I can understand…I thought I read that she DID threaten suicide…?
I used to be pretty needy like this, and one of my major life goals right now is to complete the excision of this part of myself. I suppose the desire to whine never completely goes away, but I’m just trying to spread less unhappiness to other people and realize that, if I’m feeling mopey, I’m probably just overwhelmed with some idealistic thought instead of considering the beauty of the world in front of me. I’m twenty-one now, and I hope that I can reach greater maturity in the next few years so that I can live a full life where I don’t annoy people like the person described in the OP. Life is long, but there’s still no need to waste precious time like this.
Edit: Yeah I’m being sentimental, but it is Christmas Eve!
[Mod Note]Reel it in a bit-this isn’t The BBQ Pit[/Mod Nodte]
done.sorry.
From the stuff Kyla posted, it sounds like she’s definitely talking about suicide. If it was me, I’d probably call the police and let them handle it. I’d say something like, “I have a friend who lives in your city and she’s posting online about killing yourself, but I live way over here and can’t get there. Can you check on her, please.” Police do that sort of stuff regularly. They’ll know how to handle it.
She’ll either get the help she needs or she’ll get the message that this is not acceptable behavior by grown-ups.
Then I’d probably wash my hands of the whole situation.
Okay, first, while I know what general area my friend lives in, I don’t know the exact town. So calling the police is impractical. Plus, the suicide stuff didn’t seem…all that immediate. She was saying things like “I’ll probably end up killing myself, I can’t see any other way this will end.”
BTW, someone else in our circle of friends did rather kindly say that she should look into therapy and that dwelling constantly on what a terrible person is not going to help. No response that I could see. Other than this sort of thing, hours later:
It could go either way, really.
Maybe she’s just be a drama llama- lots of people that do this are. I had a friend who would regularly post these sweeping, dramatic, vaguely and sometimes less than vaguely discussing suicide, etc. One day, his ex girlfriend called me, hysterical because he had once again posted some bullshit status somewhere about how he was just going to do himself in, woe is me, the world is so horrible-- naturally, this was all after a fight with ex girlfriend. Ex gf had no way of getting to him and was freaked the fuck out. I told ex gf, "Look, if you are GENUINELY CONCERNED for his safety, call the police."So, she did.
And they found drama llama at home, sitting with his buddies, drinking beer and laughing while watching foot ball- fine as can be. It had all been a bluff, you see, to get ex girlfriend’s attention. Weirdly, drama llama immediately stopped posting shit like that online after getting a talking to by the popo.
Of course, there is always a chance she’s serious. In which case, I’m sure others here can offer better advice about how to handle the situation.
Facebook has a system for dealing with suicide threats. They want you to call local law enforcement and then use this form to alert them to the problem:
If you called law enforcement in the nearest big city, they might be able to figure out her info from Facebook & take it from there. Facebook might call the police themselves, after you use that form.
It’s probably nothing but better safe than sorry.
This does have all the signs of “look it how badly I’m suffering and FEEL SORRY FOR ME DAMMIT”. In the circles I run around, it’s called “flouncing” and generally answered with “cool story bro”.
But then, different strokes for different folks. Some people prefer to be private in talking about their problems. Some people just want generic “aww, poor baby” sympathy and then they can go about their day. Some people suffer in silence. Some people want to make a scene.
I echo the list of things you can do:
- Privately, ask: “Do you want to talk about it?” If yes, offer a sympathetic ear. No advice unless she asks for it, and even then there are probably things that are better handled by a professional.
- Give her a generic (but non-public) “have you in my thoughts/prayers”. Send pictures of cute things. If you think she’s genuinely suicidal, alert the proper people of course, but also check in on her from time to time via one-to-one chat.
- If she continues flouncing without resolving the issue, it’s probably time to set her on ignore at least in the blogosphere.
- It might be time to walk away from this whole mess entirely. Not having her around for the online community kind of sucks, but if the tradeoff is your mental wellbeing, it’s not worth it. Run the place without her. Recruit temporary helpers. If she raises a fit about that if/when she comes back, point to her non-communicativeness. Or go on your own hiatus and let the chips fall where they may.