To be angry about my friends social media behaviour when he is mentally ill?

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My friend has bipolar 1.
The issue is that I do not have any experience of any one else with this so I dont know what behaviour is down to his illness and what behaviour i should hold him responsible for?

I keep telling myself he is ill but its getting really stressful.
He wont really engage with mental health services despite people telling him to. He has been sectioned twice this year so far but managed to get released somehow... supposedly to be treated in the community but he doesnt seem to engage with this at all...
Anyone that offers him any reasonable advice he completely turns on.

Its on social media that this is becoming an issue for me as he posts constantly during the night and day on things like twitter and facebook and instagram. If anyone says anything he doesnt like to him in real life he takes to these things to basically rant for hours about them.

Its really getting me down. I dont follow him but he keeps tagging me in diatribes about things... He blocks me every so often in order to rant about me or my husband... but then I get sent the screen shots by well meaning friends who are appalled by it. So theres not much escape. And the stuff he posts is just awful. Especially about my husband who had the audacity to mention to him that perhaps he should stop taking recreational drugs as that might be effecting his mental health issues..... cue 90 plus public posts about how my husband is an abusive cunt etc etc... and then I get sent all the screen shots by friends who are horrified.

I just find it really invasive and aggressive. Its making me quite anxious.
Itd be fine if people just didnt tell me about it but because he posts these things publicly someone always sees it and 'alerts' me to it.
Im not sure what to do about it?
Like I said any reasonable engagement with him is out of the question because he just turns on you unless you say exactly what he wants to hear.

I feel guilty as well because ive basically cut him dead socially as I just cannot deal with the aggression. He used to be a good friend and its so sad. He justs wont listen to anyone. Not his friends and not mental health workers.

What do I do? Am I right to just be angry? Does anyone have any experience of this illness? How much is he actually responsible for the things he says?

Thanks.

Block him.

It's not fair to be angry at someone because of their health problem, but equally you don't have to engage at all with this person.

Oh, and tell your friends you would prefer them not to send you any screenshots.

Do you need all that social media? I’d delete the lot. Problem solved.

Doesn't sound like a friend at all. Bin off.

I’m sorry. Losing your friendship might be one of the consequences that eventually encourages him to seek help or recognise his disorder and related behaviour - and have a standard response to all the ‘forwarders’ such as ‘Please be assured that I am aware, however I do not want to receive future notice of such social media. Thanks’.

I’m sorry this is happening to you and your husband, especially as it sounds as though you’re good friends to this man.

There’s no magic answer to responsibility for behaviour in situations like this - I mean there’s no definitive answer, I suppose. It will all depend on the individual.

I’ve got some experience of this and in the end I stopped trying to work out which bits were the individual’s responsibility and which bits were down to the illness. The impact on me was the same either way.

I ended up radically limiting contact. It was sad and I can’t pretend it was a particularly kind thing to do - but to be honest I don’t think my presence in that person’s life was particularly comforting or helpful for them either. In my case, the person I knew needed serious medical help. Well-meaning friends and relatives could do very little (apart from the very few he trusted and listened to)

I cant block him because he blocks me then unblocks me... so id have to get in there at the point I was unblocked in order to block him...
I was not following him and dont look at his posts anyway... this all comes to me via other people.

Im not going to delete all my social media accounts because of someone else behaviour. I dont think that is very helpful advice. I only have facebook anyway, I dont have twitter or anything.... Its just that he also posts stuff on there which I get sent screen grabs of.

The issue with asking other people not to send me screen grabs is that they are all well meaning people.... and as his posting is all completely public this is getting seen by nearly a thousand people who all vaguely know me or know someone who knows me etc so it would be very very hard to get the message across to all these people that I dont want contacting about it.

tressdesolee yeah its just really sad. Hes like a completely different person. I feel sorry for him but then he keeps doing and saying things that seem specifically designed to cause harm to us.

Can you unfriend yourself when blocked ? If so I would do that .

you cannot see the person at all when blocked. Facebook really need to do something about that really because it leaves the person whos been blocked quite vulnerable. He can unblock me when im asleep and send loads of stuff then re block me before I wake up and I cannot reply or do anything about it. He can also tag me in stuff then block me so that i get a message saying what hes tagged me in but then cannot actually report it to facebook as ive been blocked again! And I cannot block him either because I cant see him... so he can keep on tagging me and I cant do anything.

Hes on loads of things anyway... he makes youtube videos ranting about us and other people. And all of this is completely public so anyone could see it. So I get random people contacting me saying 'do you realise there is this guy mouthing off about you on youtube?' etc

Im not going to delete all my social media accounts because of someone else behaviour.

