Need To Help My Friend Urgently (Mental Health)

LegacyUser

Hi all, regular poster unreg here.

I need to get some help urgently for my friend, specifically mental health issues.

They are in serious need of attention at the moment and I need to get something sorted asap. My friend has slept rough some of the last few nights, I only discovered this recently. Lost their job a while back, has no cash whatsoever and is rapidly running out of friends based on their erratic behavior. So no cash and of no fixed abode

We are talking extremely polarized moods, unless occupied, ie gaming, wasting time online or w/e, the general disposition is that of a disgruntled wreck. Awful body language, slouching into a hunch-back and a disturbingly wretched, morbid face, devoid of life. Not wanting to discuss anything at all.

Otherwise we are talking heading out (drinking) being happy and "carefree" or "normal". Only times we chat are texts or whatever leading to the inevitable, are you doing anything tonight? This person can't afford a drink and will invariably text/conact everyone in the phonebook to get a night out, sponsored of course by someone else. The other times we chat are when my mate is drunk and upset and may need a little vent. My mate is also heading out and using beer as a means of meeting and getting some poor sucker to put them up for a few days or whatever. Almost to the point of whoring their self off to provide another night out or somewhere to stay in future. The drinking is not so much intensifying but definitely increasing in frequency.

Now I must add my mate is after having an immensely difficult childhood full of turmoil and inconsistencies. The recent years hasn't been altogether rosy to say the least and things were looking beginning to pick up until the last couple of months. My poor friend is in a vicious circle that I nor they can break.

I know myself that this is not my friend who is doing this. The person I know, love and respect could never be healthily doing this. I come from a family that has had depression and alcoholism on both sides so I am quite familiar with the destruction caused. I don't want to see another casualty if I can help it. Alcohol abuse is threatening to rise it's head here too. I'm extremely worried and anxious to do something pronto. Last night while I scraped my mate off the street and brought them to stay with a mutual friend, I was disturbed to hear them say that no-one gives a shít about me so why would they care where I stayed or what I did anyway. I don't want to see my friend come to harm or do anything stupid. I am actually almost physically sick with the whole thing truth be told

So to here and now. I want to get some help. Who do I approach? What do I say? I can't lump this on my mate as I will get Mt. Vesuvius in my face and it will make things worse. I can't contact the gardaí either, that is a completely separate thing though.

Any counsel or advice is greatly appreciated

Aurora Borealis

Willing to offer advice here if I can as I'm sure others would but why are you playing the pronoun game? i.e why are you steadfastly avoiding saying if it's a guy or a girl if you're anonymous anyway? It may matter in terms of where you go for help. Location would too.

hotspur

For solutions to the issue of being homeless I recommend bringing her to the Simon Community, they also deal with alcohol problems
www.dublinsimon.ie/about/

Alternatively focus Ireland
http://www.focusireland.ie/htm/about_us/our_services.htm

Failing those 2 there is the Salvation Army.

For the fundamental mental health issue you would do well to get her into contact with Saint John of Gods, you will best to do this by taking her to a GP and getting a referral, you cannot just turn up.
www.sjog.ie/sjog/services/index.html

Good luck in helping your friend.

LegacyUser

Have you contacted their family?

First port of call is them.

Get the family GP on the case and try to get them into some sort of safe place.

Sounds like they might be going through a manic episode - I've a friend with bi-polar. It needs to be tackled head on. I've had to confiscate credit cards, bank cards and passports in the past. It's for their own good in the end.

You need support and a network of help (friends) when going through this as it'll melt your head. If he/she has good friends then explain to them that it's a possible mental illness and that people are going to have to pull together to help.

Give St. John of God's a call as suggested.

And, this might sound odd but well done on helping your friend. Others will walk away and bury their heads in the sand. It takes strength and guts to help someone going through something like that.

LegacyUser

Aurora Borealis wrote: »

Willing to offer advice here if I can as I'm sure others would but why are you playing the pronoun game? i.e why are you steadfastly avoiding saying if it's a guy or a girl if you're anonymous anyway? It may matter in terms of where you go for help. Location would too.

I was trying to as vague as possible here, sorry. My mate is a girl who infrequently reads boards and her circumstances are unique so pronouns in the off-chance she realised who was posting this, that's all.

We are not in any of the major cities here either btw so at that I think it makes things a little more difficult. Okay well I'm going to talk to one of my aunts who's a nurse too to see how I can approach things.

Thanks hotspur for those links too.

beth-lou

I am in a similar situation with my brother and I'm afraid that there isn't much you can do other than offer your support and advice. He is living on the streets and is severely depressed and recently ended up in hospital and we tried in vain to get him to seek help, and we almost succeeded, but he floundered at the last hurdle and is still homeles and addicted. He wasn't ready to give up drink or drugs and like your friend he burnt his bridges with almost everyone.

It does take strength and guts to try to help someone in this situation, but in the end it is them who needs to decide if they are going to get the help they need. Does your friend recognise their problems? If they do, then that's a start, but she may not be ready to get help yet or to stop drinking.

