Take in consideration that my native language is not english, so I’m trying my best to explain it.
A while ago while I was talking to a friend on Discord, we had the strangest conversation. He told me that he started to feel strange and imagine things, he thought he needed some kind of mental help. The thing is that his words worried me more than usual, chills ran through me just by hearing what he was telling me.
He told me that for some time his life took a sudden, abrupt and inexplicable change. We have been friends for a long time, but we only talk to each other through Discord, I haven’t gotten to know him or see him other than a few times on webcam.
I know he lives in Italy, near Napoli, in some kind of countryside house or chalet. He lives with his brothers, his mother and two cats. I will spare many of the details of his life for his privacy and maybe omit or change names, but I can say that he lives a very ordinary life typically to our age. We are both 26 yo.
He told me that one day he would introduce me to some of his friends, his girlfriend and his family. He was sure they would like me so greatly. The truth is that I’ve not ever meet any of them beyond what he told me about. I have only seen his mother many times saying hello on the webcam while we chatted.
I recently considered the idea of visiting him, since I would like to visit him and see Napoli in the process. I told him the idea and he thought it was a good idea and started to specify a date that would be better for both of us knowing our schedules for work and study reasons.
He told me that we would plan it and how much he really wanted me to finally meet him in person and introduce me to his friends. That was about a year ago, at which point it stopped talking to me and didn’t hear from him again. The truth is that what I’m about to tell below may seem implausible or strange to believe, but it happened just like that.
A few weeks after planning the trip, he began to have problems with some of his friends, about whom he commented and talked with me many times.
One of them began to have a somewhat different attitude than he was used to and his best childhood friend began to be very elusive and absent from his calls and messages, almost as if he did not want to get in touch.
He attributed it to the fact that they probably had a bad moment, exams or other setbacks, which did not seem unreasonable to me and I reassured him by adding that after a while, they would simply be in contact again as usual, that it is not something excessively worrying, trying to convey calm. But the thing seems to not end there.
A week later he spoke to me again, much more worried. His best friend started treating him like a stranger, almost like someone who had just met him, something very strange for someone you’ve been dealing with since you were kids.
Others of his friends simply disappeared from his life, some without a trace and others treated him as if you were that typical classmate with whom you have changed points of view four or five times in your life to share any concerns about the teacher’s lessons.
Things were starting to get strange and he thought that it was all a bad joke from one of his friends or the typical cruel and indifferent anger for doing something that he didn’t quite understand. I explained to him that he had to speak clearly to them and ask them for some kind of explanation, and if it was indeed a joke in bad way, they should stop fooling him around.
Taking my advice, days later, he told me that he already said to them his disconfort. The result was a bit strange, since none of them knew what he was talking about, with mocking and confused looks as if the main theme of the conversation was not with them. Even his best friend told him that he was acting a little strange and giving off bad vibes.
He honestly was completely shocked, he didn’t even know what to respond and just as he told it to me, I felt this all seemed even more bizarre day after day to me. So the only option I could think of at that point is to ask him to stop contacting them for a while to see any reaction. He thought it was a necessary good response even though he didn’t contemplate the idea of stopping talking or meeting up with his friends.
I wouldn’t consider it either, but if all this was a joke that they didn’t know how to stop or some kind of cruel vendetta, the best tool to confront it is indifference, and specially the indifference of knowing in addition that is from someone close to you or at least with whom you have quite a relationship.
Days passed, I thought things had probably calmed down. He stopped talking to me about it for a while and we focused on other things. I saw it a good riddance, it was not necessary to think about it more than normal. Things improved from my point of view and I saw him more animated and happy. I was glad I could at least help him a little.
But nothing of all this could be further from the truth, things went wrong again, and this time it was not only a matter of his friends, but also his girlfriend and her brothers.
He started writing to me quite late, around two A.M in the night. I wanted to talk with him on the phone. He was crying his eyes out, I didn’t know what to do. I tried to calm the atmosphere and get him to tell me what was happening, but it was difficult to get him to say a single word. He kept crying, so I tried to make him change the conversation and redirect it to other things trying to get him away from the root of the problem.
Yes, he got better, and that made him tell me calm down and say a few more about the reason he was crying so much about a few minutes ago. Every thing he told me, the more difficult it was for me to believe, to the point that I myself began to think that the victim of the joke was not him, but me instead.
It almost crossed my mind to scold him and tell him not to continue with the joke, but the call to tears at that time of night made me give some credibility to the whole thing and I decided to continue with this story. A story that seemed strange, meaningless and absurd to me.
He told me that his girlfiend’s brothers began to systematically ignore him, spread rumors about him (that he had cheated on her, that he had hurt his own parents, etc.), really hurtful things. A visceral hatred was born from the two of them, contaminating in many cases the people around him and saddening his girlfriend, who began to trust in him less and less and wanted to distance herself from his side more progressively.
Regular calls stopped, daily meetings became weekly or almost half a month long, her circle of friends changed, her habits, her affection for him…
Everything was beginning to fall apart. I couldn’t believe the behavior of the people around them, everything seemed like a bad dream and it made me feel more and more repulsed towards their loved ones. From people I didn’t even know, but presenting a behaviour that made me feel sorry for someone who has been a good friend of mine in this recent years.
I decided to bring forward the date planned to visit him, I thought it would be good for him to get out of his routine a little and going to take with me some beers, a coffee or whatever. At first he didn’t want to do it, he wasn’t in the mood for me to show up there just like that, much less to be able to do it under the conditions he wanted, but in the end he reluctantly agreed.
