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[smokingwreckage]

Professional help. Do whatever it takes to get them to professional help. Do not try to carry this alone. I tried to carry someone alone and over a decade later I'm still not over the pain. That didn't even end in a "successful" suicide attempt. If you try to carry this alone and your friend really, truly kills themselves, you will be in your own personal hell, possibly for life.

I've suffered from depression myself. Your friend has to see the need to deal with this. Suicide is the worst thing you can do to everyone but yourself. People they care about WILL NEVER RECOVER FROM THE PAIN AND CONFUSION if they suicide. Even a GP can get your pal on an antidepressant and if you persist you can get one that works (the first might not).

Depression is not "seeing things as they are" it's a great big chemical and cognitive f* up that needs to be dealt with. First pills, then skills

Once you get the hostile chemistry out of the way you can work on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. It feels pretty silly and trite but it works. You have to be able to say to yourself "There are people I care about and they are more important than me feeling a bit silly".

[Org]

Ill say one thing. Or maybe more.


Life is worth living, even if it sucks. Because then you are dead, and cant do anything. And if you believe in a religion and commit suicide you go to hell. For most of them.

[Cheeetar]

I think it's more of a no feeling is better than a really shitty feeling sort of idea, Org.

[ToonyMan]

Not Feeling>Horrible Feelings

[Org]

I think it's more of a no feeling is better than a really shitty feeling sort of idea, Org.

Id rather be alive, thanks.

[SHAD0Wdump]

What keeps me going is the thought of bringing joy to other people's lives. If I just give up,I create irreversible grief in everyone I knew.

[Muz]

I'm pretty sure a lot of people who commit suicide see themselves as bringing grief to everyone while alive. So, it's not really much of an discouragement to tell them to "think of your loved ones".

[JoshuaFH]

Alright, as a person that frequently combats extremely heavy depression, and has gone through a very long period of time (years...) just constantly think about suicide, let me tell you: Do NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, try to invalidate his feelings. Telling him to his face anything along the lines of "Life is worth living" (Oh yeah? FUCKING PROVE IT!) "Suicide isn't the answer" (It's a good enough answer! I've been fucking thinking about it afterall!) "Think of your loved ones!" (What loved ones? They wouldn't want me living like this anyhow, so fuck them!) "Your life can get better" (MY LIFE?! What the fuck do you know about it?! FUCK YOU!). Remember, that a suicidal person's mode of thought is something along the lines of "I can't control where my life is going, but killing myself is taking the control back, and no one can stop me!", and I know this, because I've contemplated it for years now.

The best advice I can give (besides getting him/her professional help) is to just listen to them. Always take them serious. Don't cast judgments. Be there for them. It doesn't matter if you don't understand their feelings, just so long as they understand YOUR feelings, so tell them how sincerely you care by listening.

Just trust me on this one, it's very hard to understand the thoughts of someone that looks outside, and doesn't see a future for themself in the world they live in. That the friends they have are inconsequential to ultimate happiness. That their life to this point has been wasted, and is careening towards an end they honestly don't want to see.

Truthfully, it's not something you can understand, it's only something you can experience.

Lastly, to paraphrase something depressing I read once, "Don't pity those that kill themselves, because, ultimately, they got what they wanted afterall."

Do you understand?

[ToonyMan]

Meh.  I've had my bouts of depression too.  The best cure is not to care.  I don't care anymore.

[JoshuaFH]

You're not helping ToonyMan.

[Leafsnail]

There is a crucial difference in the feeling experienced by someone who commits suicide - a feeling that there is no hope, that things will never get better and will probably get worse.  Even when suffering terrible grief, I have never had the feeling of hopeless "My life will never improve" that someone needs to become suicidal.

[Aqizzar]

There's really nothing I could add to this that hasn't been said.  Why kill yourself?  Because you hate every aspect of your life, you believe there's nothing in your life at the moment that's worth living for, and that said lack of anything to live for will never change.

I've been there myself.  I've always been too introspective for my own good, and when I was about 16 I was sitting around with nothing to do for days on end, doing really bad in school, had just been retroactively dumped, and I'd recently lost some important momentos and lost touch with some old friends for situational reasons.  Those things in themselves weren't the problem.  The problem was that I was convinced that my utter laziness and apathy meant that I'd never work up the effort to change anything about my life.  I knew that I'd just be sitting around on my ass doing nothing forever, and as is always the way of self-sustaining spirals of grief, I kinda lost touch with reality for a few hours, and decided that dieing was the best option.  This was only made worse when I couldn't even work up the effort to kill myself properly, and basically resolved to just lay on the floor feeling sorry for myself until I starved to death.

