Is that even the right thing to do here?
In high school one of my best friends was a flamboyantly gay guy in my grade. We grew up together. He is funny and brilliant and friends with everyone. He loves to dance and he is a remarkably talented singer--he has one of the best singing voices I've ever heard in my life. He has never met a stranger and growing up he was loved by virtually everyone who met him. We volunteered with special needs kids together, and he had such a way with them--he would get on their level, talk to them, really look at them. Everyone loved him.
But he was troubled, too. He came from a troubled family and at times had no where to go. One day he called me while his foster mom was (supposedly) choking out his younger brother and all I could hear was screaming. His case worker once called me on the phone. He slept in the school one night and spent a lot of time at my house, with my family. It was a wonderful friendship but it was a hard one, too, because when he wasn't kind and funny and brilliant he could be cruel. He never really meant it and he always apologized, but he said some terrible things to me over the years, though admittedly that hasn't happened in SEVERAL years now. After we graduated (he dropped out and got his GED) he joined the military and left and was later diagnosed with Bipolar disorder.
He came waltzing back into my life (and my family's life) peak COVID and the peak end of what I suspect was a psychotic episode, where he became fully engulfed in the 5G theory. My parents, against their better judgment, let him into their home and spent time with him, much to my great distress. He did not believe in COVID and my parents are high risk. They are normally so careful and this could have killed them. I said this and they eventually set better boundaries, at my urging (i.e. we all wear masks in the house), though the entire situation is questionable. My parents are now vaccinated.
He is no longer the sweet little boy who was friends with everyone and loved to sing. He is very, very, very, very sick. He developed a delusion last fall that his special needs younger brother was being sodomized by his group home and showed up and tried to take him. He then told my parents people were trying to kill him and they went and got him and brought him to their house, DURING COVID, then called me about it. I was terrified that they were going to get sick so I drove an hour and a half to get him and let him stay with me, where he yammered the entire time about his delusions and god and other nonsensical things. He was off his medicine. He is very, very ill.
He ended up at a treatment center in another state (some Jesus thing that didn't really help; he's become fundamentally religious and is convinced that he's not gay and that being gay is a sin) but is now back. And he's still sick. He went off his meds again. He is starting to develop more delusions. His dog died under mysterious circumstances that he won't talk about. He will only smoke weed because it is more "natural". He has become very reliant on my family and I; he regularly asks for money and now owes my parents $800. It's confounding because he says he gets $3,000 a month from the VA; I have no idea where his money is going. He does not have a car and if he pays rent I'm sure it's very low. He is normally VERY good about paying it back to be fair, though they have said they won't him anything else at this point (who knows if they will follow through on it). He was living at some VA treatment center but left because he said everyone was on drugs there and now he's living with my parents.
I am exhausted. This has been a wonderful friendship at times, one that has supported me and helped me grow, but there is also a lot of hurt there, too. My parents don't really seem to grasp just how cruel he can be. He has not done it to me in a long time, but I know that streak is still in him, and I also know he is very unwell. At this point they are enabling him; he is off his meds and cannot hold down a job or a place to live, and they are giving him money and shelter. He does not need to go on his meds. They have him covered.
And I am so tired. I have had the longest two years of my life. COVID was bad enough but I have had other absurd things happen to me too, like being run out of someone's house while working on the front lines of the pandemic in another state, being forced to live without running water, several terrible heartbreaks, a godawful car accident, everything that COVID brought us and so much more. I'm burned out. I am not well and going to see my family is normally really restorative for me but now he is there and that's going to drain me even more. Maybe that's selfish but I don't care. I am the person people turn to when they are struggling; there is something in my face that compels people to share their problems with me. I am sure this is a kind trait and I try to treat people with respect, always, but right now I am just so fucking tired I can't do it. On top of everything I'm working and studying for my boards (which has been beyond stressful) and now I can't even go home to see my parents without being thrust into this hot mess of a situation. And I need them right now. But he is there with no where else to go.
A lot of this falls on my parents, but I am tied into it, too. They will listen to me if I really sit down and have a serious talk with them. But what do we say? I don't want to cut him out, but right now the only thing I can think is that he cannot stay with them or have money unless he is seeing a doctor and on medication. But how do we even verify that? Do we just need to cut him out? Part of me wants to but the other part says no, that's so cruel. He has been nothing but kind and grateful as of late and has shown my parents nothing but love and respect over the years. They really do mean the world to him. But if we need to cut him out (and it is we; my parents and I would all have to do this together, as we are all three tied so tightly into this situation) I am afraid he will snap and be so, so cruel. They do not know the other side of him, but I do, and it is uglier than they realize. Plus, he is so ill right now that I have no idea what he would do.
I'm just so tired. This friendship has drained a lot out of me over the years and I'm so burnt out already and now this. I am in therapy, fwiw; I know I need it badly.
I know a lot of this ultimately falls on my parents, but it involves me as well, since I have also given money and sheltered him and all else. I have told them how I feel. But I am at a loss. I want to sit down and have a serious conversation with them about how we need to address this but I don't even know where to begin. What would you do? |
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