Friend driving us up the walls.

[Brot64]

Read a somewhat similar post here last night but cannot find it, so cannot contribute or ask what needs asking.

I have been bombarded with messages, text and emails, from a friend of ours since 6am this morning. I always wake up at 5am so the issue is not the time, more the messages. It's all covid related, conspiracy based articles, PDF's anti vaccine re:covid, how our society is being hijacked, how the world is being reset, how wearing masks is causing ill health particularly dental, the list is endless, followed by numerous messages. He also knows my mother, who use to be a virologist but is now a neuropathologist though not here , and has bombarded her with numerous emails some in which he has stated that the work she did and does is a hoax particularly in relation to virology (she wrote numerous published articles and he seems to be very interested in).

As she has not been responding he asked me to forward and discuss a report with her, we didn't actually discuss it but to calm him (I know, terrible) I did say we have and it's all the same conspiracy view. I have been responding so might have fuelled this, however I have clearly stated that I am not interested in reading anymore of the articles.

DH suggests it's time to call quits on the friendship. We have been friends since university, and all was well until covid and his recent separation. I have very much enjoyed our friendship but now I dread hearing from him. We cannot seem to speak about anything else aside from this. Am I being insensitive here? If you wouldn’t end the friendship, what approach would you take considering that simply telling him, we have different views and I wouldn’t be reading anymore of these articles doesn’t seem to have any effect on him?

What a cunt. I hope he does lose his job. I cant imagine his legal firm is a male only environment so the women working there are in danger.

@Shedbuilder

I cannot imagine that my judgement has been so wrong for so long. I am at my wits end and I know I sound repetitive but the shock has not worn off yet

The man is very likely to be mentally ill. You wouldn't blame him and write off 20 good years of friendship if he had a stroke or a head injury or early onset dementia or a brain tumour that changed his personality and made him difficult and disagreeable and this is the equivalent to that. He's not a horrible person who's hidden this side of himself from you, he is ill.

I'm now looking at you slightly differently. Mental illness doesn't make anyone a bad person. It's an illness. 25% of the population will suffer mental illness or neurological problems at some time in their life. Could be your partner, your children, your parents, even you. Doesn't make you a bad person.

Well, he's certainly been hiding some misogyny, given that he's targetting women.

OP you sound like a very caring person and this is such a stressful thing to happen. No words of advice, just sympathy and hope that the police are able to step in and resolve the situation quickly.

I was about to post similar about your profiles. I had a male friend who started getting het up about Clinton which escalated into "she has to be hanged" and Trump was angelic . At the time he was sending a fair few links but we used to debate a bit anyway so it just seemed more enthusiastic for want of a better word. Once he said that about Hilary I felt that things shifted. He made points about her being a woman and how she was weak (this guy is English in UK, so not invested in any real way other than global politics). I sent him a couple of links on social media about Trump and racism and he went ape. He posted a huge rant (about 2 A4 of writing, describing my whole life the way he saw it - very little basis in reality - on my FB wall. Really nasty vindictive things, things he assumed were secrets (luckily I have no shame and my friends knew it all anyway!) and really tried to make me out to be mentally unstable, evil, spoilt, man hating, frigid - you name it. I was alerted by a school mum in the break of a psychology lecture (irony!) and by the time I read it I thankfully had a good 20 of my friends defending me on my own wall. I responded to him once on there explaining that this crossed many boundaries and he had forced my hand to block him and remove him as a friend. Which I did. He has changed his mobile number 4 times since then and messages me still twice a year saying he wants to be friends (still no apology though) and more worryingly that he knows where I live he doesn't as I moved. Please do protect yourself from this as much as you can. I miss my friend for who he was before but I sadly recognise he is not that person any more and the threatening undertones put me on edge still whenever he texts. It will take a while to fully come to terms with this.

Apologies if this has already been suggested as I have read OP’s posts but not everything in between.

Set up a rule on your work email to divert anything from his email address to a separate folder. This way you don’t have to see anything but it will all be kept for evidence purposes. If he sets up further ‘burner’ email addresses, keep adding them to the rule.

Sorry, I should have added that a year ago he admitted he had been diagnosed bi-polar but was "better now" which was why I suggested your friend may have MH problems earlier on. I hope you get some rest tonight, I remember it being an incredibly exhausting and anxiety ridden time.

