Hello, this might not be the right spot for this and I apologize (and feel free to move it to the correct spot), but I'm very worried about a good friend of mine. This is going to be a bit of a long story so I apologize up front.

I have to give a bit of a backstory first and if you don't want to read all of this, skip to the bottom for a shorter version.

I'm in school to be a psychotherapist myself and while I'm not a professional just yet, I do have extensive previous experience in this area and am also being treated for mental illness myself since I was very young. Due to this I'm able to pick up on the distressing signs sooner than others do and thankfully once I explained it to my friend's boyfriend what was concerning, he recognized it once I pointed it out. I am by no means trying to diagnose anyone, so please don't take it that way. Whether or not what she's experiencing is Schizophrenia, Bipolar, or something else, I'm merely wanting to get some advice.

In February of this year she had a very scary episode that I made sure to document in case it ever needed to be brought up again.

I had gotten home around midnight and she was sitting in the living room chair with her boyfriend on his knees in front of her. I thought they were just in a fight but that was not the case. She was in hysterics and was sobbing to the point that she was nearly convulsing. She would go from crying to laughing from crying to laughing and was very, very rapidly cycling through these moods (which first led me to think potential Bipolar as I'm diagnosed with that myself). Her bf wanted to call the doctor in the morning to say what was going on, as she'd just started a new birth control, but she got VERY angry at even the suggestion of this.

She grabbed his wrist and was playing with it in a loving manner before she threw his hand away and yelled at him to go away. I suggested to her bf that perhaps it would be best if he did walk away for the moment because she was being triggered by him and then I followed him upstairs to talk. When I came back downstairs she was rocking and hugging her scarves to herself saying, "Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop" while hyperventilating. I had to grab the scarves away because she was nearly suffocating herself.

We did deep breathing and I managed to get her to calm down and then we painted so she could be distracted - all the while I was texting my mom for advice as I was very, very close to calling someone to come and help as I was worried for her safety.

While painting, however, she became incredibly childlike and then cried again when she spilled her water for rinsing her brushes and then became overly apologetic for spilling it and for a lot of other things that didn't make any sense, and then would switch to laughing again when there was nothing to laugh about.

She kept saying that she felt like she wasn't even in her body, that she was watching herself from far away (she kept describing a dissociative episode perfectly) and that she was watching "someone else living and ruining her life". This almost caused hysterics again so we did deep breathing and then she said something incredibly disturbing:

I said to take a deep breath and pretend she was a kitty (as she loves cats and again, was very childlike), and she goes "I don't want to breathe. Cats don't breathe, they're dead."

This led to incoherent ramblings and a sudden intense focus on her art she was doing and about how the youth was being drained of the ability to be creative, and all these other ramblings about art.

So that was that episode, and I do apologize because that's super, super long but it needs to be said so that it can be understood where I'm coming from.

Too long, didn't read version: My friend was having a fit of hysterics this night, was laughing for no reason then would become violent and mad, crying and also said that someone else was living her life and ruining it while she watched from the sidelines. She was rambling incoherent sentences and became incredibly fixated on the art she was working on.

So with this background information, jump to now. Things keep getting a lot worse and before this episode in February she was a lot more "With it" so to speak and less aloof, very sweet, very... her, I guess you could say.

After this episode things seemed slightly okay but then began to gradually go downhill. She and her boyfriend have been having A LOT more fights than normal but it's not your typical fight. It's because she's having these paranoid thoughts about her relationship (I would have to ask her bf again what they are) and she keeps trying to say that it's her boyfriend that's the problem when it's her. She cries over little things and has a very difficult time coping with very, very, very simple situations.

This past week she got violently angry again because someone accidentally told her that her favorite TV character dies and she was shouting at the person, calling them names, and when her boyfriend tried to console her she threatened him, and later that evening she was making up with her boyfriend and was getting very intimate in the living room (she does this often when she's had a rough night, she'll get very physical and then also very violently physical). She was kissing his stomach but then she started biting it. They were love "nibbles" at first but then became full on bites and her boyfriend kept telling her to stop, it hurt, and he didn't like it, but she would continue on anyway.

She gets periods very abruptly where she'll shove people away and not want to be touched by anyone, and will have moments where she just shuts down when things seem difficult (or when she's busy doing her art which is understandable) but she'll have periods where she just sits there briefly, staring down at the ground as she rocks.

I'm sure I'm missing some stuff, as there's a lot that happens. I've tried suggesting she go get help but she said she won't go.

As you can probably see, I'm very, very concerned for her safety, her boyfriend's safety, and her mental health.

Given this information (and again, I'm so, so, so sorry it's ridiculously long); what should I do? Whether or not this is Schizophrenia, Bipolar, another mental illness, or just stress like her boyfriend sometimes insists it is, how do I handle this situation? How can I help her seek help? I'm very concerned for her safety and for her boyfriend's. She's never done anything too violently dangerous but with how things are declining I'm nervous.

To reiterate, I am NOT looking to diagnose her. I'm just seeking advice for the situation.

Thank you for taking the time to read this!