Dealing with a suicidal friend

[Batou667]

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Terrible advice.

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Good advice.

My advice: be there for your friend without "enabling" her. A bit of tough love might be required: make it clear that she's not going anywhere. She wants to make changes in her life? Great, start today; you're there to help. In theory, depression should be an incredibly liberating thing, shouldn't it? If you were really in the state of mind where you didn't give enough of a f*** to carry on living, surely you'd be uninhibited enough to headbutt that bully, or stand up to your domineering parents, or switch jobs, or whatever. There are so many courses of action you should try before deciding to cash in your chips.

 

[manic_depressive13]

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Terrible advice.

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Good advice.

My advice: be there for your friend without "enabling" her. A bit of tough love might be required: make it clear that she's not going anywhere. She wants to make changes in her life? Great, start today; you're there to help. In theory, depression should be an incredibly liberating thing, shouldn't it? If you were really in the state of mind where you didn't give enough of a f*** to carry on living, surely you'd be uninhibited enough to headbutt that bully, or stand up to your domineering parents, or switch jobs, or whatever. There are so many courses of action you should try before deciding to cash in your chips.

Well there you have it. Words from a man who clearly knows exactly what depression feels like. You people can stop quoting me now.

 

[Batou667]

Well there you have it. Words from a man who clearly knows exactly what depression feels like. You people can stop quoting me now.

Usually direct experience in something makes a person more qualified to speak about it. Depression is one of those weird exceptions. Somebody who is currently depressed is not the best person to go to for advice (especially if their advice, like yours, could be summarised as "meh, let them die, it doesn't matter".)

You're also assuming that I haven't been depressed in the past, or had suicidal thoughts, or gotten through it.

 

[manic_depressive13]

Well there you have it. Words from a man who clearly knows exactly what depression feels like. You people can stop quoting me now.

Usually direct experience in something makes a person more qualified to speak about it. Depression is one of those weird exceptions. Somebody who is currently depressed is not the best person to go to for advice (especially if their advice, like yours, could be summarised as "meh, let them die, it doesn't matter".)

You're also assuming that I haven't been depressed in the past, or had suicidal thoughts, or gotten through it.

How do you people manage to interpret "Do your best to be there for her and talk her out of it, but ultimately you should respect her decision" as "Meh, let them die"? Are you being deliberately dishonest or is English comprehension really that difficult?

And yes, I'm assuming you've never been depressed because you have no idea what you're talking about. I'm also assuming you didn't read the OP. His friend's problem isn't one that can be confronted. She's lonely and dissatisfied with her personal relationships. You can't headbutt someone into loving you.

 

[Batou667]

How do you people manage to interpret "Do your best to be there for her and talk her out of it, but ultimately you should respect her decision" as "Meh, let them die"? Are you being deliberately dishonest or is English comprehension really that difficult?

Your post said that dissuading people who are contemplating suicide isn't always the right thing to do since there are worse things than death. That's a ridiculous thing to say and potentially disastrous advice.

She's lonely and dissatisfied with her personal relationships. You can't headbutt someone into loving you.

Actually, there's this funny story about how my girlfriend and I met... nah, I kid. But OP's friend can still make changes. She's lonely? Change that. Guy doesn't return her feelings? Work towards getting over it. A fighting spirit goes further than just advocating brute violence.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Well there you have it. Words from a man who clearly knows exactly what depression feels like. You people can stop quoting me now.

I know what depression feels like, and I actually understand that sometimes it feels.. pretty good, or at least good enough that you want to lose yourself in it because not doing so seems the harder option, or the more risky option.

You feel like you see a world which noone else does, and every time you set out to test it or to push its boundaries you find that it's exactly what you thought it was. So you learn to accept and even enjoy that because.. you know, things can't get any worse. You're comfortable, you're secure. You don't have to fear loss because you have nothing. You don't have to fear death because you don't want to live.

