Friend attempted suicide!

[PupPupBoogie2]

Hi all, this is a very complex issue. I'm going to do my best to be honest (please don't flame me) and hope that some of you might be able to help.

My friend has depression and has done for a long time. She is a lovely person and a great friend but she has been through some traumatic situations in her life. She has a very comfortable life now and has an amazing family around her.

I don't live nearby but I do stay in touch with her as best I can.

Over the last few years, she has messaged me about 5 or 6 times telling me she's been in hospital because she attempted suicide. She hasn't as far as I'm aware ever had to stay overnight at hospital (which I would have assumed you would normally with an overdose). I'm trying to be a supportive friend but I'm also worried about her a lot and the stress of finding that out time and time again has made me (please don't flame me for saying this), take it a little less seriously. I know how awful that sounds but at the start I thought she must really want to die but there's a part of me that thinks it must be more of a cry for help since she hasn't gone to the extent required. I know this is a sensitive issue and I'm so sorry if I cause any offence. I suppose it is maybe also my minds way of coping as I have experienced suicide and the impact it has on a family first hand and I suppose my emotions can't deal with these messages saying she's attempted it again after what I've been through personally when it comes to suicide.

Am I an awful person for feeling this way?

I'm also really struggling to help her. I'm trying to be there for her but I don't know how to make her depression go away. I wish I had a magic wand.

I don't even really know why I'm posting. I think I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all.

I had a friend attempt suicide and nearly succeed due to mental illness. I eventually cut contact completely - I tried to rescue her from her illness and the futility of the effort made me really ill myself; my lack of boundaries and attempt to take responsibility for ‘fixing’ her really messed up the dynamic between us which along with her illness resulted in a horrible situation involving stalking/threats. I live with the knowledge that I consciously turned my back on someone I loved when they were desperately ill and alone and that’s an uncomfortable thing to know about myself, but I also know if I’d not found the selfishness to do it, I’d have ended up utterly broken.

Not sure that’s much help, but just wanted to say that sometimes ‘being a terrible person’ is the same as having self respect and preserving your own health.

Hope you and your friend are both ok in the end

Aw I don't think your view is horrible although it is certainly uninformed. Taking your life is a huge huge scary thing to do and often painful, meaning lots of people back out before they actually do or half way through. That doesn't mean that they're not so depressed they don't want to do die.

As to not being admitted, bed pressures are so bad in some areas that lots of people don't get take in if they can ascertain you're not going to try again immediately.

Sorry I forgot to say, re the other stuff, step back if you can't cope. Your mental health being affected won't help anyone let alone her.

I'm finding it so hard. I've said everything I can possibly think of that's supportive & kind. She gets upset when people tell her that one day things will get better because from her point of view, she's been waiting for that day to come for years. I just don't know what I can do to fix this. I feel like I can't fix it and it's a very stressful situation to be in 😢

Oh sweetheart, it's not down to you to fix it. Nothing you say will make it better. Nothing you do will make it better. It has to come from her. Be there for her if you can by maybe just listening and being with her. But only if you can. You can't pour from an empty cup.

You feel like you can’t fix it because you can’t fix it.

Your options are to continue to be there for your friend whilst accepting her depression as something she may be dealing with for the rest of her (hopefully long, not-self-terminated) life and something it is not your job to fix, or to back off from/end your relationship if your own health is suffering.

I was suicidal (not through an active desire to die but because I felt so incredibly tired and futile and just wanted everything to stop) and incredibly anxious by the time I ended the friendship mentioned in my previous post. In order to get well myself I had to let go of my desire to be a good person and just choose to be a happy/well one instead.

I still miss my friend. It’s years since we spoke. But I also feel I have far fewer illusions about myself (I know I’m not ‘nice’ all the way through. I think I’m more forgiving of other people being a complicated mixture too.)

Oh OP, I am so sorry you are put in this position. You can’t fix her though. I don’t want to go into too much detail because it would be outing but I know the fall-out of suicide for those left behind. However, there is something you got to remember, the number one rule for any First-Aider is to ensure you are safe and are not putting yourself in harm’s way. The same goes for anyone dealing with friends or family members with mental health issues. You need to put your own well-being first and safe-guard your own mental health. Whatever their pain and struggles, this does not mean that you should be burdened beyond a certain point where it begins to negatively impact on your own life. You are not equipped for it and shouldn’t have to. Sadly, some people can be all consuming in their neediness. You are entitled to not have your own well-being undermined and need to activate some self-preservation. Friends would not expect you to operate on them or deal with their physical health issues as a layperson, so in the same token, they cannot expect you to shoulder their depression.

