Manic episode - please tell me how I can help my friend who is in denial?

bingolittle · 2017-02-24 09:53:21

My friend seems to have had / be having a manic episode and also seems to be in denial about it. Really hoping there are people here with experience who can tell me what I can do to help her (if anything?) Not to drip feed: the NHS are already involved and she is taking anti-psychotics daily - they send a couple of people out to her house every day to make sure she takes them and to chat with her for a bit. She is also supposed to be taking some other drug but she isn't - she says "but DH is OK with that". (Not sure how this is relevant because her DH isn't a doctor or anything.) I don't know what the other drug is for or why nobody is making sure she takes it. She had about a week or more of sleeping very little and then sent a really weird email to everyone about a self-help book she was going to write which was going to be really huge - except that the email was gibberish; really disconnected, and half the words weren't even really words. The next day she left notes for her husband all around her house, dressed in her wedding dress, and lay on her bed and slowed her breathing down because she was Sleeping Beauty and when she woke up the world would be changed. When her husband brought the kids back from school, he couldn't seem to wake her and called an ambulance. Turned out she hadn't taken anything, but they took her into hospital for a few days and then let her back home. As far as I know she has no history of MH issues - although in the past she has sometimes come out with some strange stuff (getting "messages" about things which her friends ought to do urgently). She is quite into some mystical thinking and some book called "The Secret" which is about how you can change things using the power of positive thinking. So... she thinks the NHS are overreacting because they just don't understand her personality. She wants to stop taking medication asap. I said that that depended what the alternative was, and she said that for her, the alternative was Being Well, and she was going to use the power of her mind. She blames the whole episode on jet lag. She also thinks it's because she'd got stuck in a rut and now the solution is to move house to somewhere hundreds of miles away. As I type these things out I'm getting more and more worried about her. Her DH always seems like a very decent and supportive guy. He is at home most of the time, but his work comes in chunks during which he is abroad for a week or more at a time. In a few weeks he will be off abroad again and my friend will be in sole charge of her kids (9 and 7). So... Is there anything I can do? Can I really just nod along when she comes out with plans I'm pretty sure would be bad (maybe dangerous) for her and her kids? Do I challenge her and tell her that her viewpoint is being affected by her illness (and that she actually is ill)? Part of the problem is that it's not always easy to see what is unreasonable and what is just an extension of her personality. Also she is an intelligent and educated person and can argue well, and she already had a strong belief in all this mystical healing stuff. Or do I just keep my big nose out of it and help on a practical level (e.g. looking after her kids) as much as possible? Sorry to be so long-winded, but I wanted to make it clear what the situation was... really hoping someone here can help.

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Mental health

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