But it's not real. You're not seeing the true nature of reality, you don't have insight everyone else lacks into how miserable and pointless the world is. You're seeing whatever your state of delusion will allow you to see. I know what you're going to say, is it so different for any of us. Is anyone ever "fixed" or "perfect". Hell no. People die, stuff breaks, we all experience and have to deal with it. The difference is that most people fight. Maybe that's because it's easier for them to fight, but they try and fail sometimes and still keep trying. Sometimes they learn how to do things they couldn't do before, like to wake up in the morning and not feel like crying because every second of consciousness hurts.

I know you don't see the value in that, but maybe you need to stop trusting yourself so much and trust in the world more. You're not listening to anyone else right now, all you're hearing is your own voice endlessly telling you the things you don't want to hear but somehow need to hear, and so here you are projecting your own issues onto someone else who you've never met hundreds of miles away so that maybe you don't feel quite so bad about being in the mess you feel you're in. That doesn't say to me that you're an enlightened soul free from desire and aware of the real, transient nature of the world, it says to me that you're scared.

There are two ways out. You only see one, but the other one is there and if you're willing to place your trust in it, and not to run away because it burns you a few times or is too frightening or doesn't match with what your brain is screaming at you 24/7, then maybe you'll find that life is ready to welcome you, just like it always was if you had ever been able to listen.

But if you're going to lecture other people about what depression feels like, then start taking it seriously, and stop listening to yourself, because there is nothing in the world which can hurt you more than you can.

What do you have to lose?

 

[Olas]

And here's the thing, I always prided myself(as a future psychologist) on keeping everyone's secrets and respecting their decisions(whether I agree with them or not) and I was always of the opinion that everyone should be able to do whatever they want with or to their bodies, but now even though I still agree with that statement, I have to argue against it because this is my friend and I don't want her to die.I guess what I'm saying is that I feel a bit selfish.

You're not being selfish, if anyone is being selfish it's probably her, but I don't want to make anyone sound like bad guy here. This is exactly why I disagree with the idea that we should be free to end our own lives if we choose. The vast, vast, majority of people who make that decision are in irrational mental states and aren't thinking clearly about the implications of what they're doing. It's a freedom that the majority of us just CAN'T be trusted with. Besides, this is how she feels now, it's important to remember that the present isn't all there is. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. If she kills herself she's destroying her entire future and all the possibilities it holds.

The way I see it, it's a one way door. As long as you're still alive the option to kill yourself is always still there, but once you cross the veil there's no coming back. In essence you have nothing to lose by choosing to live a little longer. You have literally everything to lose by dying. That's the way I've always seen it.

I think you should do something, tell someone about it. Try your best to prevent it and get her some help. She might hate your guts for it right now, but 20 years from now she'll probably be thanking you.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

Tell her to at least considering going through therapy before she kills herself. There have been a lot of people who have been sure in their decisions to kill themselves, and yet, they've backed out at the last minute when they realize the reality of what they're doing, and/or eventually get some help to ride the wave through their problems.

I tried that already and she says she doesn't want to talk to therapist.

Why not? You're going to have to press her, and make yourself clear that you don't care how bad she may think it is, but it's better she tells you now before it's too late. If she says it's because she doesn't have hope that she can get better just through therapy, encourage her to try it anyway. Otherwise, she'll never know and she could be screwing herself out of a possibly less sucky future.

Also, what happens if she, well, fucks it up? It can happen. How would she end it? Does she know how painful many of the methods of suicide are, and how easy it can go wrong? If it fails, she could end up brain-damaged, paralyzed or whatever, putting her in an even worse position than before, especially if she gets taken to a hospital and put on suicide watch, with none of them willing to pull the plug.

As I mention in the OP she has tried before.Back then she cut her veins and when she changed her mind she closed the wounds with a lighted cigarette.She came to a show at school with her wrists bandaged, a bit later I found out why.She also used to cut herself, so I don't think pain is really that much of an issue for her.

