Actual Suicide Prevention
Not sure if this was posted already, but I thought it’d be useful.
~Alex
(via
Due to personal experience, I would like to add to the DO list. You’re welcome to ask me about these if they do not make sense, of if you would like a story to accompany them.
1. Be a good friend to them. Don’t let them suffer alone.
2. Talk to them often or offer to do activities with them if you know that may take their mind off of things.
3. Give them reasons to trust you. It may not be the best idea to keep feelings of extreme anxiety, uselessness, and constant pain secret, but no one wants those personal things to spread to the entire school, community, or work place.
4. Pay attention to them. Nothing overwhelming: just show that you notice them, and that you care. Include them.
5. Do everything you can to try to understand or show an openness of thought. People who are unwilling to think, listen, and attempt to understand only worsen the situation.
6. Don’t actually say the line ‘things will get better’. Offer proof. Offer real life anecdotes (a outside view on someone else’s life always helped me to think, because my view of my own life can be very narrow minded. This is common). Tell them about great things that are in their future. Tell them about actual events to look forward to.
7. Personally, I would have liked 'offer ways to fix their problems’ to be on the DO list. I would have given anything to have people offer ways to help me with what I was struggling with. People telling me ways that I can solve things is much more challenging, because I don’t have the drive to do anything, or I’ve already tried and failed. On top of that, all of the things on the DO list are ways to offer help.