Days before departure, I started talking to him on phone. His tone of voice seemed to have changed radically, he seemed more apathetic, more monotonous, drier. He was a fairly happy and calm person, but suddenly, overnight, he became neurotic, sad and dull.
I had never seen anyone change like that in weeks, nor had I seen anything similar to what he described to me in these days, but a strange sensation, which turned my stomach inside out and left me feeling unwell, invaded me every time I spoke to him. Almost as if from the phone itself, it stole my energy.
Added to all this, he began to tell me, his mother fell ill, one of his brothers was admitted to a psychiatric center because he tried to kill one of his cats and began to develop unpleasant habits of eating cigarette ends and the other one blamed him for the situation they were experiencing.
Came the day. I prepared and packed my things up, thinking about what I would find when I got there. I always tried to keep in touch and I even took vacations from work a little earlier than I had planned. I told my parents that I was going to visit a friend in Italy that was having a bad time and I would like to see Napoli on the way too.
Everything seemed to be going well. He gave me his address on WhatsApp and some places recommended before I arrived. On the way to the plane I tried to calm down a little, listen to music and enjoy the trip. At the end of the day, not everything was going to be drama, a good vacation deserved since I was going to have the little luxury of going there. It’s not like I was being selfish. After all, I was still worried about him.
Once there in Napoli, outside the airport, I took an Uber to the area where he lived. It was a little far from the airport, but I arrived in about twenty-thirty minutes approximately. A very beautiful area, beautiful houses and excited to see and look forward taking a tour of the city.
The driver dropped me off near the house, which was a few meters away. It seems that something happened. The bad feeling in my stomach returned and something told me, I don’t know what, that things weren’t going well.
There I was. In front of the house. An ambulance that was taking someone away, a man of about 35 years old, nervous, stressed, near the stretcher and the medical attention staff. The man was leaving his house. My face went for sure completely white, standed still and with not knowing what else to do, I called him several times to tell him that I was already there. One tone, after another tone, another one… nothing. I call again. Nothing. And so about three or four times. I write on WhatsApp, he doesn’t seem to answer.
The ambulance leaves and I just stand outside, petrified and waiting for him to answer me. I decided to walk around the area until I received the call back or he showed signs of life. I was with the backpack and every stuff in a place I don’t know, waiting and recieved by a not so very pleasant scene.
After a few hours, I decided to look for a hostel, hotel or any place to stay. It may be that a last minute emergency has made him busy, and he cannot answer right now, it is logical. That’s what I was thinking. After hours and day after, I decided to call again. Unanswered. The wait was so long that I, on my own, wanted to continue making the trip, visiting the city, trying the incredible gastronomy, by the way, the Cuoppo di Mare is highly recommended.
The days passed and I returned to Spain, seeing that there was no response from him. I was immensely worried throughout the trip. Despite the beauty of the city, its food and my desire to enjoy it, the whole situation left me uneasy and the uncertainty of wanting to know about him, that he is fine and nothing has happened to him.
I was tempted several times to go to what was supposedly his address, but it didn’t seem like good manners to me either to be present there, especially after seeing that scene. Who knows, I thought. But it made me sad not have been able to meet him in person.
After all, four years of friendship through Discord, where we practically talked almost every day, shared hobbies and our nonsense, was enough to consider someone a good friend and about whom you are tremendously worried.
Shortly after the trip, I received a message from him again on Discord. A shy ‘hello’.
My first reaction was describing a curve from a little upset feeling to absolute anger for made me have that travel for main purpose of going to see him and instead leaving me with a bittersweet and worrisome trip. I wanted explanations, so I asked him what the hell had happened and why he had been absent all these days. To which he simply left me the following message:
[I’m sorry I haven’t been able to talk to you all this time. I’ve been very busy with some stuff. I also apologize for leaving you stranded there in Napoli after you went to the trouble of coming to visit me. I hope you don’t get angry, we can talk things over and update you on what happened to me. It’s not easy to talk about this and it may not be easy for you to understand it either, but I think I have enough trust in you (so to speak, one of the only people I trust right now and I hope it continues to be that way).
My “mother” has died, my “older brother” has decided to move and go outside of Napoli to another place that he didn’t even wanted to specify me. My “little brother” is still admitted there. I have gone to visit him from time to time, but those at the Mental Health Center say that they do not know me nor do they know that I am related to them. Something strange has been happening to me and I am very clear that this is no joke. I feel like I’m a stranger in my own life, I don’t even know who I am anymore.
I have made an appointment for psychological help, I think it will be good for me to cope with all this. You might think that I’m crazy, that I have some kind of mental problem or maybe that something is happening to me and I don’t realize how to understand it, but all of this is incomprehensible even trying to.
A few days ago I saw my ex-girl with one of my friends, it seems that they are in a relationship, the worst of all and what I heard in one of the conversations, is that they have been together for more than six years. Six years in which it was a lie? It’s as if something has erased me from their lives, or they simply don’t want to know about me to the point that they pretend to not know I exist.
All of this surpasses me, I feel as if my own reality has been replaced by another that I don’t know. I hope we can talk again and finally maybe make contact in person, and of course you don’t take it the wrong way. Thanks for everything. Take care dude. May everything go well for you.]
This last message was what completely baffled me. The last one I received from him so far. I didn’t know anything else. He didn’t reconnect on Discord, he wasn’t receiving calls and everything was a complete absence. To this day I still remember him, I think I will be one of the few who remember him as his life and himself were. And I write this here as a way to vent.
Maybe one day I will be encouraged to try writing or calling him again. And who knows. Maybe I’ll know something more about what happened to him.