roomate going insane - what to do?

[saaya]

first i thougt it was all for fun, but im starting to get doubts now
in case you dont know, i have a 3 room apartment and i rent 2 of the rooms, so im living with 2 other people, most of the time 2 guys. theres always more people around and we are always joking around and having fun and all, but one of my roomates started acting weird latey, lol

he started saying weird things while we watched tv, when i asked him he smiles or laughs and says "oh nothing, nvm"
i kept asking and he then said he hears "voices"... 0_o
it was still funny then, we both laughed and made jokes about this for a few days, but he keeps doing it and it appears that hes really hearing voices...

i asked him about it another day, and he pointed towards the outlet in the kitchen and said the voices would come out of the outlet...

he was searious and told me to be quiet for like 60 seconds
staring at the outlet
but of course... nothing...
then i had to laugh really hard because it was all really ridiculous...

i asked him if the voices he hears tell him to kill people, he was silent for a moment and looked into the air like he was listening to something and then said "no" and laughed
so i laughed to and said, fine, then all is good, let me know when they start talking to you about killing people, mkay?

now today i went to mcdonnalds and bought food for all of us, i went around and asked everybody what they wanted. when i asked him he was in the kitchen watching tv, he opened the window and yelled towards the yard "does anybody want something from mcdonnalds?" wich was pretty funny, we all laughed, but ...weird... lol

we were eating in the kitchen, 4 people all together, when he suddenly said something like "ah that damn infra red cam"
we were all silent all the sudden and looked at him like huh?
he laughed and when we asked him he said that there are people behind one of the kitchen walls that are watching us with an infra red cam, that can watch through a wall. besides this beeing impossible, the wall he meant is leading towards the backyard of our building... theres no room there... just air... its the 4th floor...

he kept staring at that wall and made weird faces like he was trying to look through the wall or hear anything that was going on behind that wall.

oh and he keeps knocking on my and the other roomates doors and then asks us if we are ok.
then he says good and just leaves the room again.... 0_o
he did that 4 times to me and the other roomate in like 2 hours today. its fun, we all laugh, but its... weird from him, lol...

oh and btw, that guy is over 30 already, hes a "hippie-like long time student im still 20" kinda guy. maybe its drugs? but afaik he doesnt do drugs, he just smokes cigarettes from time to time and drinks a lot occasionally.
hes a really cool and nice guy, but as i said, hes been acting a little weird lately

hope you all had a good laugh from this story
should i be worried? what if he really hears voices?
even if thats not making him dangerous, right?

[n00b 0f l337]

Run. As fast as you can.

TOOO WALMART! That man needs camping gear.

[Bloody_Sorcerer]

point and laugh.



And lock your bedroom door.

[rick_fx]

Bring him to teh nuthouse!

[afireinside]

I think he needs some "special help"

[zenzog]

Them Germans...

They's crazy like them Japanese folk too!

[Heretic]

He could just be messing with you...

[5days]

Buy him a shotgun so he feels safe.

[nn_step]

Lock door, get him off that Crack, and find a new room mate

[2fink]

Screw that!!! Buy yourself a shotgun so YOU feel safe...

As far as hearing voices, meh, the only voices I ever hear are from real people. Maybe his hearing is really good and he is picking up other people talking in other apartments, or a loud TV in someone elses apt? I don't know, but I'd be worried if it gets worse - and buy that shotgun!

you cant buy a shotgun that easy in germany!

[Ackbar]

Well, in the US I'd say take him into a hospital to see a psychiatrist. They might "Baker Act" the person where they keep the person against his wishes and treat them if they're real bad off. But... in Germany, I don't know if someone can force you to get treatment like they can in the US if you're mentally unstable. Maybe you should convince him to go see a doctor, have a serious talk with him. Good luck...

