For the people who were giving me advice about my boyfriend’s anger… I posted it elsewhere because you guys were being very kind and helpful, thank you 🖤

He’s 29M and I’m 28F.
We’ve been friends for years and he was my best friend before we started becoming romantically involved last year. I know he has mental illness and I won’t write which ones specifically because I refuse to add more stigma online. And NO, that does not mean I am ignoring the mental illness or looking past it by any means. I have my own mental illness that has an extremely bad stigma, but I’ve been in treatment for over 3 years 🙂 however, I’ve never been a danger to anybody. Anyway, Just know that he IS mentally unwell & he did agree to therapy; he just hasn’t seen the therapist yet because he’s finding one taking new clients.

WELL, here I go… If we get into an argument (not every argument), he starts to profusely punch himself really hard on the side of his head.
I saw this one time last month. He did it a couple times in that “episode”.

Yesterday; (he doesn’t drink often), he watched football with his friends and came back after…. And he reeked of booze. So I’m already upset he drove drunk. which this has not happened before so I was disappointed. We get into an argument of me explaining my feelings about something very gently & oh my god he went off the fucking rails!!!!
It started with him punching his head. And then it went to him punching my bed headboard really hard about 5 times. And then he threw my 40fl oz hydro flask across the room with a lot of force (so much that it dented the damn thing and it’s supposed to be “indestructible”). He apologized immediately, but I was so shaken up. AND my fucking grandma lives downstairs.

I’ve never seen this other than growing up with an abusive father; I’ve never dated an abusive partner out of my 4 other long relationships. And I never saw this as his friend. :/ because of my childhood, I grew up basically in survival mode. (so yes, I do have my LTC and my gun locked away properly). But I also do have some blades / knives hidden around the room. It’s for protection because I’m not living in the best area right now. I got so scared that I grabbed his keys (bc I didn’t want him driving) and I grabbed one of my knives and held it under my blanket in case he were to hurt me.

Eventually, me grabbing his hands and trying to hug him calmed him down. And he apologized again. And then he told me I didn’t have to grab my knife, that not once has he ever laid his hands on a partner. His has given him a blackeye and stomped on him before and he never touched her back, but he does break things and will punch walls and himself instead….

I don’t know what to do, I don’t even know how to process this because this doesn’t feel like the man that I’ve been friends with for so long. The man that is so funny and kind and loving; has had the same friends forever and they are really good people, his friends are awesome. I want him to be in therapy like tomorrow. I know that’s not realistic, but has anyone been in this scenario? I don’t want to be bullied into silence in fear that he will go on one of those tantrums. So I turned to you guys on Reddit because I don’t know what to do. 😔

**TL;DR** my boyfriend has displayed twice now that he violently hits himself and objects around him. Swears that he has never harmed a person. But now I am terrified. I care about him so much and it’s not as easy as walking away since he’s willing & wanting to get help. But is there actual help? Can someone unlearn those habits? :/