Suicide

Lux23

A friend of mine was seeing a girl before Christmas but he decided to get back with an ex so he broke up with her. She seemed fine about it at first but a few days before Christmas she emailed him saying she had planned to take her life. He had heard that she had done something like this before and he decided to ignore it. But she took a massive overdose on Christmas Night and was very lucky to survive it. She left copies of the emails that she had sent my friend and her parents have said they intend to get the police involved as he told no-one about what she planned to do and has just ignored her.

I think he was extremely selfish and stupid to ignore her but does anyone know if the police can actually do anything in this case. I know she is still quite ill in hospital.

Nuttzz

I dont think he broke the law, how is he supposed to stop her, how can they prove that he read the emails before he tried to kill herself. her parents are angry at what their daughter has tried to do, but trying to blame a thrid party is a bit rich on their part imo

Lux23

Well he did answer the first one so he knew well. I know the girl well myself ad if he had told me I could have helped her or talked to her parents. She send the email five days before she did it.

seamus

I'd be very surprised if they could do anything about it. If she died, then perhaps he may have been in some sort of trouble to do with negligence. But seeing as she survived, I don't see how he has any sort of part in this. She's not his responsibility.

Zulu

It emotional blackmail; It wasn't him that was extremely selfish.

The police can't do anything to him, because he did absolutly nothing wrong.


[edit] Lux23 I can see consistancy is the cornerstone of your posts... You make out this is his fault, yet on another thread you insist that "a grown woman and doesn't have to answer to him or anyone else."
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=50663336&postcount=15

ravenhead

I really think it's your friend that you need to be loyal to at the moment, what this girl did was terribly selfish .. try & be there for your friend, trying to blackmail someone into being with you is a terrible thing to do, she's not only messing up her own life but she's trying to mess up your friends aswell. She was a stupid girl to do what she did

The Corinthian

Lux23 wrote:

She left copies of the emails that she had sent my friend and her parents have said they intend to get the police involved as he told no-one about what she planned to do and has just ignored her.

Oh, it’s his fault their daughter grew up to be a suicidal attention-seeker?

Your friend should ignore it. Legally there’s nothing they can do as he could rightly point out that he believed her to be bluffing and attempting emotional blackmail (which may well be still true - after all she’s not dead).

Frankly I would consider them little more than irresponsible cretins who are trying to abdicate responsibility for how their daughter has turned out on others.

Lux23

Well she isnt out of the woods yet. It wouldn't have been hard for him to contact me and say what she had said to him. She may never leave a hospital bed ever again.

ravenhead

Lux23 wrote:

Well she isnt out of the woods yet. It wouldn't have been hard for him to contact me and say what she had said to him. She may never leave a hospital bed ever again.

Oh come on.... if your ex turned out to be a freck would you go running to your friends & tell them?????

Lux23

She has borderline personality disorder and he knew well that she wasn't emotionally stable when he became involved with her. I feel sorry for him as his girlfriend has left because of all this. But he was very cold towards this girl and I can't help but think he was foolish.

whiskeyman

Lux23 wrote:

I think he was extremely selfish and stupid to ignore her but does anyone know if the police can actually do anything in this case.

If anything, the police could probably use the emails against her as blackmail and abusive communications.
Could probably get a restraining order against her I'd reckon.

Very sad story though. She's obviously is a very fragile state of mind and clearly needs a lot of help. It's also a lot of grief on your friend as she tries to lay guilt on him.
I hope all are seeking the (professional) help they need.

Lux23

How is she a freak?

ravenhead

Lux23 wrote:

How is she a freak?

You think there is something normal about what she did????????

Lux23

Well theres no point getting a restraining order against someone who cant get out of bed.

The Corinthian

Lux23 wrote:

It wouldn't have been hard for him to contact me and say what she had said to him.

Have you bothered to ask your friend why he didn’t contact you and say what she had said to him? If he had good reason to believe she was bluffing then at worst it was a misjudgement. Don’t get sucked into the blame game.

Zulu

I'm seriously doubting the sincerity of your posts, but as I'm bored...

Lux23 wrote:

Well she isnt out of the woods yet. It wouldn't have been hard for him to contact me and say what she had said to him. She may never leave a hospital bed ever again.

