So to clarify. I am a (19) Female who goes with 2 other female friends on the bus to college. This is not a school bus but public transportation.
We met This guy ( looks 17) a year ago and it wasn’t until this semester that he started saying hello to us by name. We thought it was a bit freaky but he was pretty cute so we kind of took it as a compliment. He told us that one of our friends told him our names.
Everything was fine until he revealed today that he was going to commit suicide next week. His eyes look and skin looked as yellow as pee. He said he overdosed on loads of painkillers and was basically telling me Goodbye.
What should i do? Can I do anything? I know the school the he goes to because he gets off at the bus stop and the bus says it but I don’t know his name.
Sounds like he has jaundice, he might have already signed his own death warrant if he is going into liver failure from a Tylenol overdose and doesn’t seek treatment. It seems almost like it could be a cry for help based on the fact that he told you, he plans to kill himself, who knows. I don’t know what I would try to do other than trying to talk to the guy if I saw him again. Possibly you could contact the school but I don’t know if you even know the guy’s full name or anything. Weird stuff!
If he’s jaundiced that much, telling the school should be okay even without knowing his name. That’s a pretty identifying trait: how many other currently yellow-skinned upperclassmen can that high school possibly have?
…since the Simpson kids are still in elementary school.
Have you talked to this friend to see if you can determine who the guy is?
Sounds like cry-for-help behavior to me, but that by no means should trivialize it. Suicide “attempts” meant as a cry for help can often inadvertently end up as successful suicides.
It sounds like he is a student at the same school you attend? Can you tell a student guidance counselor or other school person about your concerns? They must have guideliness about when they would intervene - or have further suggestions about what a good samaritan might do.
Good for you for trying to think this through. Best of luck.
Failing all else, call 911 when you both are on the bus, and have some police or EMTs take him off the bus. Hopefully they won’t shoot him in the process.
Notify someone at that school that he goes to. If he’s on the bus again this week, ask him some more info. about himself. Ask him if he needs someone to talk to.
Personally, I’d post this query on an anonymous message board seeking guidance from strangers that have no ability to actually help -because, well, we know just how well that works.
Sounds like he is ambivalent about whether or not he wants to go through with ending his life and is reaching out for help. As others have said, contact the school as soon as possible. Based on his physical description, they should be able to figure out who he is and get him connected with the help that he needs.
Is there any way you can try and look up his identity through social media? As you know the school, (and potentially have a friend in common) it might be relatively simple to look through Facebook profiles based on that information and see if one looks like a match.
You can also contact the police, explain the situation, and ask if they can do what’s called a ‘wellness check’ (e.g., locate the person and get him a psychological evaluation to determine whether or not he is in imminent risk of taking his life and, if needed, get him hospitalized). Without a name, that will likely be challenging for them to follow up on, but you can provide them with everything you do know which will give them a shot at locating him.
If none of the above work and you see him on the bus again, you can call the police and stay with him until they arrive. Just say, “I’m at X location and a person on the bus with me has informed me that he plans on killing himself. Can you send an officer?” and they’ll take it from there. I would probably do this even if he doesn’t repeat the suicidal comments he made today and tries to brush it off.
Thanks for your help. I’ll probably meet him tomorrow on the bus so I’ll ask him his name and meantime I’ll call the school because some people from the same school go with my bus so their bound to know who he is.
He told you his plans, which makes me think he wants someone to stop him. When my best friend’s son killed himself last month. He didn’t tell anyone ahead of time. He didn’t talk about it or allude to it or anything. Even his communications with his friends the evening he did it could only be considered “goodbyes” in hindsight.
Yeah, someone that really wants to kill themselves without anyone intervening, they don’t tell random people on the bus. That was a cry for help.
Let someone (an authority figure) know. YOU don’t have to personally get involved, and you should not, since I assume you are trained to handle people in this state of mind. But there are people who are trained, and they need to put on the case.
Sounds like a test run/ self harming. He’s already tried over-dosing on tablets, but non-fatally. Or at least not immediately fatal - that sounds like possible liver damage. And he’s saying he plans to take more pills next week, but a fatal dose this time.
If you are going to call somebody please do it now and don’t wait until tomorrow. If he overdosed on painkillers and he is already yellow he may very likely have taken something with acetaminophen (Tylenol) and may already be in liver failure and you don’t have time to wait. The longer you wait the more likely the damage will be irreparable.
Call a suicide prevention hotline and ask for help. They’re not just for people who are thinking of killing themselves-- they’re also for people like yourself who know someone who’s planning to commit suicide and don’t know what to do. The operators are trained to know what to do in these situations-- rely on their advice. Alternately, if your school has a counseling center, try to get an appointment, especially if they do walk-in appointments. Tell them why, and that it’s an emergency, because it is one. But I’d try the suicide hotline first because it’ll be the fasted way to talk to someone.