Is it time for drugs?
Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 12:43 am
I have a 38 year old friend that has lost interest in nearly everything except playing 1st person shooters, flight simulators, and web browsing. He has no real passion for anything else and is very unpleased with his life. He was a cool friend to hang out with up until five years ago.
Within the last three years I have tried to get him to be the previously happy person he used to be and to find that there are more things he could derive happiness from other than his cat and sleep but really there has never been any real progress – only occasional highs here and there. His outlook on life changed when he got dumped by a girlfriend he had that used to be the girlfriend of his best friend. This was the second girlfriend of his best friend that he became involved with. The two are no longer friends.
Five years ago, right after getting dumped, he moved from Seattle to Redmond. He found a place that was about 1300-1500 feet from where he worked but made sure that his work believed he still lived in Seattle so he could telecommute twice a week. In the winter he would let his car run in his apartment parking lot long enough for it to heat up to use the defroster. This would eliminate the possibility of anyone seeing him arrive and get out of his car at the work parking lot whereby they would surely notice his windows were completely frosted up thereby deducing that the car wasn't driven from Seattle and that he must have lied about where he lives now and therefore doesn't need to telecommute. He never answers his land line because he feared it being a call from work and does not have caller ID.
Just over a year ago he was laid off from a job he had been working at for the last 10 years. His mother also worked at the same company. He answered phones for the first five years at this company interacting with customers. Every time a customer would call in a little light would blink on the phone and one day he decided he didn't like it when that light blinked anymore so he: destroyed his phone, went outside the office building to cry, and then quit his job and went on unemployment for a few months during the summer.
After the summer he decided that he wanted to work for the same company again but this time he wanted to do something else - with computers. At that point in his life the only computers he ever used were in video games.
Five years later, after he was a webmaster for the company’s internal web, he was laid off. He had $16k in the bank, received $26k in severance, and could draw $15k from state unemployment yet believed he could not survive on that long enough to get another job. Near the end of his state unemployment he decided to move in with his mom but never did. After exhausting his state unemployment he applied for and received emergency funds from federal unemployment insurance. The current plan now is to move in with his dad.
Communication is difficult since he doesn’t like to answer email, ignores ICQ messages if they are longer than a few lines, and will sometimes answer his cell phone and then immediately hang up. He has a very low frustration tolerance and loses interest in things very quickly.
He doesn’t like to leave his apartment unless it’s a necessity such as going to the grocery store for food. If he has to drive more than a few miles it isn’t worth the trouble to him. For some reason he seems to have irrational fears that make him feel too paranoid, overwhelmed, or intimidated by things most of us probably wouldn't even think about. Even being inside his apartment can be difficult to handle. For example any time a friend would come over he would need to know in advance that his friend is coming over and he would ask they use a special knock when arriving. There were two times when someone came over unannounced that scared him pretty badly. The first time was when he was playing a video game and had headphones on. He had the TV on in the living room and so the person at the door thought that someone was home and knocked repeatedly – loudly. He eventually heard the knocking and by that time it was loud and not the special knock that he would have his friends use. He got butterflies in his stomach, became very scared, went for a gun, and then ran to the door where he screamed very loudly through the door, “What do you want!†and startled the maintenance person so badly he ran off dropping his keys on the door mat. The second time a black man came to the door mistaking his apartment for the one below and knocked on the door without using the secret friend knock while saying his friends name aloud. My friend was too scared to say anything and so he put himself as far away from the door as he could while his heart rate escalated. He put his back against the wall furthest from the front door and while his trembling hands held his shotgun pointed at the door he waited for the man to leave.
He is a heavy smoker and drinks a lot of alcohol and has experienced delirium tremens on multiple occasions. He will often drink every day and easily consumes 750ml-1.5l of vodka a week by himself. At 6'1" and his weighs in from 120lbs to 130lbs and his legs are as big as my arms. He has had a lot of trouble sleeping for the last three years. He has night sweats, hot flashes, and panic attacks that wake him in his sleep. When he dreams they are mostly nightmares or night terrors. He gets headaches frequently and starts drinking alcohol usually upon awakening to calm him and counter the effects of having a hangover.
I think he is depressed and has difficulty dealing with the anxiety and stress associated from everyday living. I’m obviously not a psychotherapist or psychologist but it’s been three fucking years. I am one of three friends trying to help him with his problems and have probably put the most effort into it as well but nothing I or his/my other two friends have done has really made a difference. It’s like he had a breakdown at work when he destroyed his phone and then later when he got dumped by the girl he entered into a long depression that he hasn’t been able to get out of.
Should I put more effort into this and encourage him to go talk with a psychotherapist? Does he need to get his own psychopharmacologist? Is it time for drugs?
Within the last three years I have tried to get him to be the previously happy person he used to be and to find that there are more things he could derive happiness from other than his cat and sleep but really there has never been any real progress – only occasional highs here and there. His outlook on life changed when he got dumped by a girlfriend he had that used to be the girlfriend of his best friend. This was the second girlfriend of his best friend that he became involved with. The two are no longer friends.
Five years ago, right after getting dumped, he moved from Seattle to Redmond. He found a place that was about 1300-1500 feet from where he worked but made sure that his work believed he still lived in Seattle so he could telecommute twice a week. In the winter he would let his car run in his apartment parking lot long enough for it to heat up to use the defroster. This would eliminate the possibility of anyone seeing him arrive and get out of his car at the work parking lot whereby they would surely notice his windows were completely frosted up thereby deducing that the car wasn't driven from Seattle and that he must have lied about where he lives now and therefore doesn't need to telecommute. He never answers his land line because he feared it being a call from work and does not have caller ID.
Just over a year ago he was laid off from a job he had been working at for the last 10 years. His mother also worked at the same company. He answered phones for the first five years at this company interacting with customers. Every time a customer would call in a little light would blink on the phone and one day he decided he didn't like it when that light blinked anymore so he: destroyed his phone, went outside the office building to cry, and then quit his job and went on unemployment for a few months during the summer.
After the summer he decided that he wanted to work for the same company again but this time he wanted to do something else - with computers. At that point in his life the only computers he ever used were in video games.
Five years later, after he was a webmaster for the company’s internal web, he was laid off. He had $16k in the bank, received $26k in severance, and could draw $15k from state unemployment yet believed he could not survive on that long enough to get another job. Near the end of his state unemployment he decided to move in with his mom but never did. After exhausting his state unemployment he applied for and received emergency funds from federal unemployment insurance. The current plan now is to move in with his dad.
Communication is difficult since he doesn’t like to answer email, ignores ICQ messages if they are longer than a few lines, and will sometimes answer his cell phone and then immediately hang up. He has a very low frustration tolerance and loses interest in things very quickly.
He doesn’t like to leave his apartment unless it’s a necessity such as going to the grocery store for food. If he has to drive more than a few miles it isn’t worth the trouble to him. For some reason he seems to have irrational fears that make him feel too paranoid, overwhelmed, or intimidated by things most of us probably wouldn't even think about. Even being inside his apartment can be difficult to handle. For example any time a friend would come over he would need to know in advance that his friend is coming over and he would ask they use a special knock when arriving. There were two times when someone came over unannounced that scared him pretty badly. The first time was when he was playing a video game and had headphones on. He had the TV on in the living room and so the person at the door thought that someone was home and knocked repeatedly – loudly. He eventually heard the knocking and by that time it was loud and not the special knock that he would have his friends use. He got butterflies in his stomach, became very scared, went for a gun, and then ran to the door where he screamed very loudly through the door, “What do you want!†and startled the maintenance person so badly he ran off dropping his keys on the door mat. The second time a black man came to the door mistaking his apartment for the one below and knocked on the door without using the secret friend knock while saying his friends name aloud. My friend was too scared to say anything and so he put himself as far away from the door as he could while his heart rate escalated. He put his back against the wall furthest from the front door and while his trembling hands held his shotgun pointed at the door he waited for the man to leave.
He is a heavy smoker and drinks a lot of alcohol and has experienced delirium tremens on multiple occasions. He will often drink every day and easily consumes 750ml-1.5l of vodka a week by himself. At 6'1" and his weighs in from 120lbs to 130lbs and his legs are as big as my arms. He has had a lot of trouble sleeping for the last three years. He has night sweats, hot flashes, and panic attacks that wake him in his sleep. When he dreams they are mostly nightmares or night terrors. He gets headaches frequently and starts drinking alcohol usually upon awakening to calm him and counter the effects of having a hangover.
I think he is depressed and has difficulty dealing with the anxiety and stress associated from everyday living. I’m obviously not a psychotherapist or psychologist but it’s been three fucking years. I am one of three friends trying to help him with his problems and have probably put the most effort into it as well but nothing I or his/my other two friends have done has really made a difference. It’s like he had a breakdown at work when he destroyed his phone and then later when he got dumped by the girl he entered into a long depression that he hasn’t been able to get out of.
Should I put more effort into this and encourage him to go talk with a psychotherapist? Does he need to get his own psychopharmacologist? Is it time for drugs?
) some professional help.