This resonates with my experience. When a friend is having their first manic episode, it’s hard to get them to recognize that and get the help they need. But after the aftermath of a couple manic episodes, my friend wanted to get help. Even when he had a hard time complying with meds, he was able to recognize when he was heading into another manic episode and get help proactively.
My friend’s family do a few things to mitigate some of the bad decisions that a manic episode brings on. 1) the family has location tracking, 2) the family can pause credit cards, 3) the family can take away car keys.
I don’t expect any of those mitigations will be able to be implemented today in your case. But if your friend is currently going through a bad manic episode then they will probably want to prevent future manic episodes from spiraling. Having a conversation about how to achieve that, and having a mutually defined set of warning signs, will help address the problem.
Yeah seconding this advice. If you really want to help someone who struggles with this, long-term help / working them on strategies to avoid escalating mania & exacerbating it in the future is the highest impact form of help.
Don't agonize over how to handle the situation in the moment too much and don't take anything they say seriously or try to make any decisions, just keep them from hurting themselves and try to steer them towards medical help to the best of your abilities.
This resonates with my experience. When a friend is having their first manic episode, it’s hard to get them to recognize that and get the help they need. But after the aftermath of a couple manic episodes, my friend wanted to get help. Even when he had a hard time complying with meds, he was able to recognize when he was heading into another manic episode and get help proactively.
My friend’s family do a few things to mitigate some of the bad decisions that a manic episode brings on. 1) the family has location tracking, 2) the family can pause credit cards, 3) the family can take away car keys.
I don’t expect any of those mitigations will be able to be implemented today in your case. But if your friend is currently going through a bad manic episode then they will probably want to prevent future manic episodes from spiraling. Having a conversation about how to achieve that, and having a mutually defined set of warning signs, will help address the problem.