It's safe to say that suicide's a bigger step than self-harming, since with that, there's at least not the deliberate intent of suicide. And you said that she changed her mind after cutting her veins and closed the wounds up with...a lighted cigarette? That sounds pretty dangerous. Stating the obvious, I know, but...no-one can really know how they'll feel until they're actually in those last minutes of slipping away, and even people who claim that they're going to be prepared for their death and perfectly relaxed might actually not be. They might just shit themselves when faced with the reality of death.

And, like I said, if she fucks it up, she could be in an even worse position before, and probably the worst thing to happen to an already suicidal person is for them to be rendered completely incapable of attempting to kill themselves again, because they can't even move their arms or a family member/doctor is watching them 24/7.

I'm not a qualified psychologist or anything and I'm depressed myself, but you could also try the whole "helping to get over one little challenge before the next" by encouraging her to focus on the positive little things in life. For example, my sister's been telling me to text her one good thing that happened to me each day, in an attempt to move away from the negatives that seem overwhelming. I can't say it's worked yet, but maybe that's because it's only early days. Patience, no matter how annoying waiting for things to get better can be, is a virtue.

Oh for the love of god. Some people would prefer to die. Just because you can't comprehend that doesn't automatically make that person insane, irrational or wrong. Death isn't a bad thing, it's neutral. People should have control over their own lives, even if that means ending them.

The thing is, that's not really helpful advice to give to someone who wants to help their best friend get better, no matter how slim that chance may be. If they're going to kill themselves, they should at least try some other ways of helping themselves ? with the help of others that they trust, of course - get through that depression. If it doesn't work, then...yeah, maybe they're entitled to kill themselves, if nothing has worked for them. But this girl is only in her last year of high school. I'm not going to say that things will get better once you get out of the seemingly endless hellhole that is high school, because how the fuck should I know, I'm still only in high school.

I know that it's not as if depression is unique to teenagers. It doesn't need to be said that adults get depressed too. But if you give it a couple more years, try all the alternatives, and see how it works out...then you can think about whether or not it's such a good idea to kill yourself. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. But, like I said, there's a slim chance, even if it's only, like, 2%.

But anyway, evilthecat?s got it spot-on. Whatever you do, OP, make sure that you keep in touch with her, and let her know that she can text or phone you anytime if she wants to talk. And neither of you are being selfish. You?re concerned for a close friend, and she?s clinically depressed, so fuck what anyone else says about ?selfishness?, because they obviously don?t know what it?s like to be in that state of mind. Heck, a lot of suicide victims don?t actually think that anyone will care if they died, and yet, at their funeral, loads of people, even those that they didn?t think even liked them, turn up crying and paying their respects. Death is a big deal.

 

[manic_depressive13]

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Okay, that was terribly dramatic. I'm not projecting my issues onto anyone. I'm using my powers of empathy to acknowledge that, if I had made up my mind and resolved to kill myself, I wouldn't want someone I trusted with that information getting a third party involved.

Your post said that dissuading people who are contemplating suicide isn't always the right thing to do since there are worse things than death. That's a ridiculous thing to say and potentially disastrous advice.

That's not what I said. What a disgusting way to misrepresent my argument. I said he should definitely try to dissuade her, but he shouldn't get a third party or authority figure involved. Betraying a vulnerable person's trust like that could also have potentially disasterous consequences.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Okay, that was terribly dramatic. I'm not projecting my issues onto anyone. I'm using my powers of empathy to acknowledge that, if I had made up my mind and resolved to kill myself, I wouldn't want someone I trusted with that information getting a third party involved.

I am very close to running out of empathy.

Look back over your posts. 90% of what you have said is about you, it's about what you want and how you feel and how bad your life is.

Are you depressed at this point? If the answer is yes, then take responsibility for sorting yourself out and accept that you are not capable of providing help to someone else or a rational perspective until you do so. It is not your fault, you are sick. Do yourself a favour and take it seriously.

If the answer is no, then stop lecturing everyone else about how they don't understand, because some of us understand perfectly well, and for fuck's sake have some basic regard for someone else's life.

