Teenagers who think of suicide often tell only their friends, and they make the friends promise to keep their suicidal thoughts secret. This puts the friends in a bind. Should they break their promise and tell an adult?
Telling an adult about a suicidal friend poses problems. Doing so might end the friendship. The suicidal teen may end up getting in trouble with their parents (sadly). They might end up in a psychiatric hospital (unlikely). And the friend might be so angry that they never speak again to the person who informed an adult.
These are legitimate worries. But if you’re a teen and a friend is thinking of suicide, I hope you’ll consider this:
Would you rather that your friend be mad at you and alive, or in danger of dying by suicide? Worse, what if your friend dies and you did not do everything you could to help?
Living with Regret
In the suicide prevention field, we have a saying:
Better a mad friend than a dead friend.
This is blunt, but true. Years ago, I talked with a 17-year-old whose best friend had died by suicide. Her friend had confided in her that she was thinking of dying by suicide, and swore her to secrecy. The young woman I spoke with kept her promise.
When she learned of her friend’s suicide, she felt awful in more ways than one. Not only did she miss her friend greatly and grieve her loss. She also blamed herself for not getting help for her friend. Now, it’s possible her friend would have died anyway, even if the woman I spoke with had told an adult. But the “what if’s” are a terrible weight to bear.
Telling an Adult about a Suicidal Friend
For these reasons, if you are a teen or even younger and a friend asks you to keep their suicidal thoughts secret, I hope you’ll tell an adult. You might tell your parents, your friend’s parents, a teacher, a coach, a minister, or some other adult about your friend’s state of mind.
You may have many reasons for not wanting to tell an adult, or for being afraid to. In the post 10 Reasons Teens Avoid Telling Parents about Suicidal Thoughts, I list some of the reasons teens find it hard to talk about suicide. Maybe you can even show that list to your parents or whatever adult you tell, in the hopes that it will help them to react more sensitively.
Things to Think About if a Friend Tells You They’re Suicidal
Perhaps your friend will be mad at you if you tell an adult. If so, perhaps they will forgive you when they feel better. And perhaps they won’t be mad at all. Some teens are relieved when an adult enters the picture and gets them the help they need.
You may think it’s safe to keep your friend’s secret, because you find it unlikely that your friend will really die by suicide. Chances are you’re correct. In the year 2000, for example, an estimated 3 million people 12-17 years old seriously considered suicide or made an attempt that did not kill them, according to the NHSDA Report. Of those 3 million, just over 1,000 died by suicide that year.
So maybe your friend will not act on their suicidal thoughts, and you may think afterward that there was no need to let an adult know. But they also might be in the small group of teens who do die by suicide.
Do you really want to take the chance that you’re wrong?
©Copyright 2013 Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW, All Rights Reserved. Written for www.speakingofsuicide.com. Photos purchased from Fotolia.com
what if they’re mad because the “help” they received was actually terrible like if they were abused at a mental hospital or were victims of police bruatlity and they don’t want to relive it again?
A classmate who I knew pretty well started talking to me about his suicidal thoughts and depression. He told me that he had gone to a psychiatric hospital and that he self harms. I did my best to help and I promised that I would not tell anyone. We became pretty good friends and I eventually opened up to him about my own experience with anxiety. He began to get a lot better and stopped harming himself. We started to develop feelings for each other and we have been dating for about a month. I was hesitant to date him because I wasn’t sure if he wasn’t in the right state of mind to have a relationship but he seemed to have gotten a lot better. Recently has has been acting like the way he was when we first met. He says its becoming harder and harder not to harm himself. I am really worried about him. He still goes to therapy every week but he has told me in the past that he has lied to his therapist about how he is doing. I don’t know if I need to tell someone about this or not. I am totally lost
my friend about 3 days ago said she wanted to kill herself, and i didn’t think much of it until i panicked and did an anonymous report to my councilor, later she texted me “thanks for making life 100% worse. i was actually having a good day for once and now i’m in the counseling office with my mom and in deep shit”
today my friend called me and was bleeding from her wrist. I called police on her. She yelled at me and called me fucked up, telling me it was a joke and she wasn’t actually going to cut deep. Calling me stupid and now she’s in deep shit cauz of me. I feel insanely guilty, but I don’t regret it. Truly, rather mad than dead.
if your friend really did lie about cutting their wrist, then, they were absolutely wrong to do that. (i’m only saying this because i don’t know the full story and they could have claimed they were joking just to get out of trouble.) whatever the case, it seems you assumed your friend self-harmed for real. so you called the cops and apparently she’s in “deep shit” but you still don’t regret it. I’m just gonna say it: what you did was completely fucked up. your actions have put your friend in even more drama than they were already experiencing and you think it’s fine so long as they’re alive. you say you’re feeling guilty but not only do you deserve to feel that way, you should learn something from it. they say guilt is a wasted emotion. fuck that. guilt when you’re innocent is indeed meaningless but when you did something genuinely horrible, it is anything but wasteful. it’s what keeps you from becoming a true psychopath. i sincerely hope your friend is doing better, even though i don’t blame them if they’re permanently traumatized from this. they most certainly do not owe you forgiveness and should dump you because you have just proven yourself to be not only a horrible friend, but also a trouble-making, untrustworthy person whose guilt is the only thing keeping them from being an complete psychopath even though your remorse is clearly too weak to teach you to do better. i know this comment might get deleted or edited for harsh words but i don’t care. horrible people deserve to be called out for what they do and if anything, it’s comments like squidney’s that should be removed for gloryfying this inexcusable mess.
John,
Your words are indeed harsh, as you note, but I’m publishing this comment as-is because I know others might agree with you. And I think it provides a good opportunity for me to reinforce the message that this blog post intended to convey: Better mad than dead.
