DH and I have a mutual friend that we will call M. M clearly has a whole host of mental health issues - depression, anxiety, and anger are the big ones. Depression has been diagnosed, but the others are extremely obvious. My couchside diagnosis is bipolar disorder with manic tendencies.

Anyway, DH and I have been aware of these issues for years, as have our other friends in the circle, and we have all just learned to tolerate them. M used to be really good at disconnecting from us when he was having a bad time, which used to help him recharge by taking him away from social situations.

Recently, however, his mental issues have rapidly gotten worse and more chaotic. He had a few fairly major (non-life threatening) health problems last year, graduated from University, got a job, moved out on his own, and had a brief relationship that he was hopeful about go south really quickly. All of these things have made his isues worse, and he is seeking out care.

Here is where I am struggling, and I'll tell you the straw that might have broken the camel's back. There are aspects of M's personality That I am unsure whether they are his mental health issues or just him. He has a severe superiority complex. He has had trouble dating because he thinks he is super hot, super smart, and super successful. In reality, he is fairly average on all fronts. He's annoyed he can't get super model-level beauty, and if you try to point out that he is average, he gets super angry. Then he gets nasty. Then he gets depressed. Everything stems from him thinking he is God's gift to creation, and when that gets tested, he starts cycling through all these emotions. Additionally, if he gets upset with a girl he is interested in, he won't tell her. No, he dumps his emotions on other people, like me, because he doesn't want to ruin whatever shot he has. If you tell him he needs to tell her, or that his reaction seems over-the-top and unhealthy, he accuses you of telling him how he should feel and tells you that he can't trust telling you these things anymore because you just dump on him.

So the straw: Last night, M invited DH, myself, and another friend (J) to come out to a bar that a mutual friend/former coworker of DH, M, and J just opened (we'll call her C). I text M to let him know DH got ofd work super late and we are running behind. I am texting M the whole way while DH drives giving him ETA on where we are. We are running super late, but none of us in this group are ever on time for anything so it has never been a big deal.

Well, it's never a big deal when people (M included) are 30-60 minutes late to my house on game night with no text; however, when we are running late AND keeping M informed, he gets super crappy with us. He tells us he is waiting in the lobby of a hotel on the other side of the bar. I tell him we will meet him at the bar. His response is "as I said 5 minutes ago, I am waiting in the lobby for anyone to show up."

I try to keep my cool as I know we are running behind. I just say that we would have to walk past the bar to get to the hotel, so let's just meet at the bar. DH and I get to the bar less than 5 minutes after that text and text him that we are there. We wait outside for 5-10 minutes looking down the street toward the hotel waiting. He finally texts back saying he is inside the bar at the bar.

Go inside, J is there with him. Sitting at the bar. With no open seats. M then calls me on my phone acting like he hadn't said a word about the hotel, acting like he had no idea we were that close, and wanted to know If I was getting a table.

DH is pissed and gets us a table. We tell M and J we have a table. Five minutes later, C comes marching up to us telling us she is pissed that we didn't say hi or sit in her section, cussing at us, then walks away. DH has had it at this point (M has been moody for weeks and giving me crap, and DH went into protective DH mode), then proceeded to tell M and C both to eff off and he was tired of the games.

He came and sat down, J walked over and sat with us. Apparently, he had NO clue we were that close or he would have gotten a table. He had NO idea C had a section of tables we could sit at, though apparently M did. So M, who had been there before any of us, couldn't get us a table, or let J know when he picked seats at the bar that we were less than 10 minutes away, or let us know that C had tables she was running in addition to the bar. No, instead, he wanted to make us all feel bad for running late and told C something that pissed her ofd enough that she came and chewed out DH and I.

J sat with us through dinner and M left at some point. This is just the thing he does - complain that he wants people to go out with him, but when we do and don't do exactly what he wants, everything turns into a game where everyone but him looks like an a-hole. And since M has a thing for C, he played up the sympathy card with her so she fought his battle for him.

Again, we were late. We apologized. DH got stuck at work and couldn't leave. DH didn't even want to go but wanted to support M's request to go out. Anytime M is late (which is frequently) or anyone is late, we raz them a bit, but we don't turn it into a cluster. We don't purposefully do things to make that person feel excluded. And we don't passively-aggressively chide them, either. We're all good friends and roll with it. It's not like we were late to a wedding; it was just hanging out, a thinb we do every other weekend.

So my struggle now is that DH and I are both done with the pettiness and the anger and the mood swings. We have tried to be patient and kind and understanding, but recently it has become too much. It's daily texts from morning to night that are up and down emotionally, from him feeling suicidal to being higher than a kite emotionally. We can't handle it, and he won't do anything between therapy sessions to help. He doesn't want to be medicated, but he also won't do anything else therapeutic. I am not his therapist, his wife, or his mother. I can't fix him.

But is it wrong, as a friend, to not help him when he is clearly in a ton of pain? I don't know what else to do. DH has tried talking to him, and I have encouraged M to reach out to DH for help. Nothing. I have tried telling him to call the crisis line to see if they could ger him in sooner. Hope. Call his GP to see if they will put him on something to balance his moods? Doesn't trust them because they gave him a depression medication ONCE that didn't work, so he thinks they're incompetent. Exercise, meditation, deep breathing, centering? No, he'll just fix his chemical imbalance with willpower (legitimate thing he said).

I can't keep this up. I can't be the dumping ground for his emotions and then get punished when I don't jump how he wants/needs me to. Please tell me I am not in the wrong for stepping back and washing my hands of this. If I should feel bad, then tell me what else I can do. I am at the end of my rope with this, and I don't know what parts of M are him or his illness.