When an old friend becomes mayor of Crazytown

[MarsB]

I had a buddy like this. We kayaked together for years. If shit went wrong, I would have been stoked to have him there, at least most of the time.

Sometimes, though, he got strange. Eventually, he got weird full-time and alienated all of his friends. I kind of got scared of him, and I am pretty sure most of his other friends did too.

I had a paddler friend exactly like this, and at least two other mags here were friends with him. Struggled for many years. Had a masters degree in Forestry but last I heard he was working at McDonalds living in his car. Hadn't heard from him in years, but randomly got 2 emails from him yesterday with just a subject line "Fuck you you fucking pussy". There were 5 other random people in the 'To' field that he sent it to, looks like he went through his saved email addresses. Just saw this thread today, pretty weird.

[NBABUCKS1]

anything in the body of the email?

[gravitylover]

With all of the email hacks recently it could be a bot checking for active addresses. Just opening it shows them it's available to spam

[CallMeAl]

Man, that's a gutting situation you're in.

As others have said, try to alert the family, but also realize that there isn't a whole lot you can do for him beyond that. Also, just because you are now involved doesn't mean you are responsible for how this ultimately turns out. Your old friend's condition is out of your control. Remember that.

I had a really close friend show up at my house a number a years ago, fully manic and not making a whole lot of sense about anything.

A few of us did whatever we could to keep him out of trouble for a few weeks, but that was easier said than done. In MT, they do still involuntarily lock people in mental health "hospitals" when police deem are a threat to themselves or somebody else, and that's what happened.

Turns out it was a combo of manic depression and bipolar disorder, ran in his family, as did suicide. He always told him his dad died by choking on a hot dog at a Red Sox game. Fucker.

Many of us blamed ourselves for a long time. Some still do, but the wheels driving his disorders weren't going to stop no matter what we did or who we called. I still don't know how we could've done it any differently or better. Probably never will.

Best of luck to you, what a fucking pickle.

[MarsB]

anything in the body of the email?

No

With all of the email hacks recently it could be a bot checking for active addresses. Just opening it shows them it's available to spam

Good point, entirely possible. The subject line was completely on-brand from what I would expect from the sender, so if it was - shame on me.

[donutlynx]

Yeah I know that story. Agreed the subject line was on-brand. Still shocks me to think about.