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[wherearethebees]

You and your partner are kind of insular, as a couple, but your partner comes from a larger social circle that he or she used to be closer to before you started shacking up. Your partner confesses to you that he or she is suicidal.

Do you tell other people?

Please explain your answers.

Comments

[nextdrinksonme]

What would telling people would have done? In many states you can't commit someone unless they are actively suicidal (saying "I'm going to kill myself" or doing something to act on those feelings). Saying "I feel suicidal" is not enough.

Telling friends and family could very well have made him draw further into himself as she would have breached his trust, which may have made the feelings even stronger as he could have felt isolated and alone(and believe me, it is quite possible to feel alone when everyone is there to "support" you and you're suicidal). I'm sure it took a lot for him to talk to her about it in the first place. He could have reached out to anyone else. He didn't. That's his choice. I could see possibly telling his parents IF they knew his mental history and IF they would supportive of it. Many/most people don't know how to deal with such things.

Depression and mental illness are still very stigmatised. Putting someone with suicidal feelings under a microscope of scrutiny by everyone they know isn't going to help them, imo. She needed to get him professional help, not spread his medical business to folks who aren't equipped to deal with it.

It sounds to me that you're upset that he didn't turn to you for help, which is a valid feeling. However, I'm sure she did what she felt was right at the time for someone she loves, too. Just because it's not the choice you would have made doesn't make it wrong. It's a situation where there really is no right choice.

[wherearethebees]

I imagine I'm too involved in the particulars of this situation so it's hard to talk in the broad scale, because in this situation his girlfriend did NOT have the right resources, did NOT make choices that would facilitate him maintaining at least baseline functionality, did NOT do the right thing in a pretty staggering number of instances that we all (the friends that she has forced him away from, the family that can't stand her) feel actively contributed to his decline.

But generally, I guess my thinking is this: it's really possible to think you're doing the right thing and make absolutely terrible, wrong decisions anyway. And I accept that about myself and about other people. So to me, if my partner tells me what amounts to "I'm a threat to myself," then I would at least get another voice involved just in case perhaps I don't have the right information or resources. At minimum, this person would check ME. Depending on my partner's relationship to his parents or other friends, I would allude to the circumstances. Singularly trying to shoulder someone's mental health in the guise of protecting privacy -- or (in this case) in the guise of being the noble martyr just seems insanely irresponsible to me.