Clonenumber47
Mike
I know this is long, but please bear with me.
Going through life I have been fortunate enough to have a core group of friends, "The Guys". We have been friends since my freshmen year in High school, nearly a full decade ago. The four of us have traveled the world together, and continue to hang out an average of twice a week. My best friend and confidant out of the group, Alex, is quite troubled. Since high school I have watched a steady decline in my best friend's personality.
I know people change, but in 10 years I have seen him turn into someone drastically different. He enlisted with the Marines right out of High School. Three months in he was discharged for medical reasons. I am still very unclear on what events took place while he was in boot camp, as his story changes every time he tells it. (Not even in a funny way, but more of a "he can't recall the true story" kind of way). I know before he left that he suffered a concussion during fitness training. He claimed to have suffered another while in Boot. The head trauma has caused some sort of medical anomaly within his brain, causing seizures to trigger randomly. Doctors have no clue what sets his seizures off. This all happened in 2004.
Over the past 5 years, his seizures have gotten gradually worse. I know he also suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after his return from the Marines. The rest of us did the best we could to keep him in a good place mentally. We both share similar interests about a career, as we both want to be screenwriters and directors. This lead us to work together a lot. I would invite him onto my projects, he would invite me onto his, and so on. At one point he even went out and bought a brand new $2,000.00 HD camera for us to use on either of our projects.
Since then things with him have gotten way worse. He has always had a bit of social awkwardness to him, in addition to his normal character quirks. His awkwardness has become very pronounced and noticeable, regardless if he is with us as a group or not. Also, things that used to be satire jokes for him have become a sickening mentality (example : Jokingly saying you hate Canadians when you are a kid because you are an American. Nowadays, actually hating Canadians for literally no reason at all). Aside from the socially awkwardness and absurd hating of random things, he has begun to develop agoraphobia. He doesn't' want to leave his house much, skipping things like the midnight premiere of a movie which we all loved to do as a group, or skipping hanging out at my friend John's house without a reason, but still asking to hang out at his own place. On the work/project end of it, I invited him to help me on a project, after meeting the producers, he said that this project was not for him, and asked them to not be a part of it, they adhered to his wish and didn't hire him. He has done nothing but bitch and moan about how he wasn't brought on for the gig, when he himself asked not to be a part of it. He even went as far as to say that if he ever ran into one of those producers, he would run them down with his car (this was said in a very serious manner).
I am really concerned for the well being of my friend. I am really afraid he is going to do something bad to himself or someone else. I've spoken with his family, who are really nice people, but are extremely delusional when it comes to the well-being of their son, thus unwilling to push him to seek more help. I've spoken with the other friends in our group, they are concerned like I am, but are not in a place to help do anything about it. He himself refuses to see therapists or psychologists, and will only accept treatment from one medical doctor to keep his medicine to reduce seizures.
So out of desperation I am opening this subject to the boards. What can I do to help my best friend? What would you do in my position?
Going through life I have been fortunate enough to have a core group of friends, "The Guys". We have been friends since my freshmen year in High school, nearly a full decade ago. The four of us have traveled the world together, and continue to hang out an average of twice a week. My best friend and confidant out of the group, Alex, is quite troubled. Since high school I have watched a steady decline in my best friend's personality.
I know people change, but in 10 years I have seen him turn into someone drastically different. He enlisted with the Marines right out of High School. Three months in he was discharged for medical reasons. I am still very unclear on what events took place while he was in boot camp, as his story changes every time he tells it. (Not even in a funny way, but more of a "he can't recall the true story" kind of way). I know before he left that he suffered a concussion during fitness training. He claimed to have suffered another while in Boot. The head trauma has caused some sort of medical anomaly within his brain, causing seizures to trigger randomly. Doctors have no clue what sets his seizures off. This all happened in 2004.
Over the past 5 years, his seizures have gotten gradually worse. I know he also suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after his return from the Marines. The rest of us did the best we could to keep him in a good place mentally. We both share similar interests about a career, as we both want to be screenwriters and directors. This lead us to work together a lot. I would invite him onto my projects, he would invite me onto his, and so on. At one point he even went out and bought a brand new $2,000.00 HD camera for us to use on either of our projects.
Since then things with him have gotten way worse. He has always had a bit of social awkwardness to him, in addition to his normal character quirks. His awkwardness has become very pronounced and noticeable, regardless if he is with us as a group or not. Also, things that used to be satire jokes for him have become a sickening mentality (example : Jokingly saying you hate Canadians when you are a kid because you are an American. Nowadays, actually hating Canadians for literally no reason at all). Aside from the socially awkwardness and absurd hating of random things, he has begun to develop agoraphobia. He doesn't' want to leave his house much, skipping things like the midnight premiere of a movie which we all loved to do as a group, or skipping hanging out at my friend John's house without a reason, but still asking to hang out at his own place. On the work/project end of it, I invited him to help me on a project, after meeting the producers, he said that this project was not for him, and asked them to not be a part of it, they adhered to his wish and didn't hire him. He has done nothing but bitch and moan about how he wasn't brought on for the gig, when he himself asked not to be a part of it. He even went as far as to say that if he ever ran into one of those producers, he would run them down with his car (this was said in a very serious manner).
I am really concerned for the well being of my friend. I am really afraid he is going to do something bad to himself or someone else. I've spoken with his family, who are really nice people, but are extremely delusional when it comes to the well-being of their son, thus unwilling to push him to seek more help. I've spoken with the other friends in our group, they are concerned like I am, but are not in a place to help do anything about it. He himself refuses to see therapists or psychologists, and will only accept treatment from one medical doctor to keep his medicine to reduce seizures.
So out of desperation I am opening this subject to the boards. What can I do to help my best friend? What would you do in my position?
