Currently recovering from C-PTSD, how to take care of myself while responding to a friend with undiagnosed mental illness

For starters, I’m recovering from C-PTSD from an abusive childhood and adulthood. I was physically and psychologically unsafe growing up that affected my mental health. 

I went on a trip with someone I trust and had experience with as someone I could be emotionally vulnerable around. This trip was specifically for moving into my college apartment, but was interpreted as “vacation” by my friend. They got high everyday, several times a day. This triggered some sort of circular thought, paranoid, non-stop talkative state where they were instigating fights and pushing basic boundaries with strangers and my friends that were new to them. They had extreme high energy where they could not sit quietly at the beach and had to keep talking and demanding everyone talk back. They also needed to change their surroundings to be more comfortable which we allowed to try to make them feel better. This is to the point that we were all sitting with the lights off while eating because the lights bothered them. I tried not to laugh at the absurdity but it wasn’t even funny anymore, just exhausting. Also, they continually said they feel unsafe in this town. I think both the drug use and new place were triggers to a manic state in hindsight. I was overwhelmed at the time and had not had experience with a manic state, let alone from this person who clearly is undiagnosed and unaware. 

They said extremely hurtful things and the line was using personal information to continually psychoanalyze me and bring up a “failed” past personal relationship. I remained patient and rational and tried my best to just calm them down. They kept pressing me to have serious conversations about relationships and psychology (past trauma, etc.), which they never brought up while sober. I kept repeating they’re not in the mental state to have those discussions and we need to change subjects. They kept doing this thing where she would “forget” and repeat questions or topics over and over again. I counted 37 times being asked to take drugs with her and each time I had to repeat the same thing, which is I’ve only tried it once with bad experience and need to be sober on this trip that is meant for errands... it was like this with several little things too. They were getting increasingly aggressive with me and dismissive of anything I’d say to try to set up boundaries or calm things down. It ended as them continually yelling that I better not ghost them after this. They also said that I better not send them text messages about what happened as I could bring it up now (again, it’s hard having a conversation with someone who doesn’t want to be accountable aka them constantly saying they’re not responsible for how I interpret things and if my feelings are hurt; also I’ve never sent those long messages explaining my feelings, etc to her lol I’m not in high school). This is while they made me drive at 3 am on no sleep because they felt unsafe and kept repeating to go home and harassing my roommates that someone would crawl through the window and rape them. Humiliated and exhausted from their behavior, I left while they continued to grill me in the car for six fucking hours. Repeating that I just want to listen to music or for silence was ignored again and I had to keep repeating myself until I went to the gas station to cry. 

In the following days, I received no apology or even basic awareness of what happened on this trip. In fact, I got a text that “we had a crazzzzzy time”... I was having panic attacks and muscles twitches getting her out of my system where I felt corned and unable to make sense of erratic behavior. I had to do some somatic healing as part of my trauma therapy and I hadn’t felt this bad in MONTHS. After a few days, I read up on a manic and hypomanic state and called some hotlines. It seemed to make a lot of sense to their previously unseen behavior. 

I noticed how they were bouncing from friend to friend each following day and exercising excessively, which made me see they’re probably still experiencing that mania. It also probably validates them to feel like they can sustain interpersonal relationships when it’s in small doses, which I don’t blame them for wanting to feel good. It made me tie their behavior with what I previously considered as being extroverted when I’d spend only a few hours with them. 

Long story short, I thought I’d see them in person and tell them how they were behaving. I wanted to frame it where I wasn’t mad but concerned and get them to see how they were behaving. While I am really hurt from their behavior and words and lost a friend who was being harassed by them to speak about their childhood sexual trauma (while I wasn’t around), I recognize that they were not sober or mentally stable when saying those hurtful things. I still hold them accountable, but not to the extent of a normal situation. I felt incredibly unsafe psychologically having personal traumas thrown in my face as justification for how I’m inferior. As I am recovering from C-PTSD and do not make myself emotionally and psychologically vulnerable to just anyone, this was re-traumatizing and a shock to my system. I keep going in circles on how to approach them but am replaying this new side I saw where they don’t want to be aware or accountable for their behavior and will gaslight me into misinterpreting everything (which they kept repeating when I’d logically lay out their behavior while they were still manic). I don’t think I can be the full support system they need right now, but don’t believe in abandoning people in need. 

Conversations on mental illness have turned ugly in my family when I’d try to confront toxic behavior of my mother and I genuinely don’t want to have everything twisted against me, especially right before I start an already stressful semester back at college. 

Does anyone have advice on how to proceed? Am I a horrible person if I keep my distance and try to have this conversation later when I feel we are both more stable?