Contacting friend's Mum - bipolar

[Worriedaboutmyfriend]

Hi everyone hope you are all ok. Sorry if this is slightly vague, have not slept well!

Please could you give me some advice regarding contacting my friend's Mum in this situation, and whether you think this would be a good idea or not.

My friend has bipolar disorder and a few days ago stopped taking his meds, although I believe (so he tells me) they've restarted now. One or two missed doses and he is crying, talking nonsense and hasn't been sleeping. I'm getting 100s of odd and sometimes very sad messages at times.

I am so so worried about him. I keep in touch offering emotional support, trying to encourage him to take meds, eat properly etc. I don't have reason to suspect there's a danger to self or others, but I have enough experience to know you can never really be sure.

My friend has a history of non compliance with medication, and given the side effects, emotional numbing etc I do understand why they stop.

I am not in contact with his family, never met them, but his mum is on Facebook. I asked my friend if he has told his parents about what's happened and he says they know. I believe him.

He has a very good relationship with his Mum. I am wondering about discreetly reaching out to his Mum via Facebook, mainly to offer support to her but also I thought it might help her to know someone else was looking out for her son. I'm also concerned that if I'm aware of him getting into a crisis, who would I tell?

If the shoe was on the other foot, so to speak, I'd be glad if my child's friend contacted me. But I don't know, I'm not a very good judge of these things! Anyway, please don't judge me I have good intentions and trying to help.

Thanks.

It very much depends on the relationship they have with their parents.
I would be horrified if someone contacted my parents without my knowledge or consent, they don't know about my mental illness and I want it to stay that way. I haven't even given mental health professionals permission to contact them.

Speak to your friend about your concerns and that you would like to reach out to someone to get them some extra support whether that is through family or professionals - gp/etc

Thank you, yes I agree with you.
In this case, the parents know all about it.
I think I will talk to my friend about it.

My mum knows fully and I speak to her mostly other than my psychiatrist (bipolar and schizophrenia) she knows most things however if I was offloading to a friend I would feel very betrayed and my paranoia would go off the wall if they messaged my mum. Perhaps I needed to just offload to someone other than my mum I would stop speaking to the friend if they told my mum.

However I am also a mum and would like it if someone told me My dc were struggling so can understand why you felt like you should but I don't think it's a good idea to break confidence.

Thank you Theodore, that is a good point and definitely wouldn't be my intention. I would never have revealed what they actually said, more just expressed that they seem to be struggling. I think I'll leave it to be honest. Just feeling at a loss really.

Well in the end, things escalated and I did end up making contact. I didn't reveal what my friend said, just that I'd received some worrying messages and that I felt he needed support. I told him that was what I was going to do. Anyway, she was able to check on h8m and in the end he was fine.

Trouble is, as he threatened suicide and I did nothing, what would the consequence of that be? In the end I thought that keeping him safe and alive was most important. It was probably the wrong thing to do.

I’m no expert but when suicide is threatened it seems to me that it’s always the right to get help involved.

Right thing

I'm glad your friend is OK and you completely did the right thing in making sure they were safe and supported.

Once things have settled, would it be worth having a chat with your friend about what contact you can make if the situation arose again (I hope it doesn't but you never know). As I said in my original post I would be horrified if my parents were contacted but there are people that I would be happy for the to contact in the potentially a risk to myself or others scenarios. It just means that you know you and your friend are on the same page.