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To echo other people in this thread, you're not responsible for him, but if you have the emotional bandwidth to help out where you can, you can make a difference in his recovery outcomes. It sounds like a lot of pressure, but the more relaxed and detached you are the better it'll be for both of you.

I generally think you were completely right to call the mental health team, but he understandably might still be angry.

I care for your friend, and here are some concrete steps that worked for me, in order of effectiveness.

1. Taking time off work, or even leaving if that's possible

Sounds like workplace tensions caused or exacerbated what he's going through. It's likely his mistrust has spiralled into some kind of paranoia. It's also possible that workplace stress is exhausting and destabilising him. It's best for him to simply take extended leave, or leave the workplace entirely.

2. Avoiding psychiatric labels in favour of therapeutic/psychological labels

Understanding that paranoia develops from suspicion, and suspicion grows from fear, and fear grows from mistrust. To elaborate, it sounds like he's having some kind of conflict where he thinks other people are doing x or y to him, but that's likely just mistrust spiralling out of control. One attitude is to label this paranoia, and as a psychiatric symptom of psychosis/schizoaffective disorders, another attitude is to label it as an extreme version of mistrust. Both are true, but one is more conducive to healing. Basically, if I were your friend, I would avoid internalising any labels he would be taking on during this period, because that can actually reinforce negative outcomes.

3. Eating pure, unprocessed, and heavy foods.

A lot of mania like symptoms are just the result of emotional or mental exhaustion. That causes us to get light headed and start overthinking, and then have an emotional reaction of fear, which causes more overthinking and so on, which can spiral out of control. A simple solution that doesn't involve pharmaceuticals is drinking lots of fresh, spring water, eating tuber and root vegetables like potatos and carrots, and also fatty and greasy foods like cheeses and butter. Basically, natural and whole foods which weigh you down, not things like McDonalds or potato crisps. Drugs are likely going to be necessary for at least a couple of weeks and maybe several months, but longer than this, in my opinion is likely detrimental to the brain's physiology. Your friend sounds quite intelligent, let's keep it that way.

4. Sleeping more

Like I said in my previous response, lack of sleep can cause and exacerbate mental health problems. Sleeping drugs or aids like melatonin may be necessary at this stage, but if not, then natural remedies like camomille tea, a relaxing bath and music would help.

5. Working with a psychologist/therapist, rather than a psychiatrist

This perspective may be polarising, but I believe that psychiatrists are not equipped to help heal severe mental health issues. At best, they are a temporary support that prescribes medication (which is necessary initially for weeks and months). To end up on medication for years and decades, and stuck with a psychiatrist who keeps on prescribing them is a one way road to being a zombie. Instead, in my opinion, working regularly with a psychologist and/or licensed therapist is the best way to recover from so called severe mental health illnesses like bipolar/schizoid disorders. If your friend has the financial means, additionally working with a neurologist once he's more stable (maybe 1 or 2 months from now), would be even better. The neurologist can rule out things like actual physical brain conditions like high cranial pressure, brain tumours and other physiological causes of mental health problems.

6. Spending time in nature during the day, either alone or with a trusted friend

Just sitting or walking around in a park can have extremely outsized benefits for mental health. That means going to as secluded and natural of a place as is practical. If there are no people in the place, that's even better. I experienced it myself, when I walked in a park every day and recovered extremely quickly.

7. Having the intention to surrender to a higher, benevolent power

Your friend is communicating with voices in his head, which is a a big warning sign, from a spiritual, psychiatric and psychology perspective. It could be anything from different parts of his psyche communicating to try and come to a resolution, or it could even be what are called "jinns" or negative spirits in religions like Islam. While many may roll their eyes at the mention of spirits, especially in a more secularly oriented community like Hacker News, this is a possibility. The solution, regardless of what is happening, and regardless of what you (or I) believe is happening, is surrendering to a higher power. It could be surrendering to God, Allah, Buddha, Earth, Universe or the Void. It doesn't matter whether he's atheist, agnostic, religious or spiritual, simply having the internal intention to surrender to a higher power will deliver very rapid healing and peace. If the intention to surrender is genuine (not laced with doubt or skepticism) and comes from a deep place, it will cause an instant effect of peace and relaxation. You can even try this yourself right now to verify it. It definitely did for me. In fact, this last point was the most effective, over everything else I mentioned.

