Writing with a throw away account out of concern for a close friend that has recently been not communicating or engaging with me the way we used to.  He is 25M, history of physical and mental abuse during his childhood/adolescence, raised in a very conservative religious home.  Writing from mobile so please forgive formatting.

We met during college about 6 years ago and hit it off with another guy in our class, we hung out non stop together, he shared pretty much everything about his upbringing with me and our other friend-- that he was beat physically by his dad, had constant pressure to be a part of their church and present themselves as an upstanding, controlled individual.  

I've seen him have countless ups and downs emotionally since our friendship began.  His ups can be seen as what I would consider mania -- yelling in excitement about menial things and having a heightened energy for an hour or so at a time, displaying an abnormal amount of confidence and grandeur about things that people normally wouldn't care about, and over sharing personal information or feelings about others.  His downs are usually categorized by isolation, not sharing anything including his feelings or opinions, flat affect in his voice, and talking to other people outside of our house about possible frustrations with me or our other room mate (happened just this past weekend).  Speaking of living situation, we've lived together for the past 3 years with another person, my GF and we used to have a 4th housemate.  The last housemate was very dirty and would not clean up after himself, but they were friends for a couple years prior.  He would consistently voice complaints/talk shit about that house mate to us behind his back, but would treat him like everything was fine to his face.  We would agree with most of the complaints he had, as that housemate was pretty gross but overall a very nice person.  But now I see the same types of behavior happening with me and my GF -- he's clearly frustrated with something we're doing, but when confronted about it he shuts down and says "no... We're good" or "I'm just feeling tired" with a flat face and shuts himself in his room.  I do have a suspicion that he doesn't click with my girlfriend as she can also be very outspoken and loud about things that he doesn't necessarily show interest in such as politics or her own frustrations with people in her life.  

However I don't see that as a fair judgement, as he himself in the past has been very loud and vocal about things as I've said before, but with the expectation that those around him accept that behavior and egg him on.  He seems to be dismissive of people that show the same traits as himself, or if other people have the attention on them.  

Since the lockdowns, his anxiety/depression has spiked considerably, as have ours. He said he's been having frequent panic attacks/depression episodes where he locks himself in his closet and rocks back and forth.  About 2 months ago I checked in with him because he didn't talk to us for about two days and he said he was up all night having suicidal thoughts and didn't think he would make it through the night.  Needless to say, his ups and downs have been increasing in frequency and severity for the past 6 months or so when he got a new GF.  He said things are getting more serious with his GF and that he's been stressing out about that.  Even before the lockdowns however I noticed that he stopped sharing information like he used to with me, and has gone back and forth between being completely chill and friendly at home with us to being completely locked down emotionally and confined to his room.  

Just two weeks ago he had a moment of clarity where he was very positive about our relationship and texted me that he's been stubborn with himself and constantly trying to fix himself, and that he needs people like my GF and I to keep him in check.  Fast forward to now, he's been shut down and confined to his room again and he said he's going to move out soon because of anxiety around Covid and the possibility of us spreading it to each other's families and his girlfriend's family.  Personally I don't think that's the full reason, and I attempted to address other potential issues that prompted this during that conversation, and he said with the same flat affect "No I don't think there's anything between us but I just want to be more independent." Which, sure, being more independent at this point is fair regardless of Covid, but based on his frequent emotional ups and downs, his refusal to have a conversation about things that bother him despite saying he needs to be kept in check, I don't really believe that covid was the full reason.  

Tl;dr my close friend with past emotional and physical abuse has been having frequent and extreme emotional ups and downs, including suicidal thoughts.  Says he needs to be kept in check but shuts down and is not receptive to actually being kept in check.  Does not like people that have similar traits to himself, and talks behind our backs to people that do not know the full situation and tries to get them on his side.