How Do I Talk to a Suicidal Friend?

The recent murder of former Tennessee Titans Quarterback Steve McNair and the subsequent suicide by his mistress Sahel Kazemi has brought renewed focus on the issue of suicide. According to national statistics gathered from suicide.org, 30,622 people commit suicide in the United States and another 400,000 are treated in hospital for self-inflicted injuries.

Like the majority of suicidal people, the Police say Sahel Kazemi showed plenty of warning signs that she was considering suicide in the days leading up to her death. She talked with friends at work about her financial problems, she seemed distant and depressed, and she stated that her life was "spiraling out of control." Unfortunately, no one picked up on these signs enough to do anything about it and two people lost their lives.

If you know someone who is severely depressed and possibly suicidal, you may be wondering how you can help. Often people stand by and worry about their friends, wondering what to do, until it's too late. While I am in no way a medical or psychiatric expert in this field, I am someone who has struggled with sometimes severe depression since my teenage years. I am also someone who, I am ashamed to admit, has come very close to becoming one of the 30,000 suicide statistics in the past. This is, from the perspective of someone who has been there, a guide to what to say, and also what not to say, to a friend who you feel might be contemplating suicide.

Things You Should Never Say to a Suicidal Person:

You have so much to live for: This is the most common thing a depressed person hears. Nearly every well-meaning person who fears you are contemplating suicide will say almost these exact words. While they aren't the worst thing you can say to a suicidal person, they are still pretty bad. You can be assured that, by the time someone is considering suicide, he has already spent a lot of time thinking about his life and has come to the conclusion that he doesn't have anything to live for. You telling him he does isn't going to change his mind. What it will do is convince him that you are clueless to his problems and cause him to cut you off, only serving to increase his feeling of alienation from the people who care most for him.

Think about how sad your family will be: Again, this is a surefire way to alienate yourself from a person who needs all of the friends he can get. He already has thought about his family, especially if he's married with children, and has convinced himself that he's dragging their life down with his depression, financial turmoil, or bad decisions. Reminding him that his family will miss him will only deepen his depression and send him further down the road that you are trying to keep him from.

If you killed yourself, I'd be really mad at you: I actually had a friend tell me this once. Needless to say, it didn't get the reaction she wanted. First, it's not about you. Suicide is not something a person does flippantly. It's taking away everything he is and everything he ever will be. He knows that. You being pissed off about it isn't likely to factor into his decision making all that much. Second, depending on the nature of the depression, it could make things worse. In my case, I have always suffered from extreme anxiety around confrontations. When my friend told me she'd be really mad at me, that just upped my anxiety level beyond its already elevated state. It reminded me of my "failure" in life, my inability to handle confrontation without going into a panic attack and made me all the more convinced that I didn't deserve to live anymore.

You need to see a doctor and get medicine: I almost didn't put this one here because, in general, getting help is the best way to pull back from the ledge. But it's something that has to be eased into. You can't just come out and say it. I, like many men, saw psychotropic medication as a sign that I was a failure, that I couldn't even handle something as paltry as my emotions. We grow up understanding that physical pain should be treated by a doctor, but mental pain still carries something of a stigma of "crazy person" or "nutcase." There is a time and place to discuss therapy and medicine with a depressed friend. During a suicidal episode is not the time.

You're taking the coward's way out: I will never understand why someone would say this to a suicidal person, but it's been said to me more than once. Maybe the friend thinks a "tough love" approach is the way to go. It isn't. Saying this to a suicidal person is the same as buying them a gun. By the time a person is seriously contemplating suicide, he's already convinced himself that he's a coward, a failure, and a person who deserves to die. Saying he's a coward just reinforces this concept.

What You Should Do for a Suicidal Person:

Shut up and listen: It's that simple. Just shut up and listen to him. If you know that he's considering suicide, it's because he's desperately crying out for someone to help him find his way back. If he were already convinced of his course, you'd never know it until you got the phone call. What a suicidal person wants more than anything is for someone to hear him out. He wants to know that someone still cares enough about him to spend a few hours listening to his problems and gently, very gently, help him work through them so he sees they aren't insurmountable. During his time you should be doing a lot more listening than talking. Even if his problems seem trivial to you, they should be treated as life or death situations because they are. I had a lot of friends who thought my anxiety around seemingly minor confrontation was nothing to get upset about. What saved me was the one friend who knew it was because I was upset. You would not believe how much phrases like "I understand" and "that can be tough" mean to a suicidal person. It helps him understand he's not alone in the world and it's very hard to kill yourself if you don't feel alone. Using this time to build that trust and that common bond will help in the future as well. You may be able to talk about therapy or medication later on based on the trust built during this first listening session. But more importantly, you may pull him back from the edge just enough that he can gain a little bit of perspective. Often that's all it takes.