He honestly sounds like my mate's dad when he stops taking his antipsychotics (schizophrenia). Friend's dad is lovely, but sometimes decides that he doesn't need his medication as he's cured. Then he stops taking it and suddenly he's weird as shit - just like your Uni friend.

Are you sure you know that it isn't something like that? You've known him a long, I know, but he might have concealed something as personal as that from everyone, and while he took his meds, none of you had any reason to consider it.

I dealt similarly (and successfully!) with a close relative using humour.

I laughingly told him I was sending him an “unsubscribe request” for him to stop his mailings.

Then sent him a follow up email with “Unsubscribe Request” as the header - with a lighthearted message.

He took it well - and it served my purpose

@SynchroSwimmer i think its gone a bit beyond that now...

We have now officially reported everything. I still feel somewhat guilty about this, even though I know I shouldn't. Unlike what a PP said, I have not written him off because I wanted to but I have to, neither do I think the 20 year friendship was deceptive on his part but it is clear that something is not right.

We will follow the advice of 101 and further advice given by the police which is very similar. I do wish I could help him somehow but I don't know how and for tonight at least I don't have the strength and mental capacity to do so. DH has blocked everything work wise including him on twitter and social media. He cannot reach me on my phone and my mother is okay as her work has dealt with it. I truly hope it's the end although DH is sceptical. Either way I need some sleep for tonight and hoping nothing further happens.

Thank you all so much for your advice. This thread has really helped me be more rational throughout the day.

Sorry missed to respond to the MH question. No I have not been aware of any previous MH issues that he has had and have never had any reason to suspect that he was suffering from MH problems prior to today. He has also never been aggressive or abusive towards me or anyone I know. Not once in the 20 years of knowing him have I ever felt threatened by him. This is all new to me.

You’ve had a hell of a day OP. Try and get a good sleep if you can x

Bloody hell

Do you have CCTV? Might be useful so that you can see if it’s him if you get a knock at the door

Ex also doesn’t want his ability to work affected as this will affect her and kids. (Naturally.) The fact that this is now affecting you and your mum’s ability to work is your call. Calling your mum a Nazi is a form of racial vilification and if he is proved to be of sound mind at the moment (unlikely) he can be hauled over the coals for that - and rightly so. If his work quality has not been affected by his obsession and lack of sleep, I am very surprised.
I suspect he is following the dreaded “Paleo Pete”. Look him up if you must. Wanker Aussie Masterchef judge, now turned lifestyle/conspiracy guru. He is so dangerous. He has also been selling dangerous implements claiming they can “cure” people of coronavirus and other things. (And been banned and fined for doing so!) Arse. And yet he has many, many “Sheeps”). (I am an Aussie healthcare worker and mortified by that bloke.)

Just remember that while you have a long-standing friendship with this man, his mental health is not your responsibility. I know that sounds selfish, but he will not “hear you” at the moment. He is not capable. You don’t have to stop loving the friend he was, but you do have to protect yourself - just as his wife and kids have had to do. He might need to crash and burn to get the help he needs, and it might be painful to hear about. I’m sorry.

You've done all you can and you've done the right thing, OP, now try and relax and get some sleep, I am sure you are exhausted and emotionally wrung out by today. I don't think anything further will happen, certainly not tonight.

@Shedbuilder

I cannot imagine that my judgement has been so wrong for so long. I am at my wits end and I know I sound repetitive but the shock has not worn off yet

The man is very likely to be mentally ill. You wouldn't blame him and write off 20 good years of friendship if he had a stroke or a head injury or early onset dementia or a brain tumour that changed his personality and made him difficult and disagreeable and this is the equivalent to that. He's not a horrible person who's hidden this side of himself from you, he is ill.

I'm now looking at you slightly differently. Mental illness doesn't make anyone a bad person. It's an illness. 25% of the population will suffer mental illness or neurological problems at some time in their life. Could be your partner, your children, your parents, even you. Doesn't make you a bad person.

This is such a great post. Absolutely agree.

Please don’t contact this man’s colleagues or do anything to harm his career. He is unwell. You don’t need to be disturbed by him if you don’t want to. You can ignore and block all communication if you choose to. But he is still someone you’ve been friends with. He is experiencing a psychotic episode by the sound of it.

