DS suicidal

[Okbutnotgreat]

DS 18 has today told us that he has been feeling really low and thinks regularly about killing himself. He split up with his girlfriend a while ago and has not recovered, the negative feelings are with him constantly and he can’t see a future.

He’s always bottled things up and it’s not easy getting him to talk. He obviously needs help to unravel his feelings and work things out. He’s off to university and we’re worried about things nosediving when he’s on his own for the first time.

Where do we go for help with counselling or whatever. It’s hard to sort things for an adult child but he’s just not in the right place to get the help he needs by himself.

Can you persuade him to ring MIND?

There is always 111 for advice. GPs are a bit hit and miss, but you need to start somewhere. What about Samaritans?

So sorry to hear about your dad struggling. For you it's not easy.

First instance is Gp to discuss mental health and go will refer to relevant teams if they feel necessary. But if ds is in imidiate danger, your best bet would be A&E to ask for your local crisis team

Hope that helps

Has he visited his GP? Perhaps the first step is anti depressants. I was very anti medication but they lifted me up enough that I could actually start to look at things in a rational way. You need to be engaged for counselling and therapy to work and that is very hard if you are in the depths of depression. Start with the GP and as the other poster says MIND is an excellent source of information.

Think you need to go to the GP, hopefully he will allow you to accompany him so you can advocate for him and support him.

Maybe encourage wider things that might help mental health, such as making sure he’s eating well, getting exercise as well.

I think your right to be concerned about him going off to uni. Is he going to be far from home. If he remains unwell could you look into deferral so he has a year more to get well before starting.

He might be able to self-refer to local mental health services (you could support him / do it for him if he agrees).
In the past, with my DC2, we had a very poor experience, but I recently self-referred and have been able to access help.
Suicidal ideation is a great big red flag, so hopefully they would follow it up quickly.
As PP have mentioned, you could also approach your GP, but I thought I'd let you know some areas allow you to do it yourself.

Self referral - google IAPT and the name of your local NHS trust

Another vote for trying IAPT

Thank you I think we can self refer for some things but I wasn’t sure if the suicidal thoughts would be acceptable for that kind of thing. I’ll look it up. He’s reluctant to do anything really and worries about stuff like this showing on his medical records but we definitely can’t ignore it. He says the thoughts are there all the time, sometimes he can be distracted for a while but then they’re back dragging him down.