Because the idea that having someone potentially feel upset or betrayed is worse than having them dead is the most selfish bullshit I've heard in a long time. You shouldn't need the promise of a fucking reward to stop you from leaving someone with cardiac arrest lying in the street. This is not about "being a good friend", it's about looking after someone who is extremely unwell. If you don't understand that, then you have nothing to offer in this situation and I'd advise you to stop before you potentially do any more harm.

If you want to talk about yourself or your feelings in this matter, feel free to PM me and I will listen, or else start a more abstract thread elsewhere and I will post, but this is not the place.

 

[Terminal Blue]

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I just looked it up and I'm pretty sure there's a 116-123 number in Romania. It's anonymous, and they should be able to give you better advice than you can find on the internet.

You should also google 'suicide prevention' on google.ro, you'll probably be able to find some more specific advice for your country. But seriously, there is not a mental health professional alive who would not recommend you seek some kind of outside help if you suspect your friend may try to kill herself.

You don't have to lie to her or betray her trust, in fact I wouldn't recommend it, but it's better to tell her that you're going to seek help for her regardless of what she does and live with the consequences than to aid her in killing herself because of feelings which may well be temporary.

Good luck.

 

[manic_depressive13]

Look back over your posts. 90% of what you have said is about you, it's about what you want and how you feel and how bad your life is.

Are you depressed at this point? If the answer is yes, then take responsibility for sorting yourself out and accept that you are not capable of providing help to someone else or a rational perspective until you do so. It is not your fault, you are sick. Do yourself a favour and take it seriously.

If the answer is no, then stop lecturing everyone else about how they don't understand, because some of us understand perfectly well, and for fuck's sake have some basic regard for someone else's life.

Because the idea that having someone potentially feel upset or betrayed is worse than having them dead is the most selfish bullshit I've heard in a long time. You shouldn't need the promise of a fucking reward to stop you from leaving someone with cardiac arrest lying in the street. This is not about "being a good friend", it's about looking after someone who is extremely unwell. If you don't understand that, then you have nothing to offer in this situation and I'd advise you to stop before you potentially do any more harm.

If you want to talk about yourself or your feelings in this matter, feel free to PM me and I will listen, or else start a more abstract thread elsewhere and I will post, but this is not the place.

90% of what everyone has said has been about themselves. Scroll back up and try to find a single post where someone hasn't tried to justify what they have said with "I've been depressed" or "I've had friends who were depressed" or "I've had some experience with suicide". We call this anecdotal evidence, and in cases such as this it is the best people can really offer.

I don't appreciate being called sick. If being well involves having blatant disregard and disrespect for anyone who thinks or feels differently from you I think I'd prefer to be 'sick'.

I didn't lecture anyone about not understanding. I merely requested that people consider that the understanding they have may not be all-encompassing.

You don't think leaving someone upset or betrayed could push them over the edge, whereas merely offering love and support could have saved them? What does reward have to do with this? If someone is having a heart attack on the street, I am going to presume they don't want to die, simply because most people don't. Therefore, I am going to call a doctor who can hopefully prevent them dying. They will probably be glad.

If someone has explicitly stated that they want to die, and I have tried to dissuade them to the best of my abilities, I would not force them to continue to live. Doing otherwise is the definition of selfishness. What argument is there really against suicide? There is no loss for the dead person. Everything is over for them. Speculating whether their life may have improved or worsened in the future is meaningless.

The only other argument is the feelings of those who cared about the person. Well if they care that much, they could kill themselves too. But they won't. Even the pain of losing a loved one rarely compares to the pain you feel when you want to die. How selfish is it then, to say that you don't want to go through the emotional pain of losing a loved one, but to expect them to suffer through their own emotional pain for your sake?

 

[Mel Theofficegamergirl]

Interfering with her plans or betraying her trust by telling someone else would be both selfish and cruel. You can try to talk her out of it but at the end of the day it is her decision what she wants to do with her life, and if she wants to end it, so be it. If I were in your position I'd make sure she has considered everyone who will be left behind, made plans for her pet and taken all the consequences into account. Perhaps discuss all her options with her. Has she decided how she will kill herself? Does she know the risks? Has she taken precautions to minimise failure?