I don’t think you should be copying and pasting his messages here or giving so much identifying details about his family and career. You wouldn’t want your awful times and personal messages shared widely with strangers.

If you can’t help him- and you can’t really- then don’t make things worse for him please. It’s not drama. It’s his life, which is really awful for him recently by the sounds of it.

Brot64 - Contacting the authorities is the best thing you could do, not just for yourselves, but also for him. I would hope that if I were ever to develop mental health issues of the type that he has, that my friends would contact the authorities so that I could get the help I needed, rather than my friends doing nothing with the risk that I could then become a danger to myself and others and do something that I, in my right mind, might regret for the rest of my life.

Whatever your husband's plans for if this chap turns up - make sure they are only and immediately to call 999. Your husband getting into some confrontation with him is not going to help anyone, and puts everyone at physical risk.

Best wishes

The frequency with which he has been sending the messages suggests he may be unwell and is escalating. I used to have an acquaintance like this - when she was unwell and not taking her meds she would ring all my friends up, leaving multiple and increasingly bizarre voicemail messages. Are you in any position to help him? If not, I would just block and not respond.

The number of people suggesting the OP help (how?) someone who is displaying clear signs of being potentially dangerous is quite astounding. The best help this man can receive is for the police to be alerted so that hopefully he can get the medical attention he so clearly needs.

@Throckmorton Its not actually that astounding, not when you consider the number of people who dont read the whole thread and comment on the first post are so arrogant that they think their twee little comment couldnt poasibly have been said by anyone else, despite it being there 273 times and the OP has provided a dozen updates.

But no, the cheque must be cancelled.

For some reason, a response I posted, or thought I had, several hours ago has only just appeared.
For the record, there is nothing wrong with people suggesting OP tried to get some help for her friend. We did this with our friend, we would ring her husband or another friend and they were able to step in. When these episodes first started it was quite scary and no one knew quite how to react,
At least OP has tried to help her friend.

It does sound like some sort of severe MH crisis, presumably brought about by the pandemic and internet conspiracy stuff. His wife then took protective measures and left him so he's probably transferring his anger at her to all the women he knows. In his head it all makes sense.
His wife has presumably gone from being happily married at Christmas to her DH turning into a totally different person who was a threat to their dc. She must be reeling and I guess has little energy to expend on anyone but her and the dc.
I don't think you should blame yourself for not spotting issues that maybe weren't there before. You are reeling too. Hopefully by reporting it to the police it will alert them not only if he comes to you, but if he goes near his wife and dc.

@Brot64
We also have work phones although he hasn't contacted us there yet. As a business we also have a website and twitter and every ping on my phone is making me jumpy, because am worried it might be him.

Block him on all your businesses' social media pages immediately so that he can't make comments there, especially FB and Instagram. Also block him on LinkedIn and advise your mother to do the same. Yes to creating an email rule so that his emails automatically go to special folder and you don't have to see them. Only check it once a day or once every couple of days to make sure he isn't planning to visit you or something.

I would also start notifying all your female friends about this via social media, either a large post or individually via messenger and relaying it to them. You can use WhatsApp too if need be. Tell them to block him. I had to do this years ago with a shitty and abusive ex. I made a FB post telling all my friends to block the guy and gave a link to his profile specifically so they could do so. It worked and we collectively shut down his bullshit.

I would go back to his ex and provide her with the evidence you have to show that you're on her side and willing to help with the divorce. She probably feels like she's fighting an uphill battle with trying to get the courts to believe her.

Last thing: STOP feeling guilty and sorry for him and start getting angry that he's threatening your family, peace of mind, and livelihood. His mental health isn't your concern or your little project. Free yourself from that "wife work" that society tells women they should do for (broken) men. Fuck him. He's crossed the line, repeatedly.

@ArnoJambonsBike - I both agree and disagree with your post there wrt the MH.

I suspect he has hidden his basic misogyny / fragile UMC white male attitudes for quite some time. People who are sliding into psychosis (he has apparently pulled a few all nighters yet seems to be functioning to some degree professionally) can reveal things that they normally keep under a good, solid lid. Fears, obsessions, etc, can suddenly see the light of day, to the surprise and often the horror of friends and family. It's like 'in vino veritas'.

I think his law firm should be told. He will drag the firm into disrepute if his behaviour becomes public knowledge or if he targets any female clients.