
Ask HN: someone I care for is thinking of ending his life. I can't reach him. - oliv9286
Last night, I had a &quot;fight&quot; with a very good friend of mine (regarding some personal matters). During the same night, his mother was once again being emotional and using harsh words on him. Later that night, he had a strange facebook post mentioning &quot;if living doesn&#x27;t bring any happiness, then maybe dying will&quot;. Then I came home and saw this post: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6123452. Since then I&#x27;ve been in panic mode, crying my eyes out, yet I can&#x27;t do ANYTHING other than keep calling&#x2F;emailing&#x2F;messaging on facebook, staring at the screen, hoping for a single response. I&#x27;ve never felt so helpless before.<p>I often get mad at the way he looks down on himself, calling himself worthless or &quot;fail at life&quot; as he likes to say. I know none of those are true. In fact, he&#x27;s probably the brightest 20 year-old I&#x27;ve met by far. Before knowing him, I thought all the self-taught college drop-out prodigies only existed on some articles, or in a world that I don&#x27;t belong to. Unlike most teenagers, when he got his first computer, instead of sinking into games, he learnt to build websites, obtained a skill, used the computer as a tool to provide a better life for his mom. But whenever I tell him he&#x27;s ahead of people at his age, he wouldn&#x27;t believe me. He&#x27;d think that I&#x27;m saying it for the sake of making him feel better.<p>As far as I know, he suffers from Dysthymia (http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dysthymia). Yet never told anyone or opened up to anyone, being in fear that people will be even more distant to him if they knew he has depression. I don&#x27;t know what I can do, how I can help to make him pick up his confidence again. How I can help him fight his depression.<p>post too long continue here http:&#x2F;&#x2F;pastebin.com&#x2F;drArHNhf
======
viggity
If you are concerned your friend is imminently planning suicide, you can call
the police (look up the non emergency phone number) and ask them to do a
"wellness check". My wife had a coworker who hadn't been heard from for a day
so two women from the office had a wellness check done with the police and
they found the coworker incapacitated in his home. See:
[http://www.ehow.com/facts_5823955_police-welfare-
check_.html](http://www.ehow.com/facts_5823955_police-welfare-check_.html)

also, depending on the circumstances and your local state laws, you can have
your friend involuntarily committed for observation to a psychiatric facility,
but a judge will likely have to be involved. To me, the Facebook post would be
enough to seriously consider both of these options. (my wife is a social
worker)

these may seem a bit extreme, but they are there for your friends protection.
Its better to possibly lose your friendship and him live then having him end
his life.

I hope this helps the immediate time being

------
tptacek
This is too serious an issue to rely on message board feedback for. You should
know that many of the resources available to suicidal people are also
available to their friends; find a hotline, call, and get advice; follow up
with any resources they give you. Get professional help as soon as you can.

~~~
oliv9286
just called 1-800-SUICIDE, they didn't really give any helpful advice other
than telling me ways to calm down myself.. I feel even more helpless now.
Thinking about calling the police, not sure if too crazy of a thing to do...

------
oliv9286
For the first time I know what fear is, my physical strength cannot hold up
anymore and I have to sleep, yet all that going through my head is all the
possible scenarios that could happen. Had a dream that everything turned out
to be okay, woke up at 4am out of excitement, checked phone/messages, still no
response. Then realize it was just a dream, and burst in tears again. Going
through every corner on the internet to find the smallest trace that he's
still okay.. for the first time when people asked me if everything's alright,
i responded "no". I have no idea how I can possibly focus on work and normal
life today without going through a mental breakdown.

------
pallandt
It's possible he just doesn't want to talk to you right now, if you've already
made many attempts to contact him, leave it at that and don't escalate. You
could be making him worse, even if you have good intentions.

Your friend is very young at 20, he may not realize this now, but has plenty
of time to amend any past mistakes that at the moment he feels are
'unfixable'.

For the speediest recovery, he needs meds and hopefully an understanding
psychiatrist that would find a way to prescribe him some without giving him a
definitive/serious diagnostic that could hurt his future chances at getting a
job.

It would also be good if his mother realized just how bad his current mental
situation is, and that it's selfish of her to keep relying on him to
continually provide for both of them. Does she not have any relatives that
would take her in at least for a while, until he gets back up on his feet?

Your friend probably feels under a lot of pressure right now, and she's a part
of the problem.

The best you could do for him is to support him, if he decides to keep living.
There will be more jobs, as well as chances at going to college or gaining
equivalent education via free Coursera, Udacity, EdX etc. courses.

He needs to start fixing his health first though.

Also, if you make any future posts about him, here or anywhere else, please
try to be a little more ambiguous in order to protect his privacy as much as
possible.

~~~
oliv9286
Thank you, I too agree it is a lot of ask for from a person at this age... But
how should I open him up more? He has always been a very quiet person, most
friends don't know much about him. And from talking to him i found out he just
has secrets after secrets. I respect him and will not be telling these secrets
to anyone else as I promised. But it's quite difficult to imagine how he's
been holding all these to himself for the whole time, without talking to
anyone... He also tends to pull himself away from everyone, pretending he
doesn't care for anything or anyone, but I know he does care, I really do =(

------
EB5
Get him a job.

It does not sort out his psycological problems, but after reading his post, I
assume this will at least stop this from spiralling out of control and give
him some peace of mind, at least for some time.

I know this is kind of an unconventional advice, but I feel like his current
down is more about his life falling appart, so fixing this is the first
priority, then comes takkling the depression.

With a huge mortage and no job its hard to make him view the world more
optimistically.

Just my 2 cents.

PS: Is somebody here from B.C, Canada and in need of a Web-dev?

------
dholowiski
__Call 911 __

(or your country 's equivalent)

