If someone you care about has suicidal thoughts, there are many things you can do to help besides telling them about the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, advising them to get professional help, or calling the authorities. (In fact, please don’t call the authorities unless someone’s life is truly in immediate danger.)
It’s ideal for someone with suicidal thoughts to get professional help, but not everybody can. (Or wants to.) Fortunately, you don’t have to be a therapist or psychiatrist to help. You, just you – whether you’re a friend, a parent, a partner, another family member, even a co-worker or a fellow member of a church or other group – can help someone to stay safe, to feel supported, and to get through their ordeal.
But helping the person with suicidal thoughts isn’t your only challenge. Living with the constant possibility of suicide can stir up tremendous stress, angst, fear, and pain. You might feel responsible for the person’s safety – for their life, actually. You might sacrifice your own needs because you fear the person will die if you don’t. You might feel manipulated even if the person isn’t actually being manipulative.
There are ways you can manage your fears and stress while also being present and helpful to the person you’re concerned about. I go into all of these possibilities in my new book Loving Someone with Suicidal Thoughts: What Family, Friends, and Partners Can Say and Do.
The book officially was released today, Jan. 2, 2023, although Amazon started selling copies a couple weeks ago. I’m thrilled that Loving Someone with Suicidal Thoughts was named one of the best mental health books of 2022, by Mashable.
If you want to learn more about the book, you can “look inside” it here on Amazon.
Also, here are some places where I talk about the book or the issues it covers:
- Loving Someone with Suicidal Thoughts: Interview with Stacey Freedenthal, PhD (30 minutes). In this Social Work Podcast interview, host Jonathan Singer, PhD, and I talk about many challenges people face when someone they love has suicidal thoughts: feeling manipulated by the person (even if the person’s not actually being manipulated), navigating secrecy and stigma, getting support, listening bravely to what’s hard to hear, and maintaining hope without invalidating or minimizing the person’s feelings.
- Stacey Freedenthal on Loving Someone with Suicidal Thoughts: Exclusive Interview (6 minute read). This Q and A focuses not only on the book and topics it covers, but on me – my interests, my life, etc. It gave me a chance to talk, if briefly, about one of my most favorite topics in the world: Cats!
- Interview by KATU in Portland (5 minutes). True confession: I need to learn to be more parsimonious in live TV interviews (I was nervous!). Still, I do my best here to explain the reasons why someone with suicidal thoughts might not get help, and how friends and family can ask about suicidal thoughts.
Something that excites me about the book is its affordability. Right now the electronic version is listed for only $9.99 at the publisher’s site and on Amazon. My first book, Helping the Suicidal Person: Tips and Techniques for Professionals, is priced at $32-$45, which limits its accessibility to many people, unfortunately. (No, I don’t have any control over the price a publisher sets.)
Loving Someone with Suicidal Thoughts is available at many public libraries, and it’s for sale on all the major bookselling sites, like Bookshop.org, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Wal-Mart. You also can purchase it directly from the publisher, New Harbinger Publications.
May Loving Someone with Suicidal Thoughts be a help to you and to the people you care about, too. ❤️
What Do You Think about Loving Someone with Suicidal Thoughts?
If you read Loving Someone with Suicidal Thoughts or just have some ideas about this painful topic, I’d love to know your thoughts! Please feel free to leave a comment below. If for any reason you don’t want me to publish your submission, please say so in your comment, and I’ll be the only one who reads it.
© 2023 Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW. All Rights Reserved. Written for Speaking of Suicide.
Thank you for all your suggestions in this and other posts I have read. I am trying to support my adult son who has struggled since middle school with mental health/SUD and has been in treatment hospitals for both SUD and mental health issues for quite a while before and after a suicide attempt. As a mom who tries to fix everything I have lots of learning on how to best support him. I have made so many mistakes ugh!! However, I want to learn and do better. It is hard when the person shuts down/shuts you out and holds it inside cause you don’t know they are struggling and then when I hear they are I am surprised every time. I am trying to take care of myself and I think that is where the surprise comes – I feel good all is good and then boop, I get wind knocked out of me. So, I need to work on the panic aspect. It is hard but I understand that it is harder for him!! I hope I can learn to better listen without judgement so he feels heard. I feel like I put my foot in the mouth (making suggestions etc) despite knowing better. Wish there was a way I could apologize for it/ my transgressions. If that is even a good idea?
Mama Diane,
Your son’s lucky to have a mom who’s so supportive and wants to help the most possible. There’s another post on this site, 10 Things Not to Say to a Suicidal Person, and a number of people have told me that after reading the post, they apologized to their loved one for all the things on the list they themselves had said. And the apology seemed to help forge a better connection, though the ones who have had bad experiences might not be telling me about them. 😉
Really, people with the best of intentions can end up saying something invalidating, minimizing, or otherwise not so helpful. We naturally want to help someone who’s hurting to feel better, so we offer reassurance, advice, affirmations, etc. Listening — really listening — is often hard.
It’s also very hard when you’re on the outside and can only wonder what’s going on inside. I hope your son’s SUD and mental health issues improve, and I also hope the emotional roller coaster you sometimes find yourself on slows down and evens out over time.
Thanks for sharing here! You can also call 988 or text 741741 to talk with someone about the best ways to support your son, your own frustrations and pain, and other questions you might have.
thank you for the suggestion of apologizing – and the calling of 988 for advice on helping him!! I did call 988 and the person who helped me was great help. Your list is great and helpful. I will definitely address any issues I may have caused when I communicate with my son. My husband ended up buying your kindle book. We now at least feel like we are better equipped to help him (listen) than we were before. And on the same page. We have so many books re SUD, this is the first time we thought to learn about supporting him with suicidal ideation. Sometimes it seems more sud, sometimes it seems like a mental health issue. The SUD has always caused the huge plunge to the depths of despair as well as contortion of reality and we observe it and it is so hard not to try to help him see/make the correlation with “advice”. Cause, he does not make the connection when he is under the influence. He thinks this is “him” all the time and that is scary and, truly because he started abusing so young, it really is all he has known 🙁 he has really truly never had a break from substance use. Thanks for your response I appreciate it!