Here's the situation. A friend of mine (let's call him Jim, aged 26) asked for an appointment with me the other day in my office asking for advice on how to start a business. He has no experience in actual business so he went to me, since I have my own company. Now during our meeting, I noticed bad things about his behavior and I know these are signs of possible mental illness since I too suffered from depression and my dad is psychiatrist. The problem is, I don't know how to tell him that he should go see a doctor.

Here's what I found from my Jim's behavior:

Cluttered Mind - Jim can't answer questions straight-to-the-point. When I ask him even the simplest of questions, he would pause for around 5 seconds and then tell me a lot of stories or reasons related to the question, but not actually answering the question at all. Jim would just keep talking and later on the things he would say aren't even related to the question anymore. Also, its hard to make him stop. I would try to tell him to pause for a while and answer the question, but he would keep going on and on with his stories. His "business plan" isn't even a working plan, just a series of ideas clumped together with organization. I remember my dad telling me that a lot of his patients have a hard time explaining details.

Hero Complex and Over Confidence- Jim's "business plan" is to make a comic that is based on his "expertise" Japanese pop culture. He feels that our country's pop culture is "corny" and "low-class" and that it should be like the culture of more industrialized countries especially Japan. Take note, Jim has never been to Japan and his knowledge of the country is limited to the Japanese animations and comics he collects. In the way he talked, he expressed a relatively high amount of frustration on our country's pop culture and the people who like it. Later on he admitted that he wanted to be someone who can make a great change to our society, he also admitted to having a hero complex. Jim was so convinced that his plan will work even though he has no experience in the world of comics, business, and has never even been to Japan.

Lost of Focus - Once in a while, he would suddenly ask something totally unrelated to the topic. When we were talking about his "plan", Jim suddenly told me "Hey man you look like you gained weight! You look good man! Are you working out?" just out of the blue. I just told him "no", and before I could continue with what I was saying, Jim immediately said "Are you sure man? You look great! I'm thinking of working out myself...". Later on he suddenly interrupted me again, asking me about my dog and his welfare while we were talking about a serious topic. And even this one time when I just merely shifted my eyes to the left just for a second, he suddenly and enthusiastically asked me "What's wrong dude? Is there a fly bothering you? Should I open the door and let him out?". During the course of our meeting, there were a dozen situations where he would suddenly changed the topic to a totally unrelated topic right out of the blue.

Sudden stop of medication - Jim admitted to me that a few years ago, when we were still in college, he was under medication for depression and something else I can't remember. He also admitted to me that later on he stopped medication on his own decision because he feels "happy and not depressed anymore" without consulting his doctor first.

Here's a little background on Jim. Back in college, a lot of people didn't like Jim because according to them he was "creepy". Some of my friends told me that they didn't like Jim because he was too "sticky", that he would act as if they were his best friend even though Jim only met them once. Others would tell me that Jim couldn't take a hint, like that time when Jim interrupted his friend and his date just to talk about a bunch of Japanese animations. That friend was clearly hinting to Jim that he and his date had to go but Jim would just keep talking. I guess this is what's called "lack of social empathy".

Jim would tell me a lot of stories about himself that sound so made up. He claimed that he had a co-worker once who "loved him" so much that she took the fall for his mistake at the office, which got her fired. I asked him "where is she now", and he says he doesn't know. I asked him something simple as what's her name and where does she live, and he had a hard time answering the questions, as if he's making it up as he goes along.