[hvert]

I am looking for ideas on how to best handle this situation.

I have known Joe for 20 years. He now lives in another city and we communicate via email. He was laid off about five years ago. Not long after that, he started telling me about people in his building and city who he feels are threatening towards him. He hears them say his name and talk about wanting to do bad things to him. He is very vague about his claims because he is worried they are reading his emails.

At first his claims were plausible. He complained about the kind of minor aggravations anyone deals with when living in a city, like someone running a red light or kicking a door. He just took them more personally than most people. He was always that way, and I can be too, so I didn't think much of it.

The complaints began escalating and getting a increasingly bizarre, involving cults, spies, etc. He started filming and recording these incidents. He played some of the recordings for me and I saw/heard nothing of what he described. I finally realized that most of this was probably imaginary.

Is there any way to suggest that he seek professional help for this without scaring him off or hurting his feelings? I have mentioned it in passing in the past (he has worried that this stuff is imaginary). I do not pretend to believe his delusions but I do not say that they are delusions - I write as if they are misunderstandings.

He sent me several crazy emails today and I would like to encourage him to seek professional help more strongly, but I am not sure it would have any effect besides making him feel like I was one of them.

Has anyone been in this situation before and found a strategy that worked?

[Sometimes psychotic]

I am not Sick, I don't Need Help! - Vida Press

Here is a book that might help you...delusions are very hard to reason with though...you might not be able to help...in my case seeing a psychiatrist was actually part of my delusional scheme so when friends made an appointment for me I gladly went...I was very lucky things went down the way they did. At the same time meds for delusions can take a month or two to work so this isn't going to be something you can get accomplished without some sort of consistency on his part...ie tricking him isn't going to work...

[hvert]

Thank you for that link. Even reading the preview chapters was helpful. I'm glad that your friend's intervention accidentally worked

I did directly suggest that my friend see a psychiatrist and he took it very poorly. He thinks that it would be ironic for him to go in to see a psychiatrist to learn coping mechanisms for dealing with all the people around him who are so unwell that they swear at him under their breath as they walk by him.

Unfortunately, I live a thousand miles away. He lives with a partner who should be seeking treatment for him. I don't think I can do anything.