What to say to someone that has suicidal thoughts

[*Living~By~Faith*]

How do you respond to someone that makes comments like they don't want to live, they want to go to sleep and never wake up and comments of that nature? He's just tired of suffering and he gets like this. I was in this situation yesterday, but I was at a lost for words on what to say to him.

This person was diagnosed with depression and is under a doctor's care and family keeps a close check on how he's doing. This person is a believer as well.

[petrospetra]

Hi,
What you've described about your friend are typical comments from somone suffering from depression, and it attacks Christians as well as non-Christians alike. It is an actual illness, but leaves the sufering with an overwhelming fear that it will never end. The suicidal thoughts are both a strong desire to flee the smothering, seemingly endless darkness, and also a cry for help.

I am glad to hear your friend is under a doctor's care. If the doctor recommend anti-depressants, they are a good step in dulling the pain from depression. Your friend should not feel bad if he takes these meds, they are a necessary. Has your friend told the doctor about the suicidal thoughts? If not, I thoroughly recommend he does so.

Your friend probably also needs to see a Christian therapist, or counsellor, to help deal with the underlying issues that brought him to this place. This is very important, but can be a hard step to take. Having been through depression myself (and recovered from it) I fought getting counselilng for three months, but the lady who counselling me did a great job in helping to find the faulty thought processes that were keeping me trapped in that place.

Glad to see his family supporting him. On that topic, I wrote an article which gives some tips on how to support someone suffering from depression, so feel free to read it if you like. One of the best ways to help is to just be there for the friend, without making any demands, without putting them under any pressure to 'pull themselves together' etc, and simply to listen to what they share.
http://cornerstonethefoundation.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-do-you-support-someone-suffering.html

While in depression the fear that we will never recover is very, very strong. But we can recover. Towards that end I can make a couple of further suggestions. Can you get a copy of "Self Help for Your Nerves" by Dr Claire Weekes (available from most libraries or Amazon.) This is the self help guide that had such a huge impact on my road to recovery after eight months of getting almost nowhere. The book hooked me in completely after just the first page or two. A lot of people have been helped by the book, even doctors. (The book also provides techniques that are very, very clearly contained in the Bible, although it does not mention that.) If you could give that book to your friend, that could be very helpful.

I've also written some blog entries that follow my recovery from depression, so these may help your friend as well. (But these are no substitute for getting professional help from a Christian therapist.)

Below explains how depression makes such a mess of our life.
http://cornerstonethefoundation.blogspot.com/2009/02/understanding-depression-to-cast-off.html

Below shows how to break the fear cycle that keeps depression going.
http://cornerstonethefoundation.blogspot.com/2009/02/breaking-fear-cycle.html

Hope this helps. I've been there, I despaired that the nightmare would never end, and I wanted to die too. But I have recovered, thanks to the power of Christ's grace.

From my diary, February 20th, 1990, while in the worst, blackest phase of depression.

Oh Lord, when will this end?
Day after day, I remain trapped
In this endless personal hell of pain and confusion.
I want to get out of myself!
To be someone else, anyone but me.
The me I know is gone, yet somehow I am still me.
I must escape from myself, but
I'm trapped in a suffocatingly small, dark room.
I know there is sunlight outside.
I run, push, and strive to reach that light,
But the room comes with me--I cannot get out!
Why? Because I am the room.
Jesus, for what reason have you allowed this?
Where are you? How long will you remain silent?
They say that others who have been down this route
Have left signposts along the way
To help those like me find the way out.
But where are these signposts?

[dan]

How do you respond to someone that makes comments like they don't want to live, they want to go to sleep and never wake up and comments of that nature? He's just tired of suffering and he gets like this. I was in this situation yesterday, but I was at a lost for words on what to say to him.

This person was diagnosed with depression and is under a doctor's care and family keeps a close check on how he's doing. This person is a believer as well.

...Had a landlord that had had 80-some mini-strokes. He was tired of the constant pain and torment and was going to end it all. He wanted to know what I thought about it.

I told him that I would miss him and didn't think it was his decision to make.

He toughed it out and was finally taken by his 92nd stroke.

[SethElijah]

Each person is different. I was this way for many years. If my parents or sister were supportive or sympathetic I figured they had to be that way, they are family. You have to really just spend time talking to them, see where that leads. Above all let them know you care, not by your words, but by actions. One thing that did help me, I wrote poetry about how I was feeling, and I drew pictures of how I was feeling. It helped me.

[DaniHansen]

I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all response to suicidal thoughts. I understand that there is a demonic attack underway and that people are being bashed and pushed into believing that this is the best way out of their current situation which they find insurmountable. I also think that everybody's threshold of despair is different, because some of us are just more resilient than others, for a variety of reasons.

For some, all it takes is just one person to stand by them and let them know that their life isn't a waste, and that somebody loves them. Not just in word, but in deed and truth. Not just to prevent them from killing themselves, but to actually give them reasons to continue on and let God decide when it's time to make that call. For some, suicide is a means of exercising control of a situation that they feel they have no control over. It's a bit of a sick way, of course, but if somebody is despairing enough then it actually begins to make sense to them. And if somebody is more afraid of life than they are of death, then it's not a huge reach in that direction.

I had a suicidal friend once, who had gotten a bit of a short end of the stick in life and she had been caught in a relationship with somebody who continually told her how useless and worthless she was. Well, after a while, if you hear it enough, and don't hear anything else, then you start believing that garbage.

Her deliverance came through friendship with me where God had me just be available to her, focus on her, and ultimately I gave her my shiny new Bible as a token for her to let her know that I loved her, that God loves her, and that she could take home with her and look at and touch and have physical proof of that love.

Sometimes it takes so very little to give a person hope. :)

I would encourage you to encourage your friend to surrender his life fully to God and to let God make that final call about where the end of his road really is. If he says he is a believer, then that shouldn't be a hard thing to do, I would think.

[Welder4Christ]

I agree with all of these responses.

When a person is depressed to the point of suicide, he is no longer thinking rationally. His depressive thoughts have clouded his judgment, and in his estimation, there is no other way out. There is no "light at the end of the tunnel" -- the tunnel just seems to get longer.

Reasoning with a person in this condition does little good. The best thing you can do is show him as much love and encouragement as you can. Pray with and for him. Let him know that he is valued and loved, and that his life actually does have meaning.

Love, love, love, and more love ---that is key!!!!!

[ohmylove]

I can't tell you how many people have gone so far as to thinking about it. It is fairly typical with depression, if you feel that they are getting so close to that I would try to help them in some way immediately but usually people do it get attention or get back at someone, not everyone, some people. Just keep expressing how much you love that person and try to keep that person occupied knowing that they truly have someone that cares for them.