Friend is in dire situation, looking for help

Hi all,

I am going to try my hardest to explain the situation at hand, it is very confusing. I am really just looking for someones opinion, I have never been to BTS boards, so I am not exactly sure what you all do here. Here we go. I will refer to the friend in question as Jay for simplicity. Jay is 27 years old.

Jay has been hospitalized. He willingly went in with a couple of other friends. Apparently in the space of over-night, my friend has lost his mind. On Sunday, he was his normal self, and on Monday he has been compared to a "3 year old child". I wish I could give a more detailed description but I am unable, because we live in different states.

Upon Jay meeting friends Nick and Pat for lunch on Monday, they knew something was wrong immediately. Nick said while playing pin-ball, he inserted a quarter for Jay, and Jay just stared at the machine, had no idea what to do. Nick asked him if he was alright, he claimed "yeah I'm fine, i got it now" and then continued to stare at the machine. It was at this point that they decided that Jay needed to be seen by a doctor.

Nick is having trouble understanding the whole thing and he has actually been spending time with him. He has described it as being a different person. No recollection of anything in the past concerning knowing any of his friends. Jay has never in his life displayed any kind of illness mentally, prior to this incident. My first question was if he was suicidal, as I thought it was some kind of depression. I was told, "I don't think Jay would even understand what suicide was if you asked him" I then asked if they tested him for drugs, as I could see this being drug-related, even though Jay is not a heavy drug user. I was told that he was drug tested and the results were negative for everything but Marijuana.

I asked Nick this morning if there was any new news concerning Jay. I was told "He apparently went out Monday morning, drained all his bank accounts, and purchased $3000 worth of cellphones and restaurant gift cards." I am so scared for my friend guys.

I know this is all very vague, and hard to understand. I apologize but this is all the information I have really. It just doesn't make sense to me what so ever. It doesn't make sense to anyone involved. Jay is by all means a perfectly healthy and sane individual prior to Monday. He attends college full time and works full time. He is a very easy going and laid back guy. Not the type to stress out or get depressed as I have said.

If anyone can possibly shed any light at all on this it would be much appreciated. Like I said, we are all extremely scared for our friend. Thank you all in advance.

It sounds like a problem that i have had a few times now, the last one being in October 07.
Mini strokes or TIA's as they are called. When i get them i talk about silly things, keep repeating things and can't remember even the most basic things about my family or past events.
they last less than 24 hrs and are caused by blood clots in the brain. depending on where they happen alters the effect they have on me. I have had about 5 in as many years.
These things are very complicated and he will have a brain scan and other tests before they attempt to diagnose the problem.

Of course, I could be totally wrong but it sounds very familiar to me.
Hope this helps
John.

P.S the first time it happened to me my workmates kept telling me something was wrong and as i tried to phone my wife, i couldn't because i didn't know how to use the phone.

[edit on 10-1-2008 by jon1]

reply to post by jon1


Jon that seems to make more sense then anything else we have tried to come up with so far. I know very little about strokes, is this something a 27 year old might be susceptable to do you know? Jay is a very large man, over 300 lbs and about 6'4". I don't know if body weight or health plays a part on strokes or not.

reply to post by sputniksteve


He does seem young for this to happen to him but i am no expert by any means. I had my first one at 49 yrs old.

Try a google search for TIA and mini strokes. the information you find will hopefully make things a lot clearer for you.

Hope your friend recovers soon but these things take time to heal.

All the best John.

reply to post by sputniksteve


i hope your friend gets the help he needs, whatever his problem may be.

strokes can happen at almost any age. i know a fit and healthy guy who had a stroke in his mid 20's. His left side is still affected today, some 15yr later.

reply to post by sputniksteve


If thiskind of thing happens in the early 20's, often we look at the posibility of an acute onset of BPD/S or other phychotic epsode that signifies an underlying problem (usualy chemicaly related and treated with meds once they figure out exactly what's going on. Usualy they don't try to figure out the real problem and lump it into one of a few thingw to try to treat. Depends on the Doc).
It sounds like a fruge. But I doubt it - they are very rear indeed. That is like what people call a nervious breakdown happens in a BIG way - the mind just ???!!!! The person seemingly gets amniesia (sp) - can't remember anything at all. Not their name, where they live - nothing at all about their lives. Usualy, when a person goes through this - they are healthy physicaly and seem to be 'all there' mentaly, just no memory. They also usualy go to a different area and take up a life that is very VERY different than what you'd ever expect they'd do. (Church lady turning to hooking ect). But one day - could be months or even years later - as suddenly as it came on - the person remembers everything about thier old self and life. At that point they seem to be confused about how they got where they are at the moment and what's going on. Almost like a very long blackout associated with a different personality. It is caused by great amounts of ongoing stress.

It could also be a simple as inflamation in the brain. Tumor, swelling due to illness or cellilar lashback or an injury like a bump on the head. Bleeding could cause the same thing if the blood pools and isn't able to get out of the scull and pressure isn't released. A quick CAT scan will rule all those things out.