Often, when someone loses someone they care about to suicide, they experience feelings of regret and guilt. They wonder what they could’ve done differently. What signs they missed. Whether they could’ve prevented the suicide. Could you imagine the guilt Squidney would’ve felt if he’d done nothing about his friend cutting her wrist, and she’d kept cutting that day, cut herself too deeply, and died?
This is what I mean by “better mad than dead.” The friend is alive. Mad, yes, but that can change. Her death would’ve been irrevocable. Had Squidney done nothing to intervene, he would’ve had to live with that guilt and self-doubt the rest of his life.
Believe me, the people I’ve talked with who felt they missed a chance to intervene wish desperately that their loved one was alive and angry instead.
stacey freedenthal, i know what i say might go against everything this site believes in. after all, this website is about suicide prevention. however, i am seriously going to have to disagree with this “better mad than dead” mantra. phrase it however you want but the message is clear: you don’t care if someone is suffering as long as they’re alive. it shows that quality of life is less important to you than the very act of existing and i am going to have to strongly disagree and add that it’s a barbaric way of thinking. why not at least improve suicide prevention methods? the ones our society currently has are shit. no one is even bothering to change that. why does the police of all services have to be involved in self-harm and suicide attempts? they should be dealing with crime and that is not what those acts are, nor should they be treated as such. and don’t get me started on how corrupt our police force is. i mean, judging from squidney’s story it sounds like they were pretty harsh to the friend. mental hospitals are also fraught with human rights abuses. honsetly, this “better mad than dead” reminds me of those stupid “pro-lifers” who want to ban abortion yet block bills that would help children once they are born. it’s also how those same “pro-lifers” want to ban euthanasia even for patients in permenent, extreme physical pain. it’s all about keeping someone alive for selfish purposes rather than improving the lives themselves. mental anguish should not be treated differently. if you truly love your friends you will let them do what’s right, even if it personally makes you uncomfortable.
Mark,
I obviously disagree – hence, my post – but thanks for sharing your view. Your way of looking at things is rather all or nothing, as if the only option is suicide or suffering. I know many people believe that. I did too, years ago. But the reality is that there are many other options, too, besides suicide and suffering. Options like healing pain, or coping differently with pain, or finding meaning in life in spite of pain — among many others.
You wrote: “If you truly love your friends you will let them do what’s right, even if it personally makes you uncomfortable.” Try as you might, you will never convince me that for a teenager to truly love a friend, they let a teenage friend die by suicide without trying to intervene. You might protest that you’re not talking about teens. But I’m always holding in mind that whatever message we convey for all applies to young people, too. They hear us. They read our words.
I think that’s a major difference between your approach and mine. You’re focused on people who are miserable and seemingly will never feel better. I’m focused on them, too, but I’m also focused on many other kinds of people, too. The people with suicidal thoughts who don’t want them. The people with suicidal thoughts who don’t want to act on them. The people with suicidal thoughts who are ambivalent. The people with suicidal thoughts who can feel better with therapy or medication or other changes to their life. And, yes, the people with suicidal thoughts who are miserable and seemingly will never feel better — and might well be wrong. I’ve met many, many of those people.
Also, so you know, I’m communicating this here because you don’t leave an email where I could email you this message privately: I noticed you left a comment saying one of your comments hadn’t been posted. Please review the site’s Comments Policy to see the various reasons why a comment may not be approved. If you have any questions, feel free to submit a comment here with a request that it not be published and a way for me to respond to you privately. You can always create a new, free email account somewhere if you don’t want to reveal your identity. Thanks.
“Your way of looking at things is rather all or nothing, as if the only option is suicide or suffering. “ i never said that’s always the case. there are most certainly people who had good experiences with suicide prevention. however, there are also plenty of people who had bad experiences and for them, it can ultimately boil down to “suicide or suffering.” life CAN be all or nothing. also, as i mentioned before improving the services themselves might help. but of course, you want to maintain the status quo instead of challenging it.
“Try as you might, you will never convince me that for a teenager to truly love a friend, they let a teenage friend die by suicide without trying to intervene. You might protest that you’re not talking about teens. But I’m always holding in mind that whatever message we convey for all applies to young people, too. They hear us. They read our words.” i do agree that if someone is suicidal, you should make sure it’s not for impulse decisions. however, first of all, if by intervening you mean “call the cops and put someone in a psych ward where they get abused” then i am going to seriously disagree with this approach. again, advocate for better mental health treatment than this. and second of all, if the suicide is ultimately indeed rational (and again, i’m not saying all of them are) then letting the person do it IS the right thing and if you disagree, the only thing i can take from it is you’re just uncomfortable. and while i get that young people are more likely to kill themselves impulsively, that is by no means always the case and in fact, claiming otherwise can be harmful for those that are struggling with legitimate, possibly lifelong issues like domestic violence, a social issue that if tackled on directly could save lives while simultaneously improving them.
“You’re focused on people who are miserable and seemingly will never feel better. I’m focused on them, too, but I’m also focused on many other kinds of people, too. The people with suicidal thoughts who don’t want them. The people with suicidal thoughts who don’t want to act on them. The people with suicidal thoughts who are ambivalent. The people with suicidal thoughts who can feel better with therapy or medication or other changes to their life. And, yes, the people with suicidal thoughts who are miserable and seemingly will never feel better — and might well be wrong. I’ve met many, many of those people.” except that you focus on all those groups BUT the last one and even then you have the audacity to suggest they might be wrong and while it may seem like a mere suggestion, i’ve read plenty of your articles and comments to other dissatisfied users and i can say with certainty that you truly believe they’re wrong.