I have a friend who started being very angry at me and never really explained why in October. I was trying to talk to him because we were having issues but nothing conclusive was happening.
For the longest time I was convinced he was just upset with me.
We met and just before he left he had a meltdown in my car. His behaviour towards me was very unusual, not in a bad way but he just wasn’t like he used to be and even the meltdown was very very new. I never saw him even a little like this in the four years I knew him.
I later realised he has been acting this way since his grandfather died. I mean he could just be upset at me but the timeline does match.
Anyway we would talk by messages and he would take days to reply and be super stubborn and just didn’t want to find a solution so we can stop fighting about our personal issues.
One day I bumped into him (we work at the same place but it is a huge campus) and he immediately called me a creepy stalker and insulted me really badly. I showed him that I was there because I was meeting a friend for lunch and I didn’t know he would be there.
Later that month, I went to my colleague’s house and turns out, it is his flatmate. I tried to tell him that of course my colleague is my friend and he saw me panicking so asked for explanations and I don’t want to share anything he would like to keep private.
He then insulted me and accused me of the worst things. All the things he knew would hurt me and everything was false. He was very violent and I realised he was unconsciously doing everything he could to “teach me a lesson”, try to control me, etc.
Being super hurt I gave it some time and took some distance from this situation. The more I heal the more I realise this isn’t the man I knew. He would never be violent. I am now more and more convinced something is very wrong with him and I might be the only one who sees it. I looked it up and asked mental health professionals and this could be a symptom of major depression.
I really don’t know what to do to help him. We are currently not talking. I don’t want to contact his parents or his sisters as he would get so angry.
What would be the best thing to help him, as I am really worried, without getting more hurt?