There are alot of questions that need to be answered before anyone could hazard an intelligent guess - but there are many reasons this kind of thing can happen.

Well, the bit about him spending all his dosh (impulsivity), acting a bit vacant (losing concentration/attention), and personality change could be the result of some sort frontal lobe mediated disorder. But this covers everything from brain tumours to psychiatric disorders.

Could be some sort of psychotic manic episode, or even the onset of schizophrenia. Might also be TIA as mentioned above.

I don't think anyone here could really tell you what's underlying this behavioural event beyond simple possibilties. He would need a thorough neurological and mental examination by an experienced professional.

Hope it all turns out well though.

I appreciate all the replies. I got the chance to visit my friend this last weekend, and I am afraid to say the situation is A LOT worse then I thought it was.

Now having been a member of ATS, I was prepared for a lot of explanations from him. However the one I got just blew my mind away. I am afraid my friend is very unhealthy. According to him, he has gained the ability to create wormholes, time travel, and is able to communicate with electronic devices, pin-ball machines, phones, T.V.'s, Computers etc.. just to name a few of his new powers. It is a very scary situation, as I am not familiar with mental illness like this.

I have kept in the back of my mind however that he may indeed have had some kind of experience, I just don't even know what to say.

Besides a stoke, i think it couldbe seizures he's having. With some medication i have the feeling he will return to normal.

Please keep us informed. Thanks!

reply to post by dgtempe


Well they have him pretty medicated right now actually. That is partly why it is hard to gauge what is going on with him.

The strangest thing about it all, is that almost everything he told me made sense on its own, but all together it is like summing up every wild topic on ATS and putting it all together into 1 story. As far as I know, I am the only one he told the entire story too. He told me "You will probably understand more then anyone else." He knows I am into "far out" things.

As far as I know, they gave him CAT scans and such, checking for biological problems, and drug tested him. The problem was that when he was trying to explain everything to me, he was not very coherent. He was unable to really explain anything. At the same time, he insists that it is confusing even for him, yet he fully believes everything he has told me. I am just not sure if the in-coherence was due to "craziness" or was due to the medication they have him on.

Due to the trust he has instilled in me, I do not want to leave him out on a wire like some of my friends, saying "send him home let his parents deal with it." But at the same time I do not want to cause any further trouble by feeding this. I am just at a loss, I don't know what to do about it, or if I even can do anything for him. For now I am trying to be a good listener and not tell him he is nuts.

Thank you for being such a good friend to him. Can you tell us what he was saying which didnt make sense? Did what he say make sense to you on some level?
Its interesting he woke up like this...i wonder if he's got anything to say about some experience he may have had while asleep?
Just wondering because he could have been nearly scared to death by "something"

Just wondering.

Ok DG, I'm going to attempt to retell what was told to me. Like I said though it is all very confusing. I am not sure of the exact order that everything seemed to happen either.

My friend was brainstorming on a new website, involving lots of advertising money, and a sort of role-playing game, and my-space all wrapped up in one.

As he explained to me, during all this brainstorming, he somehow had an epiphany, in which he claimed to "break money". That is the term he used, although I don't think it describes what he was actually trying to do, or had accomplished.

While trying to work out a mathematical equation, he was somehow privy to knowledge of the beginning of the universe. He apparently tapped into some kind of "universal knowledge fountain" or something of the sort. He described this as the Universe starting as nothing. From that nothing, nothing was created. From those 2 nothings, something was created(the big bang). That something had gained all the knowledge of the first 2 nothings. But it all had to do with negative energy and positive energy and neutral energy. This continues to present day, where everything that was ever created has the knowledge of everything before it. Now he explained that this has something to do with DNA also, although he never explained that part. **I know that is hard to follow, but this is how he told me**

Next he discovered that he has some kind of electromagnetic field surrounding him. Apparently he kept shutting down his computer with this field, and then he could fix it with the same field. He also said this was verified by a friend, when he approached her on her laptop, it went dead. Then he was able to fix it.

At some point in time, he also discovered that he could create worm holes through his "third eye". In this worm hole he could travel in time, or suck mass amounts of energy from it. Some energy was negative and some was positive.

He also claimed that he could manipulate the Internet. He said that he shut down his my-space page for a couple days, simply by typing characters in certain places. Kind of matrix like I suppose. But apparently it went beyond computers and the Internet. He claimed that he changed the score of a football game on t.v.. Right after the football score changing, he went to play pinball with another friend. He started off by saying that he manipulated the machine with his mind in order to play for free. He said that every time he hit the flipper, names, numbers, and messages were popping up on the scoring screen. These messages were telling him to travel in time and alter some event.

