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I abandoned a suicidal person. Did I do the right thing?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I've been friends with this person on the internet for about 4 years. We never talked frequently, just occasionally.
Recently she's dragged me into her life to discuss her plan to kill herself. She tells me she's attempted suicide many times in the past due to her mental diagnoses. She's had a brutal life of sex, rape and hard drugs.
She keeps delaying this attempt. She's concerned with obligations like her mother and dog, and says she won't do it until next week. I'm the only person she's let in on this, apparently, so that makes me feel worse for leaving her.
I've been miserable and inattentive to my university work since she told me of her plans. To think this would last another week... I can't. I'm not trained to deal with her problems and, honestly, I'm not close enough with her to put up with the pain of knowing she could be dead any minute. I've seen my best friend through her manic depression and the very awful things it'd done to her, but I'm not prepared to do it again for this person I've never even met; albeit care about.
I told her that I can't do it and why it's the case, and she understood. It doesn't stop me from feeling very cruel and cold for cutting off all contact with a person in need, mind you. But there was nothing I could do for her, and I really did try and talk her out of it using all knowledge I learned from my best friend, but it's simply not possible. I'm just there to suck up every ridiculous thing she says and it's making me depressed.
I left her for my own sanity.
Was I right to do so?
Recently she's dragged me into her life to discuss her plan to kill herself. She tells me she's attempted suicide many times in the past due to her mental diagnoses. She's had a brutal life of sex, rape and hard drugs.
She keeps delaying this attempt. She's concerned with obligations like her mother and dog, and says she won't do it until next week. I'm the only person she's let in on this, apparently, so that makes me feel worse for leaving her.
I've been miserable and inattentive to my university work since she told me of her plans. To think this would last another week... I can't. I'm not trained to deal with her problems and, honestly, I'm not close enough with her to put up with the pain of knowing she could be dead any minute. I've seen my best friend through her manic depression and the very awful things it'd done to her, but I'm not prepared to do it again for this person I've never even met; albeit care about.
I told her that I can't do it and why it's the case, and she understood. It doesn't stop me from feeling very cruel and cold for cutting off all contact with a person in need, mind you. But there was nothing I could do for her, and I really did try and talk her out of it using all knowledge I learned from my best friend, but it's simply not possible. I'm just there to suck up every ridiculous thing she says and it's making me depressed.
I left her for my own sanity.
Was I right to do so?
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Comments
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First of all, welcome to TheSite.org message boards. To be honest, I think if someone relied on me that much, I would have done the same. However, I do think abandoning a suicidal person without telling anyone else, was pretty stupid...After telling them they needed to reach out for support and there is lodes out there. Dealing with a friend whose suicidal is rather overwhelming and can also be daunting, but you need to remember to look after yourself first. Which is looks like you're doing.
However, if you do think your friends going to act upon her suicidal thoughts, you need to call the right services to get her support, as soon as you can! It's better to be safe, even if it does end up being a false alarm. Even though you are no longer in contact with this person, there are lodes of articles and personal stories on and around TheSite.org expressing how to deal with a suicidal friend, which might be worth looking in to!
It might also be worth moving this to the Health and Well being sector on TheSite.org forum, you're likely to get some better responses if posted in that sector!
And most of all really, remember to look after yourself!
Best wishes,
Angel
But you should get other services involved.
I asked about getting help, perhaps hospitalising herself once again or getting a new therapist, but she's lost hope due to having so many different doctors and hospitals in the past. I offered my manic depressive friend's email, who was willing to talk to her about things, but she rejected that offer too. It was kind of infuriating when she simply rejected help. I suppose she owes that to being let down by everyone in the past; no sense of trust.
I also tried to get her mother's contact details but there was no such luck. She lives in Michigan, across the Atlantic Ocean from where I am... I guess I could've tried harder to find a suicide hotline in her state but to be honest I reached a point where I believed this is what she really wants to do, and it's not my right to interfere. She's really suffering.
Anyway, I came here to clear my conscience, basically. I believe I did the right thing, I just wanted to see if others thought the same. This isn't a very conventional situation I'm in so there's no staple or philosophical guidelines to help make sense of things.
Thanks everyone for seeing things from my point of view, as well as not being afraid to tell me I should've tried harder. Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn't. Sometimes I forget I'm 19 and there's a whole world of experiences waiting for me still. I'll learn as long as I live, and I may just hang around this place and drop by other threads that want help.
Then short of flying out there to give someone who is effectively a stranger, a big cuddle, you've done everything you can. I've tried to help people who don't want to be helped. Either they really don't want your help, or they're testing your resolve. Either way, they're playing with your emotions.
You've done the only thing you can, and what most people would do in the same circumstance.
Thanks again for your support guys, I feel I can put this to rest now. It's difficult to respond to a situation you're unfamiliar with, but I think I'm a bit more confident in my own instinctive judgement than I was before.
I've been in situations before where people have tried to rely on me more than I had the capacity to give. It's never an easy thing to discuss but really you have to. So long as you explain, rather than just disappear into the night, then that's all you can do.
By the way, your name and avatar has brought back a taste in my mouth that I haven't felt since I left school.
And then what happened? Did being cut off help? Did it make things worse? Did the person doing it (from an outsider's perspective) do the right thing?
If you don't mind saying obv.
It sort of helped, yes. He did argue that I have to learn to deal with everything myself. Looking back, I can understand why he did it. He was going through some issues himself at the time and he said he can't deal with me as well.