If your friend wants to talk to someone when he's feeling better I'm always available.

Non-pharmaceutical ways are, drinking spring water, eating heavy root vegetables and foods, like potatos, cheese, carrots, grains and also spending time walking and sitting in nature. If someone has experience with mediation, then having the meditative intention to surrender to whatever one considers to be the highest power e.g. God, Allah, Buddha, Universe, Nature, Void is also extremely effective.

Source: My own experiences.

Unless he was physically violent to you, you calling the mental health team (and therefore the police) on him escalated this situation. Obviously he would be angry with you, because you essentially had him arrested. His reactivity to this in of itself is not a sign of mental illness. If you put yourself in his shoes, you would be angry or annoyed too.

Additionally, you could have been more descriptive about his behavior. That he believes reality is an illusion is not necessarily a sign of mental illness. For all we know he could have had a glimpse of satori (ironic given your username). That statement about reality is described in countless spiritual and religious texts by people far wiser and more intelligent than either of us.

However, him talking to himself and not sleeping could be a sign of mental illness. Not sleeping itself could even be the cause, and not the effect of mental illness. As in, maybe he stopped sleeping well on the first day, and then the second, and so on, causing this weeklong incident, and sleeping normally would bring everything back to normal. We don't know if this was the case.

If I were you, as a friend, I would apologize for causing him to be arrested and thrown in hospital (even if you don't believe you're at fault or have done anything wrong) and at least let him stay in the house you shared for a couple of months before making any drastic moves like kicking him out. Treat him normally, as you did before this incident. Don't treat him with kid gloves or as a crazy person. This incident could very well be a one off...or it could be the start of long term mental health issues, which can be resolved but would require some more understanding from you. From there on, make a decision about whether you want to continue living with him given what has transpired. You have to be careful about not blowing this one week, or even a couple of days out of proportion and ruining his life and career. Treat it just as an anomaly, don't share what happened with anyone unless you have permission from him.

I'm speaking as someone who's gone through what your roommate has gone through and recovered. A lot of armchair mental health professionals in this thread are providing extremely poor advice here; advice that's only likely to exacerbate what's happened.

For example:

- Kicking him out of the house

Refusing to have him back in the house is basically the same as indefinitely extending his stay at the hospital - possibly one of the worst things you can do from my perspective. Unless he's actively physically violent, which it doesn't sound like he is - why on earth would you refuse to have him back for at least several weeks?

- Breaking off ties with him

Ridiculous, treat him as the friend he has always been to you. There's no need to worry about your safety unless he is actively physically violent to you. If he starts talking about reality, why not humor him out try and understand exactly what he's saying or looking it up?

- Telling his workplace about what happened

You mentioned you phoned his workplace regarding his absence. I hope you kept the details general and didn't tell them about him being hospitalized. That's a decision for him to make later when he is feeling better.

You sound like a good guy. The best thing you can do for him is to keep a level head yourself and be a good friend while maintaining some kind of detachment and distance. The most likely outcome statistically is him recovering - it will just take some time. Just my two cents.

https://chatgpt.com/c/66e3a628-2814-8012-a6c5-33721b78cb99

Commenter: "That's totally not evidence of being more militaristic, US just has more friends"

You just contradicted yourself. Having more military bases IS being militaristic.

But our holidays and working calendar is the same as in the Northern Hemisphere.

So whereas Americans are celebrating Christmas and taking a break during their coldest part of the year, and resting up, we Australian's continue to work throughout our winter, which is in July.

( ||) First quarter in Northern Hemisphere, 3rd (or last) quarter in Southern (|| ) Last quarter in Northern Hemisphere, 1st in Southern