Welp, admittedly this is going to be a bit of an odd post from me, especially from someone who's never bothered to use this site's feature, but I figured; "Eh, why not? Someone might read it." If you don't really care? Not a problem at all, I don't mind, these aren't super important in the long-run. Still, I thought I'd share. Anyways, here goes, a bit of a cautionary tale about Discord relationships and maybe mental health. Fair warning; there's a mention of suicide, but nothing ever comes of it.

Long story short, I've ended an online relationship I've had going on for years, as my own active decision.

I forget the year we met, but it was at least since 2019. It started after I posted some old Star Fox fanfiction as a one-shot, involving one of the franchise's more obscure characters, Pigma. Normally I just ignore random Steam friend invites (For good reason), but this guy also friended me through Discord, so I decided to see what was up. First thing he messages me with? A turn for an RP as a continuation of the story I wrote with his female wolf OC saving Pigma's life from one of my characters. Now, I hadn't ever done an RP before (And I do still credit him for getting me into the concept), but I played along.

A few months go by with the story progressing, we're both having a good time. After a while, my new friend pitches me on the idea of starting a second RP, this time based on the game Conker's Bad Fur Day, revolving around the WW2 bad-guy (Dunno if I can say that here, but you know the people I'm talking about) parody faction, known as the Tediz. I was pretty unsure of the idea at the time, mainly since I had zero interest in the game or it's story, but I didn't want to let him down since it at the time it felt like he relied on me to help get through the day. Doing my best to ignore the more goofy aspects of the game's setting and leaning into the WW2 part as much as I could, I tried to have fun with it but it was pretty clear I wouldn't be enjoying it long-term, so it fell out with the Star Fox RP continuing.

Around this time, he talked about the idea of "Mini-RP's". To him, they were basically "You play this character I like, while I play this OC of mine." Naturally, these were pure ERP's, not something that I was super comfortable with (And still not really) at the time. This really should've been the first red flag, but we were pretty close friends back then, so I only gave him a half-hearted "No thanks" and the topic was dropped for the moment. This was also around the time he was finishing up highschool/primary school (Not sure what it's equivalent is overseas, sorry). I had just finished my last year myself, so I offered to help. He goes and gives me his login for his online classes, and I pass for him.

One day, my friend tells me he's started to smoke weed to fight his sometimes-severe autism. I don't really care for the stuff myself, but if it helps him fight his mental illness? Cool, I'm honestly glad you found something that helps, and for a while, it did. He'd have these mental breakdowns every now and again before he started taking the stuff, and I honestly felt really bad that I couldn't do anything more than talk with him. Still, I now realize this was the beginning of the end.

At this point the RP slows down, mostly being replaced with a non-ERP version of his one-shot ideas, still almost always only involving his ideas and his characters. For a time I don't mind, but I start to get the feeling he's slightly using me. This feeling gets worse when he disappears for two weeks, saying he's going to commit suicide and speaking cryptically about everything that I can remember. The first thing comprehensive he says to me after that? "Hey, wanna ERP?"

This made my blood boil, naturally. Around this time, he starts leaning very heavily into stoner culture, constantly DM'ing me about what strain he's smoking that day. As far as I'm still aware, he used the stuff constantly, to the point there were more hours in the day when he was high, than when he wasn't. This, combined with his Autism, might've started to take a toll on his overall mental health, and ability to see reality itself. He'd go on these long rants about how he believed he was, more or less, the protagonist of the universe itself. For the moment, he was literally too high to care about anyone replying, so it was safe to ignore him. Nothing I, or any of his other friends said could penetrate the insane amount of mental armor he'd formed around himself.

There's more, smaller events over the years that happened, but up until the start of this year/2023, things felt overall okay. We'd stopped RP'ing, and other than the occasional message or rant from him, I could put up with him, thinking he'd get better.

He did not.

After he created a group chat with 9 of his other friends, things only got much worse; at random, he'd start going on these insult tirades, all directed at the people he called his friends. Slurs, calling us lazy and pathetic, you name it. The rants about his weird savior complex and his universal protagonist thing only got more and more extreme. At one point, another one of his friends, got rather fed up, and called him out. Without a second thought, he was blocked, and kicked out of the group. He'd known this other friend for as long as I could remember, and booted him at the drop of a damn hat.

Entering his final form; an absurdly narcissistic, self-centered, schizophrenic, bridge-burning, ignorant asshole, my friend then proceeded to start shittalking his other friend, using braindead words like "pussy" and "bitch" like they were going out of style. I tried to pitch in one night after he went on another rant, screaming at all his friends about how lazy we were, and that we were doing nothing with our lives. I told him there were better ways getting his point across, other than yelling. His reply? "I've always been like this. Don't like it, get out. You fucking nimrod."

Okay.

This was pretty rich, coming from him; I wouldn't have stuck around with him for this long, if he was "Always" like this. After that, and seeing him just insult everyone more, I cut ties and left him, blocking him on Discord, Steam, even a few games we used to play. Few minutes later, he calls me, telling me to pick up the phone, telling me "I thought you were my best friend." I decided to finally give him a piece of my mind, having never yelled, let alone swore at him until now.

His reply? He started talking about the roof of his house. I wish I was kidding.

For the moment, that settled it; the friend I had all these good memories was dead, replaced by an asshole who shared the name. For a week or two, he didn't try and contact me. At the time, it was one of the hardest decisions I had to make in my life so far; I'd known this guy for years, and had done so much for him. Knowing what I do now, though, it would've been easier to make.

Eventually, he DM's me and the other friend he booted in an old group chat that hadn't been used for years, giving us both half-assed apologies. His other friend had enough at this point, laying into him with pretty much the same points I wanted to make. Again, his reply was nonsense, claiming the bad weather in his area was directly being caused by his other friend's anger. From there, things spiral downwards, to the point I just start screwing with him since we'd tried everything else. Before I left I told him the friend I knew was long gone and wouldn't be coming back. His super clever and intelligent reply? "Cry about it lmao." Yup, the most braindead thing imaginable, like something out of a GTA online lobby.

Somehow, that's not quite the end; his other friend goes on the offensive, sending me screenshots of the DM's. My old friend fully believes he's a physic now, and thinks one of us is literally tapping his phone. At this point I'm fully convinced he's beyond help, nor actually wants any. I've done everything I reasonably can over Discord to help, and in the end he wants to roleplay the goddamn Joker.

Well, that's sorta the end, he hasn't contacted me since. Part of me thinks he'll try and rebuild the bridge, but at this point I'm simply not gonna let him. I realize this just turned into me venting here, but admittedly it felt pretty good. This was a pretty special case so I don't really know if there's a moral to this story, but I think it acts as a reminder to check up on people you care about, even if it's just over Discord. I won't be naming any names, but if you figure out who it was please don't go bug them, I don't think he'd even understand what would be going on the first place.