[pcwhisperer]

It sounds like he is developing an acute state of schizophrenia. Try to get in touch with people from hes past to see if this has happend before. Sounds like he is not paranoid (yet), so it might still be relativ easy to convince him to get him examination on free will.
About the danger, not necessary a direct threat in the form of violence, but its impossible to predict what he might consider to be "the right thing to do" from hes point of vieuw. Burn the camera out of the wall for example. Its seldom that a schizophrenic becomes a real danger like those examples, but possible. Do not panic, try to get him proffesional help as soon as possible, and make sure you dont call him a nutcase. If you offend him or he feels misunderstood, he will start acting and lying, or it will trigger him in to paranoia.
Go talk about the situation with your doktor or something to know what you can do to keep the situaton under control. Who to call if hes freaking out to come and take him against his will and find out what your legal rights are about cancelling hes contract if he doessent pay hes bills etc..
In the proces, the less he get traumatized, the "easier" the threatment will be.
Indeed good luck, this can be a very energy absorbing sitiation, living EDIT: /or just dealing/ with someone like that. I had a manic-depressive friend and a paranoid sister. It can be hard to reach them. Get help, both of you .

[Ugly n Grey]

Tell him you hear the voices too. Explain you thought the voices said he was to wear ear muffs full time in the house and not leave his bedroom unless necessary.

When he asks if you are OK, groan in pain and tell him they got you. Bust a fake blood packet all over your forhead and tell him him they are coming for him next.

Point out that you think there is a camera in the toilet and inside the fridge.

When the infrared camera issue comes up, tell him "naw, they only ones I have seen are locked onto you".

When he suggests he hears voices, ask him to get them to hum classical music so you can sleep better.

If he gets up in the middle of the night, make some clicking noises with a pair of spoons. Tell him the next that the insect people have been visiting.

If he becomes agitated or worried tell him that ketchup in his ears will make him seem dead and they will ignore him.

Talk about alien anal probes at every opportunity.

Mention the ability of toe fungus to become sentient.

Show him a pic of my avatar and tell him this man would like to meet him.

Seriously,

They won't commit him unless they can prove he is a threat to himself or someone else.

Saaya, I think the guy is being serious, but realizes his behaviour is unusual at time. Tell him point blank what type of behaviour he is enacting that creeps you out and tell him not to do it around you. If you continue to find problems, give him his walking papers. You're a skinny German computer geek, not Sigmund Freud after all. I doubt you find the behaviour pleasant or welcoming in what is really your home.

Good Luck
UnG

[pcwhisperer]

Tell him you hear the voices too. Explain you thought the voices said he was to wear ear muffs full time in the house and not leave his bedroom unless necessary.

When he asks if you are OK, groan in pain and tell him they got you. Bust a fake blood packet all over your forhead and tell him him they are coming for him next.

Point out that you think there is a camera in the toilet and inside the fridge.

When the infrared camera issue comes up, tell him "naw, they only ones I have seen are locked onto you".

When he suggests he hears voices, ask him to get them to hum classical music so you can sleep better.

If he gets up in the middle of the night, make some clicking noises with a pair of spoons. Tell him the next that the insect people have been visiting.

If he becomes agitated or worried tell him that ketchup in his ears will make him seem dead and they will ignore him.

Talk about alien anal probes at every opportunity.

Mention the ability of toe fungus to become sentient.

Show him a pic of my avatar and tell him this man would like to meet him.


Good Luck
UnG

And let him watch "the 13 floor" as often as possible LOL

[Cooper]

Suggest him to take good sleep. And some outdoor activities might also help, not to mention "activities" with opposite sex
Oh and try to follow that he doesn`t watch TV too much - this thing can be the cause o` such problems

[[XC] leviathan18]

i think LSD is VERY bad

[saaya]

point and laugh.



And lock your bedroom door.

thats what i did so far
but its close to not beeing funny anymore...

Buy him a shotgun so he feels safe.

LOL

He could just be messing with you...

yeah but hes bad in pretending stuff and lieing... i really dont think hes just messing with us.

Screw that!!! Buy yourself a shotgun so YOU feel safe...

As far as hearing voices, meh, the only voices I ever hear are from real people. Maybe his hearing is really good and he is picking up other people talking in other apartments, or a loud TV in someone elses apt? I don't know, but I'd be worried if it gets worse - and buy that shotgun!

well we can hear our neighbours through the ground of our apartment, but thats not what he means...
if he has better ears then how come he suddenly hears those voices and didnt hear them before?

