Would you attempt to talk someone out of committing suicide?

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If someone told me they wanted to kill themself I would listen to their reasons before deciding whether to try to convince them not to.

If somebody wanted to die, they'd probably convince me long before I could convince them.

I wonder if they do it to manipulate. They might say they are going to kill themselves just to get their way. So to say "good luck" is going to make them mad because they didn't get what they wanted. But I would be careful with that. What if the person was serious and you told them that and they actually did it, you would be responsible. Maybe not since you are not responsible for their actions but you encouraged it. I dunno if you get in trouble with the law for that. That's why I'm done giving out advice or sarcasm when someone asks what is the best way to commit suicide. After reading an article about someone who committed suicide because people on a website encouraged it, it made me sick.

i think that would be awkward for me to try to talk someone out of it, not too good at expressing my feelings and that i care about them you know?

A lot depends on the mind-state of the would-be suicide-committer.

The only reason I'd get involved would be if the person were deeply depressed.
If they were doing it in anger, to get back at someone or were disturbed/agitated, I'd want no part in it - mainly because people in such states of mind aren't amenable to reason.

But the deep depressee I'd regard as a challenge.
Stimulating the intellect is always a good place to start.
A lot of the time, people's eyes only need opening - to give them a sense that they're not in a place of complete darkness.

If they get a sense that you give a sh*t and attach some worth/respect to their humanity, they'd respond.

Usually if someone talks about suicide they haven’t completely made up their mind. If they were completely determined to go through with it they would probably keep it private so nobody would try to intervene. They are crying out for help in a last ditch effort.

I’m not sure what I would say, I just know what I wouldn’t say. I wouldn’t tell them that suicide is selfish or that it’s ridiculous that they would consider such an act. When I felt suicidal some people had this attitude with me and it made me feel as if they had nothing to offer. Or I concluded that people in general just don’t get it and I must be completely alone in my misery. Suicide isn’t selfish any more than jumping out of a smoke filled building to avoid the feeling of suffocation is selfish. The pain caused by an imbalance in the brain is just as real as the pain caused by a physical disease. I think it’s presumptuous to always assume that a suicidal person is irrational just because you can’t imagine yourself feeling that way in their circumstances.

I think I would rather talk about the root causes that make things so intolerable that the person feels as though suicide is the only option. Giving the person empty platitudes or telling them that suicide is wrong is so unhelpful IMO.

No.

If I loved someone, I'd ask them if that is what they truly wanted; I'd respect their decision. It's not my place to plead, beg, or talk someone out of something; they're their own person.

I would want to try to talk someone out of commiting suicide, though I don't know if I would feel confident enough to do so.

The other day my sister was hear laying on my couch complaining.
She said "I need a gun" and I replied "You need license unless you buy one off so and so" and she repiled "That's horrible" and I'm like "what.' Anyway she left really pissed off and slammed the door. Talk about super sensitive.
I didn't know she wanted a gun to kill herself. I thought she was talking about getting one to kill some one else.

Silly cow.

Don't call my sister a silly cow! She is nothing like a cow. She is a really beautiful woman.
I am just not switched onto other peoples problems at the moment because I have enough of my own!

bull****. if not, back up your argument with sources.



if you or anyone did that to me I'd kill myself just to spite them

I agree that this claim needs to be backed up. To say suicide is always irrational is to belittle the person’s feelings.

I said in my previous post…
"The pain caused by an imbalance in the brain is just as real as the pain caused by a physical disease. I think it’s presumptuous to always assume that a suicidal person is irrational just because you can’t imagine yourself feeling that way in their circumstances."

neither, NEVER

without ever wanting to talk someone out of an attempt -
i would try to reason with them in the sense of checking whether they had considered all options (this might also be the time to 'measure' the amount of attention seeking - so i would want to reassure myself someone's being earnest and sincere in their desire)

but, once 'happy' by the tone of the conversation - be my guest

i just never found (didn't really look to find) the courage to seriously consider suicide, i think i am actually mortally afraid of the dying

i just contemplated, never seriously then, also because i know myself:
i do not train, i do not 'attempt' - i do

and having publicly stated i want (not to die then) but to be dead -
i might just run the risk of feeling obliged to put my money where my mouth is

still, my best poem is about this (from some twenty-eight years ago, at age 25, before i entered what should have become my natural home at uni, read if you will in my blog) - and it wrote itself with very little conscious intervention, which can only mean it represents a very deep if not the deepest emotional level in me:

an everpresent shade of desire not be,
no more, nevermore

but for one possible moral prohibition:
i feel one gives up the right to suicide by becoming a parent;
only for as long as one's children can be reasonably expected to depend on them, and life may NEVER be a absoltue moral imperative

i believe suicide is a valid option,
in fact, it can be argued that suicide is the only valid option

Finally, to quote from the Dutch writer who introduced me to literature around age twelve:

Do not bemourn whomever has been freed from the insanity of life.

You can't nessacarily talk some one out of suicide. Just the same as you can't stop some one killing themselves. You can only listen to them and be their friend. Sometimes not even that because when my sister was complaining to me. I tried as best as I could to listen but I really couldn't focus on what she was saying at the time. She knew and sensed that. If she had of committed suicide as a result or because "I couldn't talk her out of it" I would not feel any responsability for that.

I think suicide is a reset button on things you didnt do today the right way. So i feel if you kill yourself you have to talk to "god" about why you did this and go through a few yrs our time to reflect on things then come back typically with a little help on the reason you killed yourself the 1st time..

Although I would tell them to do what they think is best for themselves I would also tell them to make sure its the best thing to do, because once you start it typically you cant cancel it once it begins and that all thoughts, emotions and things like that need to be worth restarting..

I have tried to kill myself 3 times, 2nd time I should have been dead but I wasn't, Yes I think about death everyday but that is one of my obsessive interests so... I researched alot of death and what it intells..

But in the end it will be that person decision regardless of what anyone says..

Stats wise:
120,000 people attempt suicide a yr, Of those 40,000 actually kill themselves, Most die from gunfire. 40% of these are supposedly people who have AS.

Go figure we are screwed either way.