My heart hurts. I am sad and frustrated...and I don't understand why I got so pulled off balance, even.
Stupid of me.

What you said was true. Did she get upset with you?

It's very hard when we, who are not professional shrinks, try to support someone who is suicidal.

I don't think what you said was awful. You could just follow it up with something more expansive, like, "It makes unhappy, because I want you to be good to you, to treat you as well as you deserve." And then tell her all the reasons why she deserves to be treated well. She needs to hear those things as a counterweight to what her abuser told her about herself and what she probably now tells herself. She needs to hear it as often as she heard whatever her abuser said, by word or action.

That's my take on it, anyway. I'm not a shrink either. But when people say nice things about me, if there's any truth in it, it sets off a tiny glow inside, even if I don't believe it and dismiss what was said. I think those little glows add up over time and hopefully create a little island of light inside that dark ocean of pain.

As for you, I don't think you did anything wrong. Knowing you, you are extending yourself greatly for this person and showering her with love and concern. You do not have to be perfect, you are just another struggling soul like the rest of us! As I learned with my own friend, the best way to be there for her while taking care of you is to keep your ego out of it. You can't control what happens so you can't possibly be responsible for it. Please keep reminding yourself of that!

TRIGGER WARNING

I have a very different view on suicide than most people. I have been suicidal.

When people actually make plans to kill themselves, there are no attempts to get people to stop them. When a person cries out for help, it is for help to stay away from death. If they do it enough, it just becomes a cry for attention.

The first two times that I tried to kill myself no one knew about it. Not even my husband. The thing that stopped me was fear of what it would do to my then very young daughter. The last time I got interrupted - hubby walked in before I had inserted the knife more than a quarter of an inch between my ribs - heading for my heart. I won't ever put him in that much pain again.

But you can't coddle someone who is threatening suicide. The threats are to hurt others, not end their lives.

yadlim

Yadlim, I heard once that to commit suicide you have to 1. Want to die 2. Want to kill someone and 3. Want to be killed. Don't know if that's true. If someone is crying for attention, shouldn't we give it to them? Shouldn't we assure them that they don't deserve to be hurt? What is your take on how to be helpful in that situation?

Also once went there. Didn't get there the whole way. Hubby found me and stopped me. His distress made it plain I was *not* the only victim of a suicide.

We have to offer to help them *live*---most don't want death, just an end to pain, in my limited amateur experience---but doing so is not easy. Sometimes, a harsh truth is the best wake-up call someone can get. It may hurt like eighteen kindso f he** when you get that wake-up call---but years later, you will be glad it got trhough the rest of the pain.

Hylie, be gentle to yourself. What you said was not necessarily the worst way to put it--- I don't know what your tone was --- but it may be what makes her view things in a different way---and try to help herself heal instead. I'll keep a good thought.

I'll also add that I did reach out for help, and a suicide hotline hung up on me, and so did a long-time friend, and that was when I concluded I was so past loving that it was time to surrender the pain of living. It wasn't a cry for attention but a plea for help, ignored in both cases, and telling the difference between "Help!" and "Pay attention to me!" isn't easy.

Give your love, safely, and don't worry about beingo ff-balance, or call yourself stupid, Hlie. You're human. People with professional degrees in psychology can eff it up pretty bad.

Gentle vibes,
Leo

up here in free-healthcare, rainbows and unicorns la-la land canada, suicide is the second-leading killer of people my age, behing tobacco-related mortalities.

that blows my mind!!!! i mean....think about that. why the heck isn't there a nation-wide call to arms to battle this affliction???

never, ever take a suicidal person lightly, or think they're just causing a fuss for attention.

because we never know for sure.

`behind' not `behing' D'OH!

i should say hylie, i don't think you did anything nasty or mean-spirited, and i don't get any sense of malevolence whatsoever. you spoke from your heart. my only thought was to follow it up with.....`so what can we do to stop you from murdering your inner-child'

hopefully she's open to programs and psychiatrists and other crucial things for suicidal people.

Do be gentle with yourself, hylie. Whether you done good, bad or somewhere in between, self-abuse doesn't help. That part about becoming our own abusers is no joke. It happens all too easily and is only a sneeze away from projecting the abuse onto others. It be a razor's edge hidden beneath fuzzy lines... Be gentle. Small moves.

In this particular telling, I am not at all sure whether ya done good, bad or in between. Clear lines are hard to find in cases like this.

The worst of my own suicidal ideation happened in the early 70s and it was this sort of no-nonsense truth telling that helped me get past it. Hearing it hurt, but in time I was able to digest it and eventually act on it. I honestly do not see where sugar coatings can be helpful with suicidal ideation. Compassion, always. Sugar coatings??? Not in my personal experience. The most helpful of these brutal truth tellers in my own case were the ones who softened the truth with compassionate, in-depth exploration of the truths behind the truths. A couple of them were professionals. Some were friends. Others were friendly strangers. Others were from support groups I was attending.

