Concerned about my friend?

[680]

So so i have this friend and lets call her J. Me and J are both 14, shes older than me by 5 days. We are in our freshman year of high school. Shes always been in that group classified as the weird and goth people, but honestly i don't care about labels. Shes bi and gets bullied by her "friends" from time to time. I know she has self harmed in the past and we both swore we would never do anything to hurt ourselves again( i have self harmed but this isnt the point). Recently she told me that she tried to commit suicide and went to the hospital and never told me why. I got grounded so my mom took away my phone so we haven't been in touch, and when i try to ask her whats wrong in school or when I dm her on twitter she tries to change the subject. I'm honestly sooooo concerned about her and don't wanna lose her. Shes usually soo open about these things, but this time she isn't opening up. What should I so?

[Laura]

Sometimes you feel like you shouldn't talk about yourself or your problems because you don't want to be a burden on your friends. This is especially true for people who have critical, disparaging or emotionally abusive people in their lives.

For example, if a parent keeps telling her how awful she is and how she's doing everything wrong, she may be afraid to open up to you because she may think you'll criticize her too.

You know her better, so you would maybe know if she has an emotionally abusive person in her life. But then again, you may not know, and she may not even know. I didn't know until I was in my 30's.

One way or another, it is possible that she may really want to talk to someone but for whatever reason she may think she can't. If you can avoid being judgmental or critical, tell her so and maybe she will open up to you.

[Kathy Weis]

Honey, you MUST talk with her face to face. Let her know how much you care about her, couldn't do without her in your life. She has no clue how much she means to you. You CANNOT let ANYTHING happen to her. IF she gets the feeling(s) of doing something/anything to herself, get ahold of you ANY WAY she can. But she MUST talk to you. You are her support, her pillar of strength whenever she needs you. PLEASE would she value your friendship, PROMISE to reach you anyway she can & you WILL be there for her. Let her know you love her dearly. Good luck,honey. let her know how important she is to you. You NEED her more than she can imagine!^

[Mircat]

If she wanted to talk, she would. Trying to force it is wrong. It's one thing to tell her you care and that you'd be devastated if she succeeded in killing herself and offering to listen if she wants to talk. It's all together something else to keep pushing it and trying to invade her privacy. One should assume that an attempted suicide means that the hospital and/or her parents required her to enter into therapy and that she has a professional she is talking to. You are especially not the one who needs to be counseling her since you are a cutter yourself and apparently are not in therapy yourself.

You can offer her these websites if she ever gets so down she thinks death would be better.

https://www.imalive.org/

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/


http://www.boystown.org/hotline - for boys and girls

[Julie]

Tell your mom about the situation. She'll give u ur phone back