@Verbena87 You very much reiterated my point. You are certainly not bad for taking some vital steps for self-preservation. Being a good person does not mean you have to sacrifice your own happiness or health for someone else.

@TemptressofWaikiki thanks. I don’t think I’m a bad person, but I think societal pressure to be a ‘good’ person is hard to shake off, especially for women who are socialised to see ourselves as caring/nurturing towards others before ourselves.

And I will always be sad about it - friend’s behaviour was driven by psychosis and delusion, and to actively cut off a loved one (changing my contact details without explaining, not giving my new address when I moved, refusing contact even via family/mutual friends, all the stuff self preservation sometimes involves) because of illness they can’t control is not great. But it was necessary at the time. I think maybe if I’d had better boundaries after her suicide attempt and not tried to take on responsibility for her recovery we might still be in touch and I miss her terribly - she’s fiercely intelligent and funny and talented and inspiring and full of zesty energy when she’s well.

Not all suicide attempts are pre-meditated. I knew someone who took overdoses because she couldn't cope with how she was feeling. She didn't think "I want to die" - it was more like "I can't cope with feeling this way - these tablets make me feel a bit better, so I'll take lots of them." In those circumstances, they may not keep someone in overnight (unless they need to pump their stomach or give an antidote).

However, you are absolutely right to distance yourself to protect your own mental health.

She doesn't want you to fix it. Sorry but people make me really angry with that attitude. I can't say or do anything to make it better so it's not my problem.

Maybe she just wants you to listen? Or just be there? If it's a cry for help then why the hell is the automatic response to ignore it? This is why people reach crisis point. Because they cry out for help again and again and no one ever comes. So they end up giving up.

Sometimes, suicide is something you carefully plan over a period of time. You put everything in place. You tie up loose ends, you write letters or time delayed emails and so on. You arrange to see people for the last time (although you do not tell them it's the last time). You give people things you want them to have. You make a detailed plan of how, and when, and you carry it out.

Sometimes, suicide is something that happens as a response to unbearable pain (or fear, or hopelessness, or any kind of mental/ emotional anguish), and there is no planning. It's like an explosion. It's what you realise you have to do, or what you realise is your only option, right now. You don't make plans, you just act. You might describe the feeling as wanting to die, or not wanting to be, or wanting 'this' to end, or not knowing what else to do but this.

Sometimes, suicides are accidental: you didn't mean to die. You did mean to harm yourself, possibly very badly. You felt real pain. You needed to escape that pain. You might have needed to show that pain and this was the only way you had (you think) to do it.

I have attempted. Obviously, I did not complete. I know what it is like to make the detailed plan (I know the way having the plan lifts your mood). I know what it is like to have the sudden need. I know what it is like to have no intention of dying but to go far enough with deliberate self harm that you are risking it.

I know that no one is responsible for my mental health, no one has an obligation to listen to me talk about it, no one has a duty to support me, no one should ever, EVER, have to prioritise my feelings/ wellbeing/ needs above theirs. You are allowed to draw back from your friend- you're more than 'allowed', permission doesn't even come into it. Your friend's agony is horrible, their suffering is awful and so very sad, they have a right to support and care and love and the attention they need- but you do not have a responsibility to provide it and their pain does not in any way reduce your right to protect yourself.

You don't have to fix her, or anyone else. You matter as much as she does. You aren't obligated to soak up her pain and be her support ad you will have done nothing wrong- honestly I cannot emphasise this enough- if you need her to stop bringing this to you.

(And if my post has in any way upset you or made things worse, I am very, very sorry).

Icannotrememver, your post is actually very moving & you sound like a very lovely person I hope things have improved for you.
OP, you need to look after you and if that means pulling back, do it.
I was in an almost identical situation and I can tell you it’s soul destroying.
I decided to end a 20 year friendship because I was utterly exhausted from trying to prop my friend up & help her see her worth. Nothing I ever did helped because ultimately it comes from within. I didn’t fall out with her but pulled back gently over the course of about 6 months. I didn’t want to stress her out any more than she was.
I’m still polite and have a quick chat if I see her but keep things light.
It’s the best decision I ever made & my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.
We all have a responsibility to ourselves. Your friend included. Hope things work out for you.

Also OP and anyone else in the same heart-wringing situation, these two poems by Mary Oliver are a help...

THE JOURNEY
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.

WILD GEESE
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

@Camille01 Thank you, things are a bit tricky at the moment but nowhere near as bad as they once were :)