I'm writing this because this morning I just got a news that someone I'm rather close with just committed suicide. He's at the healthy age of 30 with a decent career and was seen as an anchor of people around him as he's always cheerful, calm in any situation and looked up upon by many. His is the 3rd suicide case which I have known and unfortunately the theme repeats again; It could've been prevented easily.

The crux of the matter is he has some issues pertaining to his relationship with his family, and being the eldest son he was in the constant pressure of trying to keep his parents satisfied and at the same time do not want to appear as an un-filial son. This is not helped that one of his parents is recently diagnosed with cancer and has been pushing some unreasonable demands under the pretext that they do not have much time to live and thus he should fulfill as many of the parents wish. Such irony I would say. We could've say he was selfish for taking the easy way out and being irresponsible but perhaps this is what he wished for. He's dead anyway and none of the complaints will ever reach him (so I think, I'm not really religious)

Even the strongest person needs someone he needs to be weak around. He was begging for help but he's unable to seek it. Whenever he jokingly says I need help people will often wonder "strong person like you always helping others? Impossible!". This labeling further drags down his ability to seek help.

"Don't think about suicide! It's not a good thing! It's a very selfish thing to do!". I will say this is one of the worse advice you can give if you see a potential suicide tendencies. Don't you think these thoughts already cross their mind before they made their decision? These kind of 'advice' further affirms the suicidal that he's beyond help, as people can only offer advice which he has already explored.

Suicidal tendencies is never an overnight thing. It starts small and slowly grows when not managed properly. The key to this is trust. Jokes about suicidal tendencies should always be taken seriously and by that I don't mean by useless sentence like "don't la...it's not good". Find out the cause and address the cause, build trust and let them know it's okay to be weak and be in the wrong once a while.

A suicidal person is just as weak as everyone else. Help them and don't stigmatize them.

This post has been edited by Kaerna: Jun 7 2017, 08:19 AM

Going to reply you even if it's 6 months later because they moved this topic into a new forum and there's been people PMing me about what were the signs and what I would've done differently now.

Yes in retrospect I would really love to knock some sense into him. However one must understand that people with suicidal intent is desperately seeking help but at the same time doesn't want the help given to be a burden to the helper. Therefore the suicidal intent people will try to drop hints about the troubles but at the same time try to word it in such a way that it might not be obvious. If you ask me honestly I missed all the obvious hints but rather than sulking about the past I decided to share this experience in hope more can participate in culling suicidal thoughts among the people close to them.

Inconvenient and potential suicide victim making it plain hard? Definitely. However this brings back to the original point of the thread and to view people with suicidal tendencies not as people who are mentally weak, but as people who do not have the privilege of receiving the same amount of support as most of us have.

It's human to be weak. Nobody walks alone.

This post has been edited by Kaerna: Jan 18 2018, 12:31 AM