A lot of people will tell you that you are doing a suicidal person a favour by forcing them to stay alive. This is not true. For every person who has been grateful that they didn't die, there are others who went right back and tried again. More still (myself included) regret not taking the opportunity when they had the chance, and curse their cowardice all the more with every day that passes. There are worse things than death done properly. A life of misery and regret, for example.

;__; aw..I just want to give you a big hug.

In all seriousness though, I do agree with your post earlier, people die and have the right to do so.

 

[Terminal Blue]

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I'm sorry, I'm not doing this.

There's a standard procedure which you go through when you think someone you know might kill themselves. Look around the internet, every professional body, every organization, every doctor will advise you to do the same thing. Everyone on this forum (except you) has also advised roughly the same thing, because it is good advice. It is the correct thing to do in that situation as evidenced by many years of clinical treatment.

Compared to that, I don't care how bad you feel or how much you regret not killing yourself. That is irrelevant and meaningless, and you should know better than to put someone else's life in danger because of it. If you are not capable of this, then you should at least learn to stay out of this kind of thing out of basic respect for the fact that you may cause someone else harm.

No, I don't think that ignoring someone who has demonstrated a clear suicide risk is a good way to save them. Neither does the entire medical profession, neither does anyone with any sense. This is basic safeguarding procedure which anyone who has ever been in a position of trust over someone vulnerable will know by heart. You do not trivialize or ignore warning signs, and it is perfectly possible to do that without betraying someone's trust.

There are many, many arguments against suicide. If you are too wrapped up in yourself to see the value in such arguments because you personally wish you were dead, then talk to someone about it and take responsibility for helping yourself. But don't you dare let someone else suffer the consequences.

No, I don't expect people to suffer through their emotional pain for my sake, and I don't think anyone on this thread does either. The fact that you believe that is what this is about suggests just how self-obsessed your view of suicide is, and how little understanding you have of what it actually feels like to lose someone you love to mental health issues or suicide or to live with the risk of doing so. If someone is genuinely determined to kill themselves, do you really think any of us could prevent them? What everyone else on this thread is advocating is that yo should fight to give someone in that position another option, and if that means buying them time to feel better, to feel less desperate, to get help, to find some way of living, then it is worth it. Not for my sake, or anyone else's, but for their sake.

Seriously. Drop it.

 

[manic_depressive13]

There's a standard procedure which you go through when you think someone you know might kill themselves. Look around the internet, every professional body, every organization, every doctor will advise you to do the same thing. Everyone on this forum (except you) has also advised roughly the same thing, because it is good advice. It is the correct thing to do in that situation as evidenced by many years of clinical treatment.

There's an industry around it so it must be good advice!

No, I don't think that ignoring someone who has demonstrated a clear suicide risk is a good way to save them. Neither does the entire medical profession, neither does anyone with any sense. This is basic safeguarding procedure which anyone who has ever been in a position of trust over someone vulnerable will know by heart. You do not trivialize or ignore warning signs, and it is perfectly possible to do that without betraying someone's trust.

Stop it. Don't you feel ashamed of being so dishonest? I never said they should be ignored. However, if you were specifically trusted not to tell anyone, and then you get a third party involved, you are betraying that person's trust. There is no way to do that without betraying them.

There are many, many arguments against suicide. If you are too wrapped up in yourself to see the value in such arguments because you personally wish you were dead, then talk to someone about it and take responsibility for helping yourself. But don't you dare let someone else suffer the consequences.

Provide them please.

Seriously. Drop it.

No, and and here is the reason which you kindly provided yourself:

If someone is genuinely determined to kill themselves, do you really think any of us could prevent them?

