job and returned to normal work I was doing before. I’m seeing a counsellor to talk about things. I did lose some friend through it but kept a few.

I’ve just submit a request to delete my social media accounts to start the new year partly because of some of the unhinged stuff I did, partly because it wasn’t really helping me and my mental health to feel connected to key people in my life moving forward, and partly because I’m concerned about how much is online about a person and some of those reputational impacts you mention (eg. How it could affect work and getting a job).

Thank you for your honestly @Former-Member . It takes a lot to be able to share such insights.

Because of my MH, I've also chosen not to connect to anyone via social media. I find it very harmful. These forums are the most 'social' social platform I use, and that's it.

I hear what you mean by reputation and work. I agree.

Hope to connect more @Former-Member @MistSalJ !

@MistSalJ no I don’t mind, that’s ok.

Thank you @MistSalJ for opening this post and @Former-Member for your honest sharing.

I have a similar question and would appreciate anyyones thoughts, I came to this site specifically for guidance.

I have an old friend who no longer lives in the country and I believed was now living in California. I emailed them when the news of the recent fires hit to check they were ok. A response came to say they were ok but not actually in Cali at that time, then I had another email to thank me for my well wishes and then went into all the work they were doing, all very esoteric, spiritual healing, all the books they had written then talked about having to fly under the radar because of the work they were doing to uncover corruption around the world. But was now able to more freely work and if I could let anyone know who wanted to work with them. They then proceeded to tell me how I had essentially not been a good friend to them, couldn't offer consistent support, friendship and care. Never complimented them had no thoughtfulness – the list went on.

I had a similar email from them a few years ago so it wasn't such a surprise but was still hurtful.

Anyway, the point is I had another friend back in Europe many many years ago who behaved in a similar way and at one point received a letter from them that talked a lot about how God was talking to them but all a little incoherent. I then found found out they had been admitted to hospital and had received a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

I'm no stranger to religious life or spiritual conversations but on receiving this latest email I could see the similarities and it just didn't really seem like they were well. I know they've had trauma in their early life and part of their criticism of me was that I couldn't help them with that but I did what I could and was there for them when I could be.

Most of my closest friends don't live in the same country as me so contact is pretty limited with most of them, just a check-in email or text every now and then. This friend made it sound like that was completely unacceptable. Even though I don't have regular contact it doesn't mean I don't care about them at all.

So, my question is should I call them out on all the (I believe, unfounded) criticism and also suggest they seek help and even mention schizophrenia, or should I just leave it alone?

Thanks for reading.