Suicide

He's 17.



He refuses to. He says they just wouldn't understand.
**** I feel so F*****g helpless

My bestfriend killed herself. the sad truth is there's nothing that you can do if they're serious. keep talking to them, tell them you would miss them, just keep up a dialogue so they know that someones life will be the poorer if they go through with it.

if the danger is iminent...
get them sectioned... thatll really piss them off. all you need is a doctor, a social worker and their nearest relative... bingo they will be taken to a "place of safety" *ahem* "prison" where they can be treated without their consent with drugs, electricity and straightjackets till they agree to behave. theyll still feel shit when they leave, but the idea of suicide will be a bit stale.

If they can't be persuaded otherwise the only option is to physically prevent them from doing so, which doesn't solve the underlying problem. It also raises the issue of whether or not we should have the right to prevent people from killing themselves...

Actually for your information is it designed to very difficult to get someone sectioned and it is. You seem to have been watching too many films.

The right to kill yourself, how can you remove this. By preventing anyone from moving?

Is there anything you can do to help someone who just thinks that the world would be a better place without them so are planning on killing themselves?
I know tell someone etc, but anything else?

Actually for your information is it designed to very difficult to get someone sectioned and it is. You seem to have been watching too many films.



The right to kill yourself, how can you remove this. By preventing anyone from moving?

How immediately serious are they? If the worst comes to the worst, stay with them, or in contact, with other people taking over if you can, for some time. Get them to see a doctor as soon as possible, if need be get them to make an emergency visit to hospital. Make sure they can get in touch with Samaritans: it is arrogant to impose their misery on their friends, no matter how willing they are to accept it. How often does your friend feel like this? It might be useful for them to take antidepressants for a time; with moderate, non-clinical depression and after a full-blown depressive illness, behaviour therapy can help too. If they take any drugs, inckluding alcohol and cannabis, they should stop at once until well after they can face the world again.
If they think the world would be better without them, they have a grossly unrealistic view of themselves and their own importance in the world. The world will be just about the same whether they or any of us are here or not. For the long term, I'd advise reading the Stoic philosophersand the works of Samuel Backett. No, I'm not joking- not entirely- but this life is all we have, no matter how unpleasant it is. It is probably the only one we have and we must make the best of it. At worst, we must follow Housman's remedy: Let us endure an hour and see injustice done.

He's 17.



He refuses to. He says they just wouldn't understand.
**** I feel so F*****g helpless

Maybe you should keep persuading him to seek professional help. It took me a year to persuade my best friend to seek help, but it was worth it in the end. I understand that he feels that no one´s gonna understand, but keep telling him they will. Try telling him that he´s a worthy person, that he deserves to be helped and that it´s not his fault that he´s feeling so bad.
I´m sorry that I can´t offer other ways to help him. I know how terrible it is when you feel so helpless.

He feels like this on and off... pretty often I suppose. He is fine for a while, then just starts feeling like this again. He doesn't really have anyone else to talk to it seems, he doesn't have many friends and his parents just try to make him feel ungrateful.
I haven't heard from him all day now which is not normal...

Cate,

have you heard anything yet?

Is there anything you can do to help someone who just thinks that the world would be a better place without them so are planning on killing themselves?
I know tell someone etc, but anything else?

introduce them to a religion, maybe islam would do

introduce them to a religion, maybe islam would do

Is there anything you can do to help someone who just thinks that the world would be a better place without them so are planning on killing themselves?
I know tell someone etc, but anything else?

I had a girlfriend once who told me she wanted to kill herself. Don't know what that says either about me, or about my taste in women. But joking apart, she didn't kill herself. I'm 99.9% sure that her not killing herself had nothing to do with me. But I did make it very very clear to her that I was going to stick around if she needed someone to talk to at any hour of the day or night.

Hmm... well, he knows that he can talk to me any time...
The main problem I guess is that he just acts like nothing's happened after he's been really depressed...