**All this I was able to verify from my friend he was playing pinball with. Except it did not happen the way he said it did. My friend actually payed for his game, so no free play was involved. My friend told him it was his turn, and he just stared at the machine. My friend asked him "are you ok?" and he replied "yeah I'm fine, I got it now". Only he continued to just stare at the screen. I'm not sure what happened directly after this. My friend with the problem had told me that while he was staring at the pinball machine, he was actually going back and forth through time, and trying to show our other friend how to do it.**

Now I believe on the same night, my other friend took him to the casino that is near town. Apparently he walked around sputtering nonsense the whole time, giving pennies out to old men. The friend that took him started getting very freaked out at this point, as this was definitely abnormal behavior for him. While on the way home from the casino, my friend claimed that there was a cloud formation, with a big halo in the middle following them the whole way home. He says our other friend witnessed this and commented on it. I was unable to verify this though, as I did not get a chance to talk to that person.

Once arriving back in town, they stopped at a bar they both work at, so our other friend could get some advice on what to do about this issue. My friend then told me that when he sat down, he could make the clock run in reverse. He then told me that he started playing with beer coasters. He was holding 1 in each hand, and would push them together, and then pull them apart and twist them. Kind of like they were magnets with the same polar field facing each other. While he was doing this, he was slowing down, and speeding up time for all the people in the bar. And apparently was talking gibberish the whole time. Although he claimed it was only gibberish because he was traveling back and forth through time again, and so that whole process somehow made his speech sound unintelligent.

This was the last straw, and at this point our friend called an ambulance and had him taken to the hospital. While at the hospital, he told the doctors that he did not remember anything that had happened to him, because he know if he told them all this, they would probably never let him go. He said he only had 1 experience in the hospital, where he was watching a fuzzy t.v. screen, he was creating lines in the screen by sending energy to it. Lastly he stated that by sending out positive energy, he helped to get almost every single person in his hospital wing released the same day he got released. I have no idea whether this is true or not also.

So that is where the story leaves off. When I first met him for lunch last Friday, he seemed completely normal. Then we got back to his house and he told me all of this stuff. He says he feels normal, and feels good, but now he just sees everything through a different light. He did not understand why or how this happened to him, but he believes every single word he said.

I may have left out a few things, I will re-read it a couple times and see if there is anything else I remember. As you can see, this is very strange and scary.

[edit on 22-1-2008 by sputniksteve]

reply to post by sputniksteve


He may just be saying that he is alright so he doesn't have to go back to the hospital.

He may have a serious history with abuse or depression. Do you know about that?

The believing in supernatural manipulation is often a side effect of Psychotic Depression.

He may also be isolating himself from the outside world through focusing on this negative state of mind. He needs serious help or he could hurt himself.

Please read on as the following is also important. When I went to the hospital for treatment I left (after some difficult influencing) the next day because the conditions were not proper to care. Some people there said it helped but others said it did little or nothing. It is greatly there to keep people from harming others or themselves; they even take your shoes, shoelaces, belt, and just about everything else.

A good environment is crucial at the moment, and casinos or bars or places in which he might be able to escape negatively or entertain heavy indulgent tendencies might be dangerous.

But what is really very important is to know is his past and current situation.

A good therapist (and there are not many) might be a good response. Plus the meds might be good too as long as they are not the wrong dose/kind (which could lead to the opposite of help).

Hold on,
Nyorai

PS: It sounds like you care and listen. That is nice : )

[edit on 22/1/2008 by Nyorai]

reply to post by Nyorai


Thank you kindly for the advice. I can confirm that he did not have a history with alcohol/drug abuse. I cannot confirm the depression though. I had always thought he was a very happy and easy going guy. I learned while visiting him though that another friend had told my friend Nick that he did have a history of depression. I don't doubt that he would do whatever it took to stay out of the hospital, this includes saying he is fine, like you suggested.

We are all hoping that he will take this seriously and seek some counseling, I think staying with his Mother for a while, she can have a big influence on that matter. Unfortunately there is not a whole lot I can do for him, as we live 6 hours away from each other. I just really hope we get our friend back to normal.

reply to post by sputniksteve


Hi sputnicksteve,
It's good of you to be trying to help your friend, as I read your post I had the impression straight away that your friend was a heavy guy,although he is still a young man, it may be that his constitution just cant handle the weight in terms of stored fats/cholesterol in the wrong places.
His condition sounds serious,but in order for his body to fight back and cope with the root cause whatever it may be, fairly strong measures would be in order.
I had some health issues my self in recent years and achieved dramatic improvement in my general health by undergoing the liver cleanse procedure it's very simple, and the improvements were dramatic.
I expelled some 1500 liver stones, loads of cholesteral and general rubbish that had been compacted in my liver.
The liver is the 'management system' for the body just like an ECU in a car and has over a hundred functions, including the immune system which I think may help you friend to fight whatever it it that ails him.
It would also help to lose some weght, cut all dairy products and stop eating meat for a while, he will be amazed at the improvement as long as he stays off drugs[the illegal varieties] too.
Thank you for being his friend,
Regards,
Horsegiver.