Unfortunately, I now know first hand that an IP address alone isn’t much help in tracking down someone who’s suicidal. Do you feel safe enough with this person and do you have enough in common to e-mail him your telephone number? I’d also suggest hooking up this person with on-line support groups and serious counseling. Counseling does work. I suspect I owe my life to it.
E-mail me if you need to gum. Good luck, and thank you for trying to help.
CJ
Isn’t it true that MOST people who announce their suicides never act them out? We can only hope this is the case.
I tend to agree with CCWaterback that most people who announce their suicides never act out on them. Nevertheless, it is an obvious cry for help.
I don’t know anyone who really wants to die but many who just can’t seem to find a reason to want to live anymore.
Everyone has to find their own reason to go on…
First of all: Thank you for all your help. You guys are great.
Update: I’ve send him a mail in which I told him I didn’t condemn him and that he sounded like a good person. I mailed him the URLs you gave me and some websites who dealt with his kind of problem. In short, I let him know someone cared.
He wrote back and said he missed his ‘deadline’ because of my mail. Said I was the first person not utterly disgusted with him.
I’m waiting for more news.
It’s entirely possible it’s a hoax and someone is laughing his ass off over my answers, but I’ll chance that.
And, No, I don’t agree with CCWaterback and **psifireus
** that people don’t commit suicide after they’ve announced it.
In my experience it happens all too often that they do, indeed, go on with it.
Thank you again.
Good work, gum. I was pulling for you last night (here) but didn’t have anything specific or concrete to provide so I kept quiet. I’m glad you got such quick and accurate help from other Dopers. Great bunch of folks here.
Man, good work gum I was sweating just reading that. Good thing I didn’t open this when it was new… 
Hope it goes well from here. Sometimes a person just needs someone out there, you know?
Oh, and kudos to the SDMB Emergency Team. I love this place.
I watched this thread develop last night and was rooting for you, gum.
Regardless of whether the individual made you a fool or it was legitimate is irrelevant. The fact remains you did what very few people do these days – put yourself out for a total stranger and expected nothing in return. Hell, very few help people they know.
You done good.
Well done, gum.
Absolutely not true. I had a friend who is rotting in the ground as we speak who told the cops that arrested her that she would kill her self as soon as they put her in a cell. She was dead within the hour.
It happens all the time in fact, you always take a threat of suicide very seriously.
I tried to emphasize the word MOST in my comment, certainly there are people that follow through on their threat. I surely didn’t try to belittle the situation. My condolences to everyone who has lost a friend or relative this way, including myself.
Big pats on the back to gum. May the good Karma you generate with your selfless desire to help a wounded soul return to you tenfold.
This happened to someone I know.
The person had OD’d on something (not in a suicide attempt but they did OD on purpose, long story) and told a friend online about it. The friend called the cops in the city they lived in, who in turn called the cops in the city the person who’d OD’d lives. About 15 minutes later the cops were at their door.
They went to the hospital and had their stomach pumped and voluntarily checked into the psych ward (which was a waste of time for them, but still).
If your friend ever does this again, call the cops in the city he lives in. Also please urge your friend next time you talk to seek medical help. Chances are he’s depressed and there’s no reason to stay that way, there’s lots of help available.
(FWIW, just did a thing on suicide at school, most people who go through with it tell someone first.)
You’re a good person, gum.
Thanks for all the kudos. I really don’t deserve them, you know. Thing is: I don’t know whether I was right to stop him. But that’s my problem, huh.
And again: I don’t know the man. Don’t know where he lives, could be anywhere. All I have is an e-mail address.
Update: I got one -short - e-mail from him, saying he felt awful, looking at the things he had put ready to finish it off. And thanking me for the sites I’d sent.
All kind of luke-warm and nothing after that.
Once again: Thank you for your support. You’re a great bunch.
You have done a great thing, Gum, and no matter how this situation resolves, you have certainly done your part to help this poor soul. It can be so hard to be “the only one who knows,” and you did right to ask for help.
and thank you CadburyAngel
Like I said, I’m not sure if I did the right thing to stop him. I’m pretty confused. haven’t had an e-mail after yesterday
You are ALWAYS right to stop someone from committing suicide!
Yay for gum! I’m glad I could be of help. I hope your help was enough to help turn this person around and start him down a better road.
That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Stop belittling gum’s attempt to reconcile the value of life versus the cost of suffering. It’s an honest struggle you can’t dismiss with pithy one-liners.
Be careful you don’t become this person’s only reason to live. You may find it difficult to divorce yourself from feelings of guilt should s/he decide to go through with it.
Suicidal people often feel that help is double-edged at best, facing a real possibility of being involuntarily committed and given medication against their will. Without insurance, the level of this care can drop dramatically.
One tact you might consider is to inquire as to the method, then explain the ways in which it could go wrong. Every method of suicide has the possibility of failure. Often, living with the consequences of a failed attempt are too horrible to fathom…massive brain damage, renal failure, and severe disfigurement are real possibilities.
Gun: coma / horrible disfigurement
Pills: renal failure
CO[sub]2[/sub]: brain damage
Car: mangled body / might kill someone else
Hanging: brain damage (and suffocation is highly unpleasant)
Hypothermia: exceedlingly painful; more-so if survived
Cutting: unlikely to work…obvious scarring for decades
Suicide isn’t about escaping life. It is about escaping suffering. If a failed attempt leads to more suffering, attempting in the first place becomes less attractive.
Another tact is to discuss the aftermath. Who will find the body? What effect will that discovery have on the discoverer? Are there any children to be taken care of? If so, who will win custody? The state?
If a person is truly suffering, it becomes a moral issue that is unfortunately left up to the whim of the state, which varies from country to country.
Gum, I applaud you on your efforts to help this person. And I hold you in the highest regard for your ability to see in shades of gray. Let me know if you need the downside side of a method I didn’t mention. Trust me, there is always a downside.
Black and white moral positions do nothing to help a suicidal person…they only increase the sense of isolation.
Crap, Co[sub]2[/sub] should just read CO, although it is still true for CO[sub]2[/sub], better known as asphyxiation. All methods of gas have the potential for brain damage.
What???
:dubious: