I had a somewhat close friend who had a very sudden and dramatic psychotic break that he disclosed to me while it was happening. He believed that people in his

I had a somewhat close friend who had a very sudden and dramatic psychotic break that he disclosed to me while it was happening. He believed that people in his family were conspiring to entrap him in a criminal conspiracy, and was in a panic. This progressed further over a few days until I was no longer able to continue to try to talk him through it. There were a number of details to his beliefs that made it absolutely clear it was not real. Unfortunately I was not able to get through to him to get help (as far as I know) and the people I tried to connect him with were very unhelpful. The reason I’m sharing this is that I think people tend to believe that people are exclusively either “crazy” or “not crazy” as an ontological property of the person, but as many other anecdotes here show, it really can happen to people randomly. Some are able to get help and recover. Some aren’t. While I definitely wish there was someone I could have called who could go give him real aid and assistance, I also know that this could have been a terrifying, trust-breaking ordeal and possibly could have even led to violence and imprisonment, or other serious consequences. People like to talk about “public mental health resources” but unless you’re willing to sic what amounts to police armed with tranquilizers on people who very well may (reasonably?) not wish to be subdued against their will, it’s not really that simple. Definitely a difficult and fraught subject. I don’t think the answer is to validate psychosis however.