This is so MN.

Poster 1: "I have this problem"

Poster 2: "You need to do X"

Poster 1: "I'm not doing X!"

Social media and MH issues can be an awful combination. If you're not prepared to delete your accounts, you'll just have to ask all your friends not to send you any of this shite.

Most of his behaviour is probably down to his MH, especially if he's not engaging with MH services and not taking his medication. I have a bipolar family member who is non-compliant with medication and he is on depo injections now. I was quite surprised, because where I live they almost never do that, but then MH services local to me are pretty shite.

Ime, one of the hardest things about being bipolar is that when people are becoming unwell, they feel fantastic, so don't seek help. Some of my MH clients now trust me enough to accept it when I suggest that they appear to be becoming unwell, and perhaps should perhaps ask for a medication review.

Scatty and Lakie why on earth do you think OP should delete social media, which she presumably uses responsibly and enjoys (like most of the population) because she has a friend whose mental health makes his use problematic?

It sounds as though he’s harassing you on Facebook. Can you keep a timeline of what he’s doing for a couple of weeks, collect some screenshots and then get in touch with them via their Contact Us page or whatever? You’d hope they can block him for you.

deleting my accounts will not solve the problem though will it?
People email me these screen shots? Am I supposed to delete my email and just pretend the internet does not exist?
And what about when people tell me in real life when they see me? Am I just to put my fingers in my ears?
Honestly getting rid of facebook is not going to stop this and would just be sad for me as I generally enjoy facebook.

I think the issue is that he does feel fantastic at the moment yes. I understand that to an extent because it must be so awful on the flip side to have to come back down and deal with all the things youve done. So I know why he doesnt want to be brought back to earth. But its at a very great cost to everyone around him.
Hes also very clever and well educated and appears to be able to easily talk himself out of things with staff... hence him getting released very fast from hospital.

tresdesolee I will try doing that... I do have lots of screenshots as various people have been sending them to me! Im not sure what facebook could actually do as this is not being sent directly to me..... They cant stop him from typing my or my husbands name really...
I guess the only thing they could do would be to delete his account.... but I seriously dount they would do that over this.

I don't understand how the OP getting rid of her Facebook accounts would stop this man ranting about her? She isn't been tagged in these rants as he has blocked her, she can't see this rants cause he has blocked her. But other people can and I imagine will still tell her about these things whether she is on Facebook or not. The OP is not doing anything wrong in her use of Facebook etc so why should she get rid of it?
OP I would say contact Facebook but as he blocks you I am unsure what they could tbh. I don't know whether it would be classed as harassment but you could talk to the police who may be able to get other agencies involved as it is likely that this is all down to his MH problems.

Since you say the problem is you can't block him yourself because he keeps blocking and unblocking you - reckon Facebook can do it for you. Seems straightforward enough. Send them the screenshots.

The OP coming off social media isn't going to stop this bloke ranting on FB or YouTube - how is that going to help? Why should the OP lose out on contact with her friends because of one person It's not the OP that needs to stop using social media!

I would contact FB/TB, outline the problem and ask them what you can do about it as a first step.

Coming off social media would stop him tagging her though? Then his viewers wouldn’t know who he was talking about.

OP I know you don’t want to come off social Media but really what else could you do? You can’t stop him doing it

If he is harassing you, collect evidence and go to the police.

It might be the rock bottom kick up the arse that’s needed to make the authorities take notice and bloodywell section him.

It’s not ok to keep libelling someone.

And make it totally clear to EVERYONE that you don’t want to know. Set up some mail rules to filter out any key words and put in in a folder to delete without looking. If thy accost you in the street hold up your hand an say ‚‘I’m going to stop you there, as I SAID. I DONT WANT TO KNOW‘ people, will get the message.

The police aren’t going to be able to do anything

Send the screenshots to Facebook, see if they will sanction him for harrassment. I'm sorry he has mh problems, but your primary concern is yourself and his behaviour impacts on you negatively, regardless of his mh struggles.

If you can, block him when he's unblocked you. It's ridiculous to have to remove yourself from social media when he is the problem, not you. You could alternatively set up a new account and add your friends on that one, which would solve the problem with him (and you could block him asap).

But he is the one that is harassing her so why should she stop using something she may enjoy because of his behaviour? He can still rant about her without tagging her and I imagine if he has blocked her he can't tag her any way most of the time. When you block someone they literally disappear off your feed and you off of theirs. Comments and tags all disappear. Her deleting Facebook will do nothing to stop most of his behaviour.