Of course I fell asleep, and I woke up the next morning to sound of my dad shouting that he'd made pancakes.  And I was all like "ooh pancakes!".  I spent the rest of the day going over what I'd thought about, and pretty much talked myself back into a good mood.  I decided that, even if I couldn't see how or when, things will always get better, because nothing in life last forever.  Just days later, I found myself having talk a friend out of some suicidal thoughts (not that she ever would have gone through with it, peppy look-at-me-I'm-so-emo-I-cut-myself chick that she was), using that same logic.

The ironic part is that apathy and lack of direction are still constant problems for me.  Even when my life is going through really awful periods, at least it's interesting and keeps me spurred into action - it's the long days when I have nothing to do and no will to do anything that I hate.  But the urge to just stay depressed never gets as bad as it used to, because (especially being older) I know now that there's always something to think about coming along.

[Rilder]

When I was about 13-15 I went through a major bout of depression, thinking about killing myself and everything. After awhile I just got over it, no shrinks or anything, probably helps that I'm afraid of death.   

These days I'm pretty happy and optimistic even though there is a few unknowns and worries.

[JoshuaFH]

I don't mean to be an asshole, but this is my berserk button, so let me just say this:

If your entire story consists of "Well, I felt pretty bad once, and thought about killing myself, but then I felt better and it was alright", I'm going to have to ask you to leave. You don't belong in the discussion. Depression doesn't just get you down for a little bit, it destroys your way of life. There's no if's, and's, or but's about it. It's a creeping, deep, unplaceable sadness that envelopes every aspect of your life, and you can't ignore it, no matter how hard you try.

It's not situational, it's not something that pertains to logic or reasoning, it's not something that goes away with time, it just makes it's way into your head, and stays there. Every thought in your head is twisted negatively, and so sadness becomes the dominant force in your life.

Because of Depression, you lose your energy, you lose your interests, you lose your will to live. It's not something that can be rationalized as "just feeling blue for awhile", so please, take it a bit more seriously.

[ToonyMan]

You're not helping ToonyMan.

Sorry, it's just.

I've never had problems in school or anything, I always do well, even now.  Very rarely would I find myself getting a B on my trimester grades.  If you were to see me in public, you would be like, "Hey, that kid looks like he knows what he's doing."  And if that were just the case it would be great and all, but no.  My family life sucks.  My parents are I don't even know.  My Mother doesn't have a job and it doesn't look like she's going to get one soon.  My step-Father finds odd-jobs when they're avaible, I'm pretty sure he sells drugs so we can keep our house.  Speaking of my house, I live in a $800-1000? (can't rememeber) monthly mortage house that is tiny, I don't have a door to my room.  The most expensive thing in my room is the computer I type on right now.  Even with all of this happening to me I would be ok, but no.  I live in a world that seems to run on "just passing" or "just enough" IF that.  My school and the State spend so much on the humans that shouldn't be allowed to live.  It's insane.  I have such strong hateful feelings for these people that could look in the mirror and know that they are killing off our future.  School was just like a local version.  I'm surrounded by mediocracy and chaos.  Kids that do poorly (80%? there's alot, even the students that do well show traits of lazyiness) are having so much attention on them that other actual "honor" students including me are deprived for doing well, yet I still DO.  I wake up each morning knowing that it's always going to be the same, I'm always going to DO my BEST and others won't.  Would you honestly expect a 16 year old boy to be self-discipline and a high-achiever?  No you don't, oh sure all of the teachers love me, but that makes me hate it even more.  Other students around me can pull off crap C's and feel good about themselves.  I haven't shared my feelings about this to other students, because the outcome is easy to predict.  This started happening during 8th grade when I slowly started to realize what kind of world I live in.  I became desensitized, my feelings apathic.  I STILL do my best in everything that I could do, it never makes me feel happy.  I can play a video-game, it never makes me feel happy.  I can talk with friends (the few I have), it never makes me feel happy.  People around me have seen a change going on in me, no longer am I mister happy oblivious moron, but I am now a bitter, sarcastic, and miserable log.  The only time you will see a smile on my face is when I laugh at the irony of my luck or when I am on Bay12, acting like an insane fool with no worries.

That is all.