But that was me... Past tense. Suicidal urges haven't plagued me for a couple or few decades. Memory can be tricky. Especially memories as damaged as mine.

Be gentle, hylie, whichever way it evolves.

I...
She went to go visit her mom...her mom blamed 6 year old her for being abused by her teenaged cousins...
I read she was around her mom right after getting out of a psych hospital, and had GIANT ALLCAPS CONNIPTION..."SHE'S A THREAT! GET OUT OF THERE!"

Her next post sounded like another suicide attempt in progress, so no, I wasn't nice. I lost balance, BIG-TIME.

At this point I have to withdraw because I have a problem.

I do care, but I don't think I can help, and I crossed a line into probable lashing -out trying to help. I just...It makes me angry to see someone self-destruct due to what was done to them, because it is SO unjust.

But all that's about me, isn't it? Gotta figure it out, yeah?

Great awareness of your own motives and limitations, hylie. That awareness is extremely important. Hope you can keep that real, honest and true to what is inside your own skin.

However...

Expanding and/or healing those limitations are at the heart and soul of support groups and friendships. It is possible - and you have the best available information on this possibility - that this could turn into a healing encounter for both of you. IF, IF, IF that percolates as possible through your own information and feelings... It could be worth a gentle try. VERY gentle...

Only playing devil's advocate... Repeat: You have the best information available on this possibility. I know some of my own most healing episodes began as harsh conflict and grew into gentle, mutual compassion. Some. Sometimes it stays under the heading, "Compost Happens."

For sure, I am sending out healing vibes for you. Be kind to your gentle heart.

Take care of yourself. This may be a situation where you may or may not be able to help, but there is a chance that what you said might help - it does ring true.

Either way, you need to do only what YOU can. So many people out there need help, but it is more than we can do to help them all. Even if it was a mistake, you are allowed the occasional mistake - hugs and love!!

Donnawanda - Let me try to re-articulate that... It did not come out quite right as I triggered myself while writing it. I ALWAYS believe that people deserve our time and attention - assuming we have it to give. But there is a point where threats of self harm are to manipulate. I would much rather come to a cry of real help, or better yet, just because they are there.

As long as someone is trying to get better, I will do back flips and give more than I have to help... but when it seems like I only hit negative reactions for my attentions, I have to step away. But that is me. I have heard the "I am going to hurt myself" so many times from family and acquaintances that I can't react any more.

so - yes - but I think that a positive reason needs to be found for the attention... if that makes any sense...

yadlim - hugs

I have tried to kill myself 5 times and what you said wouldn't have mattered. Don't beat yourself up over it. The person that wants to kill themself is only wrapped up in themself. They can't hear anyone else at that point.

I didn't worry about what others did. I just wanted it to be over. Please don't worry about your words at that point.

Donnawanda's first reply in this threat was correct: it's hard to know how to support a suicidal peer, just being patients and not doctors ourselves. Donnawanda's reply went on to be beautiful to me in speaking of how kind words to someone might place a glow of light in the darkness of their pain. Just beautiful.

I have to confess that when I was on the ropes, so to speak, what deterred me wasn't so nice. I am NOT wishing the treatment I got on anyone, nor saying it's justified. It is just what happened.

When I went through a divorce in 2000, some suicidal ideations I'd had as a younger person when living in abuse returned. I told some friends, and so I was hospitalized and put on suicide watch.

I had been in the same hospital before, but this time it was different. At the door I was grabbed by some security personnel, taken to a room and stripped naked, then placed on a table face down. Leather restraints were fastened on my wrists and my ankles, and I was given a shot of Haldol.

I was left that way over an entire weekend. Since then, no loose talk about suicide has come out of my mouth for 14 years, I can assure you.

Kindness would have been nice. However, I have to admit that this other opposite approach was effective, though I don't thank them for it. I just realized I still had enough self esteem left in me that I didn't want anybody to hurt me like that again, so I didn't want to hurt myself, either.

Ironic. I know.

So I don't have the answer for suicide, either. I just do know it's painful to feel that terribly, and I empathize because it can lead to feeling even worse, as it did for me. What's worse than feeling like life's not worth living all alone in your living room? For me it was feeling like life's not worth living all alone and strapped to a gurney for a weekend. For me that was a lesson learned the hard way.

I don't know if you did the right thing or the wrong thing, either, h. I just know you meant well, and that counts for something, too.

I don't think what you said was so bad- I find suicide attempts to be very offensive, IMHO. There are people fighting all the time to stay alive, so the thought of willingly doing the opposite is beyond me.

Go easy on yourself.

I agree with DeliAnnem that suicide attempts are offensive. No suicide attempt is serious. A serious suicide "attempt" is the first and only one and I it is successful so is not an attempt.

I think your friend needed to experience your reaction. It's part of the results of their actions. Your anger and frustration is what they will get from many people if they keep doing what they are doing.