It sounds like he is developing an acute state of schizophrenia. Try to get in touch with people from hes past to see if this has happend before. Sounds like he is not paranoid (yet), so it might still be relativ easy to convince him to get him examination on free will.
About the danger, not necessary a direct threat in the form of violence, but its impossible to predict what he might consider to be "the right thing to do" from hes point of vieuw. Burn the camera out of the wall for example. Its seldom that a schizophrenic becomes a real danger like those examples, but possible. Do not panic, try to get him proffesional help as soon as possible, and make sure you dont call him a nutcase. If you offend him or he feels misunderstood, he will start acting and lying, or it will trigger him in to paranoia.
Go talk about the situation with your doktor or something to know what you can do to keep the situaton under control. Who to call if hes freaking out to come and take him against his will and find out what your legal rights are about cancelling hes contract if he doessent pay hes bills etc..
In the proces, the less he get traumatized, the "easier" the threatment will be.
Indeed good luck, this can be a very energy absorbing sitiation, living EDIT: /or just dealing/ with someone like that. I had a manic-depressive friend and a paranoid sister. It can be hard to reach them. Get help, both of you .

thx
atm i still think its ok and nothing to worry about... but it doesnt seem to go away... and with every day he still acts weird the chances of him getting back to normal or the chance of this beeing a big very weird joke are getting lower...

Tell him you hear the voices too. Explain you thought the voices said he was to wear ear muffs full time in the house and not leave his bedroom unless necessary.

When he asks if you are OK, groan in pain and tell him they got you. Bust a fake blood packet all over your forhead and tell him him they are coming for him next.

Point out that you think there is a camera in the toilet and inside the fridge.

When the infrared camera issue comes up, tell him "naw, they only ones I have seen are locked onto you".

When he suggests he hears voices, ask him to get them to hum classical music so you can sleep better.

If he gets up in the middle of the night, make some clicking noises with a pair of spoons. Tell him the next that the insect people have been visiting.

If he becomes agitated or worried tell him that ketchup in his ears will make him seem dead and they will ignore him.

Talk about alien anal probes at every opportunity.

Mention the ability of toe fungus to become sentient.

Show him a pic of my avatar and tell him this man would like to meet him.

Seriously,

They won't commit him unless they can prove he is a threat to himself or someone else.

Saaya, I think the guy is being serious, but realizes his behaviour is unusual at time. Tell him point blank what type of behaviour he is enacting that creeps you out and tell him not to do it around you. If you continue to find problems, give him his walking papers. You're a skinny German computer geek, not Sigmund Freud after all. I doubt you find the behaviour pleasant or welcoming in what is really your home.

Good Luck
UnG

hahahaha thx for the hard laughs
yeah well, i hope he gets over it, hes been living in this apartment for 2 years now, hes always quiet and keeps stuff clean and pays the rent in time and is always nice and friendly... perfect roomate so far...

Suggest him to take good sleep. And some outdoor activities might also help, not to mention "activities" with opposite sex
Oh and try to follow that he doesn`t watch TV too much - this thing can be the cause o` such problems

he does watch a lot of tv lately!
a LOT!
like last week he was watching tv for 8 hours stright for several days...
he has two jobs, one is only in summer and the other is only in winter, between the two theres a gap of a few weeks and in those weeks he usually just hangs around and watches tv and reads books, meets friends and relaxes.

i just taljked to him in the kitchen and he told me this:
this morning he couldnt stand the feeling of beeing watched by "those people" anymore so he pretended to hang himself.
he said "please tell me if you hear anybody talking about me, like people saying "oh no, did you hear? that guy in the xx apartment killed himself or tried to kill himself" or anything like that. please! you have to tell me if you hear anything like that! if you do hear somebody talking about this then im not going insane!"

wich doesnt make any sense... if hes beeing watched the they would have seen him faking the hanging and would have seen that he didnt do it but just faked it... its all very confusing, lol

ever since he started acting weird hes very hard to talk to.
he barely listens top what anybody says or even on what is happening on tv, even though hes watching tv all the time. i asked him a few things or made a comment on something in tv and he said "yeah" all the time... when i kept asking it turned out he didnt know what i was talking about and didnt really pay any attention to what i said or what was going on in tv.

its hard if not impossible to talkt to him because he doesnt pay attention. its like hes constantly thinking about something or listening to something.
maybe hes trying to hear those voices all the time...

the only thing we can talk to him about and he does pay attention is when its about the voices and the people watching him. lol

btw, i asked him about those voices and he said they always comment what he does. like when he east something they are saying "oh look, hes eating xxx again" and they seem to often make comments towards what he does like making fun of him. to me that sounds really insane lol

and he told me something and then said, ah no, that didnt actually happen, that was in a movie... right....right...

it all started when he was drinking a lot with his buddies a few days ago...
he has been watching way too much tv before and after that, and i think it somehow blew a fuse in his head... i hope a good reboot can fix this though, meaning a few nights sleeping over this will hopefully get him back to normal...

im thinking about disconnecting the tv cable... the tv outlet is in my room, so i can cut him off tv...

i dont know, we can all still laugh about this, himself included, but i dont know... its really weird...