My advice is to find out about AA, St John of Gods, get intouch with the GP, and try to meet her when she is sober and tell her you love her and are worried about her and want to help her to sort her life out, if she is willing to do the same. Offer your support and take it from there. She might respond positively, she might not be ready. But at least you will have tried. That's what we did, it wasn't successful, but he knows we tried and it's up to him now. I live in hope. I hope your friend will do better.
Well done for trying, but be careful that she doesn't use you as her crutch either. You need to be strong for yourself and let her take responsibility for her situation. You can only bail her out for so long, and in a way you are helping her to continue on the path to destruction. She will probably need to fall further before she actually wants to get back up.

All the best...x

LegacyUser

Hi guys, family is not an option, my mate has no family virtually. As for the drinking, it's not turned into alcohol abuse, yet that is. It's just being used a vehicle to avoid the situation and also to "solve" it albeit temporarily but ultimately it blows up in her face and creates some other issues. If things are let continue I have no doubt that it could become a major problem. It's more about preserving the girls sanity and safety for a start and after that eventually getting other things sorted.

I'll be in touch soon and see what happens from there.

LegacyUser

So I spoke to her for a while and well while I didn't get a huge amount of positives. I did find out she has got a place to stay for the next few days. I tried to reason with her about a lot of her behavior ie going out etc and well she agreed with me but, she came back at me with what else can I do? I need to meet and talk to people to get somewhere to stay or a job. This was her retort.

Whereas I agreed with that in part, fundamentally I said, it does not work like that.

1. No place to live in, with no money - need to get a job and meet the right people to get that sorted. So head out and hopefully meeting some people to put me up or look after me.

2. No Job - Need to make contacts and talk to the right people etc. so again head out.

Fine but if prospective employers(you may meet while out some night) keep seeing you out, while they may have jobs available, how many are willing to take somebody on who has A) No money and No where to stay, yet all the time you are still able to head out drinking. These people will think something funky is happening here and will be apprehensive of taking you on as an employee obviously.

3. This brings you back to the start, no job, no home, no money and nowhere to stay. Replay the above over and over as long as you want really.

I also as much as said to the girl that I will not buy her food or get her a drink etc. as I will be wasting my efforts as the cycle will continue. So the only way I told her I will help is when she begins to take steps with people(myself and others) to break out of this bull$hit scenario. I have offered her a place to stay and a bit of a start. My Dad has been kind of trying to help me out with it a bit too.

I brought up the issue to see if she had got any psychological help previously to deal with several traumas she's had in her life. A firm no. All I got was that, it's a load of $hitetalk, I accept what has happened to me before and who I am now as a result. Fair enough I suppose within reason but still I feel she could benefit from some help. She did confide in me that yesterday she had a mini breakdown yesterday in the toilets of a fast food place. She said it was good to release though and that she needed to but was adamant that she is fine now.

Part of the problem is she is a very intelligent girl too which may block some efforts to attempt to help her, born out of some sort of bigoted intellectual pride. Another reason she is refuting or negating some genuinely heartfelt offers to help her out is she was brought up as a kid never to accept anything from anyone at all unless it was virtually shoved down her neck. I don't need anything, I'm fine and I'll manage seems to a standard reaction. I'm working on trying to get her to change that mentality. While I was in no means overly assertive or challenging to her, I managed to push her buttons a bit. At one stage she was very close to tears. I don't want to hurt her but if I have to be firm to help her I sincerely will plough everything I have into it.

So I haven't made huge progress here and I think it will be an arduous task but I won't give up. Small strong steps. And the good thing is that I can see light at the end of the tunnel for her.

I know for a fact she is going out tonight and I am in 2 minds as to whether or not to go and keep an eye on her or chat to her again. Only thing is though trying to explain things and certain stuff may lose meaning over a few beers so maybe not that good of an idea.

Not sure of that one at all but I'll make up my mind pretty soon. I'll give an update later on.

Any opinions or suggestions guys?

Victor

Booze and mental health issues are a disaster.

Steve.Pseudonym

Hello OP, difficult situation you and your friend are in there.

Let me just try to get this straight though- your friend is homeless at the moment, and you have offered her a place to stay, yet she has turned you down. I can't see any rational reason for this, is there one or is this just an example of your friend's erratic behaviour? Certainly what you have described is not a rational way to react to the situation. If you do believe that she is suffering from a mental health problem, bipolar or the like from your description, then there are only a few things you can do: firstly, get your friend to accept your offer of a place to stay, then at least you know she's in a safe environment. Secondly, get her to go to a GP about her difficulties for a referral to a mental health practitioner.

I realise that this is easier said than done, people suffering from these kinds of problems are anything but rational, it's a catch-22. However these two things are really all you can do. I don't know how your friend came to be homeless, but from your description of her erratic behaviour it would be unsurprising if it was due to whatever mental health problem she has.

Unfortunately she has to want to cooperate with you. If she's at all open to being talked to, maybe try pointing out that being homeless while there's the offer of a place to stay and going out drinking claiming that it'll somehow get her a job is downright crazy. If it doesn't work though, don't blame yourself, there isn't very much you can do to help people with mental health issues, especially if they won't cooperate. Believe me, I've been there.

Wish there was more I could do, good luck.