Our refusal to acknowledge that suicide is a valid decision to make means that a person who is determined to do it often has no choice but to use painful, inhumane and highly dubious methods to try and exit this world. They risk having to live with permanent injury and significantly reduced quality of life because someone decided on their behalf that it's better than being dead. You have no right to tell people what to do with their bodies. To accuse them of being selfish, insane, incapable of making decisions and sick, thus dehumanising them and dimishing their right to self-determination. I think instead of vehemently refusing to accept a person's decision it is better to make sure they know what they are doing, that they understand the consequences and have taken measures to reduce the risk. That way they may at least have a dignified exit instead of being forced to die an agonising death by hastily slicing themselves up in a bath tub, contantly in fear that they'll be discovered before they finish the job and forced to live as cripples by you lovely, well-meaning individuals who know what's best for them.

 

[Savo]

Our refusal to acknowledge that suicide is a valid decision to make...

To satisfy my own curiosity, in your opinion, do you actually think that most people who attempt to take their own lives are in a rational enough mind-set to make that decision and understand the consequences?

 

[manic_depressive13]

Our refusal to acknowledge that suicide is a valid decision to make...

To satisfy my own curiosity, in your opinion, do you actually think that most people who attempt to take their own lives are in a rational enough mind-set to make that decision and understand the consequences?

Yes I do. The consequences aren't difficult to understand. Depression doesn't make you intellectually disabled. Not particularly caring about the consequences doesn't mean not appreciating them.

 

[Savo]

Our refusal to acknowledge that suicide is a valid decision to make...

To satisfy my own curiosity, in your opinion, do you actually think that most people who attempt to take their own lives are in a rational enough mind-set to make that decision and understand the consequences?

Yes I do. The consequences aren't difficult to understand. Depression doesn't make you intellectually disabled. Not particularly caring about the consequences doesn't mean not appreciating them.

What I don't buy is that most people who attempt to take their own lives are looking at it from a rational perspective. Especially people who are young.

Keep in mind I'm not trying to sound insulting here, rather I'm trying to understand and have a conversation. Would you explain to me why it is a rational decision for a young person (like the OP says) to commit suicide?

To me, it's pretty illogical saying that the rest of your life will suck just because it has so far. So many different variables to consider, so many things that could change...

 

[manic_depressive13]

What I don't buy is that most people who attempt to take their own lives are looking at it from a rational perspective. Especially people who are young.

Keep in mind I'm not trying to sound insulting here, rather I'm trying to understand and have a conversation. Would you explain to me why it is a rational decision for a young person (like the OP says) to commit suicide?

To me, it's pretty illogical saying that the rest of your life will suck just because it has so far. So many different variables to consider, so many things that could change...

I've probably clogged up this thread enough but anyway...

It's a matter of personal priorities. The reasoning goes: The future holds the potential for pain and pleasure, joy and misery. Avoiding further pain and misery is more important than experiencing joy and pleasure. It's also not so much about your life objectively sucking but about your personal capacity to feel happiness.

Furthermore, whether I personally believe something is rational doesn't give me the right to forcefully prevent that person doing what they want with their lives. I think religion is irrational but I wouldn't tell a religious person that they are mentally ill or that they are throwing their lives away by going to church. I respect their decision to do what they choose to do with their lives because it's their fucking life. I'll probably try to talk them out of it but that's as far as I believe one is reasonably entitled to go.

I'm remarkably tired of this discussion so I'm not going to reply anymore. Just a heads up.

 

[Savo]

It's a matter of personal priorities. The reasoning goes: The future holds the potential for pain and pleasure, joy and misery. Avoiding further pain and misery is more important than experiencing joy and pleasure. It's also not so much about your life objectively sucking but about your personal capacity to feel happiness.

I'm remarkably tired of this discussion so I'm not going to reply anymore. Just a heads up.

(I know you probably won't reply)

I still don't buy that. I'd far rather roll the dice, keep living, and hope the odds end up in my favor and I find happiness. Who knows what happens after we die, I'd far rather live my life to the fullest and then find out, then just hop right into the great beyond.