[softpain]

He doesn't seem to have a schizoide personnality but he seem to be hearing voices...and it's serious for him and he shoud see a good doctor and explain ttat so he can get some medication and he would be fine after.
The only problem is to find a good psychiatrist...and for him to understand that it s not that unusual to have a psychosis...

To be taken seriously he must explain clairly that he has hallucinations...

Saddly to many don't get treated..but it s serious cause he won't get better.....

[saaya]

hes very paranoid.. and hearing voices is a sing of shizophrenia, no?

[softpain]

He doesn't have to be schizoid to have hallucinations and to be paranoid.

I'm just saying we should not label him to fast it will not help him ;-P it may scare you and him in fact...

It's serious cause he has hallucinations....it s a psychosis.

It can be fixed easily with appropriate medication and he will have to meet his doctor every few months to make sure he is under control..hopefully!

He just need help to be convince he is not INSANE .it's pretty common...seriously...

But of course he better see a good doctor cause we cannot really know to what extend he is hallucinating...

He may have other problems like a deep depression...

Yes you said it;he is paranoid...

[pcwhisperer]

http://www.schizophrenia.com/diag.php#diagnosis

Indeed a psychose can be triggert by stress, depression , drugs, ilness and so on and its not a definite proof of schizophrenia. But it is a symptom that can often be found with that illness or develop in to it.
I'm not sure about the chances of a temporarely psychose go away by itself.
I would seek for help, the sooner he gets help, the bigger the chances he recovers. Without some proffessionel monitoring, this can go down really fast.
About the labelling, thats why i said to not call him a nutcase. I hope he does not read this

[perry_78]

Lock door, get him off that Crack, and find a new room mate

I second that. Maybe those magic mushrooms arent doing him too good either...

[Cooper]

Yeah saaya. Doesn`t he uses drugs ? Those could make healthy person completly insane. I guess he doesn`t work now. maybe he misses some attention ? Or...don`t know.

the only thing we can talk to him about and he does pay attention is when its about the voices and the people watching him

So he doesn`t talk to anybody much ? that`s strange - REALLY strange. He`s always like that ? Well ...he DOES need company and some fun. And definetly not TV or computer games.

[Frisch]

Confront him with what you are experience, instead of going around the hot soup.

[saaya]

Yeah saaya. Doesn`t he uses drugs ? Those could make healthy person completly insane. I guess he doesn`t work now. maybe he misses some attention ? Or...don`t know.



So he doesn`t talk to anybody much ? that`s strange - REALLY strange. He`s always like that ? Well ...he DOES need company and some fun. And definetly not TV or computer games.

he didnt do drugs for some time. but it all started when he and his buddies were drinking a lot. after that he started acting weird.

and hes not talking very much now, he used to talk more before he started acting weird. hes talking less and less to us now and hes not laughing about the voices anymore. he looks like hes hearing them and they are really annoying him. he feels very uncomfortable with many people around and wants to stay alone if possible.
and he wants to watch tv to distract him... he even offered me 20$ to plug in the tv cable, lol, but i told him that he shouldnt watch tv, at least for one day...

frisch, i told him all this, and so did our other roomate.
hes not taking it serious though and just ignoring it while im starting to take it serious... the thing is our other roomate is pretty new here, just 5 weeks, so he doesnt know my other roomate and doesnt know hes acting very un-normal to what hes usually like

his attention thing got a bit better, but not much...
at least for a few seconds he seems to be totally paying attention now when i talk to him, but he keeps drifting of with his thougts/attention all the time like a little kid

the thing is hes not insured...
he doesnt have any health insurance...
i already got him to check different offers to get a health insurance today.