Don't know if anyone will know the answer, but ask away.

but if you hate this person, i would say try to keep that to a minimum. you will get some intelligent comment, tho.
ask away.

I don't know if he has a mental illness. From what you have explained I'd doubt it. But it sounds to me as if he would definitely benefit from talk therapy. Also, if he does happen to have a mental illness and needs drug therapy, the psychologist will recognize that and refer him to a psychiatrist.

In my area I've heard of a clinic that offers psychological services with fees based on a sliding scale based on your ability to pay. I'm not sure where to start looking, but you may have something like that around you. I found out about the one here through a local college's psychology department.

12 step groups can help so tremendously, except, and this is a big one - it needs to be something he wants. If you are the one pushing to get him to go, I can suggest a great 12 step program for you - CoDA. And that was so recursive, it boggles my mind. A codependent telling another likely codependent to go to a codependency 12 step group.

Yikes.

I recently left an emotionally and verbally abusive relationship. I have some recommendations that truly opened my eyes and helped me see what was going on and how to deal with it.

1) a book called "The Verbally Abusive Relationship," by Patricia Evans. I was still trying to figure out what the hell was wrong when my cousin called and said "you HAVE to read this book!" I have read it twice now and it was incredibly validating. You can also find it on YouTube.

2) DBT Self-Help website - www.dbtselfhelp.com. DBT stands for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy which is kind of an offshoot of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. The difference is that the Dialectical means that you are talking not just about new ways to think about things, the D takes into account the emotional aspect. It's hard to describe, but I used it alot. It's like learning how to keep your emotions regulated in a healthy way and to not let things send you over the edge.

Between the two, the book would the best thing to start with.

Good luck!

I only had an intro to psychology class at MSU, and that was 25 years ago. But gut instinct tells me something is wrong here. It may well be a defense mechanism, and perhaps at some point he will crack and go into some kind of crisis. Kind of the way I did. I was the eternal pessimist, but I always thought "at some point, they will break me" and it finally happened.

Grass wire, it's nice of you to look out for him. I have a thought. There must be psychology forums out there online, there are forums for everything. Maybe you could find one, register, and ask the question there? Just a thought.