Why should he contact you? It's none of your business. Perhaps she has said similar things to him in the past.

...and on another note: how do you know about the e-mails?

Lux23

He said that he knew she had pulled a similar stunt before. I know she has too but I also know that when she is taking her medication she is fine but while he was seeing her he had encouraged her to stop taking it. Im not sure why he did this.

I know all this because he has told me all about it.

ravenhead

Lux23 wrote:

Well theres no point getting a restraining order against someone who cant get out of bed.

Maybe now but that's only because of what she did to herself, I'm sorry but II have no sympathy for this girl what so ever, she could have nearly ruined this guys life, Imagine if she had succeeded, just think about how your 'FRIEND' & I use the term lightly as you don't seem to be much of a friend to him, would have been left feeling for the rest of his life because of her....

The Corinthian

Lux23 wrote:

She has borderline personality disorder and he knew well that she wasn't emotionally stable when he became involved with her.

The World is full of emotionally unstable people.

But he was very cold towards this girl and I can't help but think he was foolish.

How would you act towards someone who you want to break up with but doesn’t want to break up with you?

LegacyUser

Lux23 wrote:

I think he was extremely selfish and stupid to ignore her but does anyone know if the police can actually do anything in this case. I know she is still quite ill in hospital.

I don't think he was selfish. I think she was the selfish one. She was thinking of no one but herself.
She showed no concern for her family, and by leaving the emails out for her parents to find it shows that she is incredibly childish, she actually wanted to get this guy into serious trouble, and why? Because he doesn't feel about her as she would like him to???????

I imagine your friend is probabaly guilt ridden right now, and this girl is probabaly delighted, not only has she gained attention from friends and family, (no to mention boards users) she has also managed to dominate his thoughts!

Zulu

Lux23 wrote:

He said that he knew she had pulled a similar stunt before.

Well then he was right to ignore her.

PS: your "friend" should be a little wiser when choosing his confidantes

turbot

I think it's preposterous they intend to get the police involved because he told no-one about an email she sent.

She is obviously ultra selfish, absurdly emotionally manipulative and attention seeking. The very fact she left print outs of the e-mail she sent him, and the parents are rising to this indicates she is desperate, and her behaviour is way out of line. I don't think this was a call for help; I think this was an extreme case of trying to emotionally smite someone (her ex) who wasn't responsible for her, and probably broke up with her because he realised she was capable of this.

As far as I understand, they haven't any grounds for getting the police involved, and doing so indicates they are abdicating their responsibility of being involved with and knowing what is going on with their clearly disturbed daughter.

While I pity the condition she has got herself into, from the perspective of treating him fairly, it's important to ask:

- Why did she just tell him?

- Other than courtesy, which she appears to barely deserve, why should he be made responsible or implicated because he distanced himself from someone who was employing such extreme measures to get his attention?

- Why did she leave copies of the e-mail she sent him printed out..? If she wanted help, why didn't she ask people who would be sufficiently forthcoming, like her parents or you if you are a decent friend?

I hope for her sake she is given lots of professional help, which she clearly needs. If her emotional smite has succeeded in getting to her ex, he might also benefit from some professional help, to clarify his (lack of) responsibility for her, so he can move on with his life appropriately without being affected unduly.

whiskeyman

Lux23 wrote:

Well theres no point getting a restraining order against someone who cant get out of bed.

I'm just letting you know that such emails can actually be used against her... you seemed to be questioning in your first post if they could be used against your friend. Wasnt that the point of your post?

Besides, a restraining order doesn't just mean coming into close proximity to... it also can restrict all communication to the defendant, including email.

Fysh

If you think this girl's ex is somehow accountable for her suicide attempt, then her parents would be guilty of neglicence at the very least. If she's legally an adult then she has to take responsibility for her own actions; if she's too emotionally unstable or immature to do this, it's her problem. The ex may have made a poor judgement call and handled the relationship sloppily; it doesn't make her entire life his responsibility.

TBH OP, you sound like you'd be happier if your friend had stayed with this girl purely out of a guilty worry that she'd do something stupid if he ever left her, which is a crap basis for any sort of relationship with someone.

ravenhead

whiskeyman wrote:

I'm just letting you know that such emails can actually be used against her... you seemed to be questioning in your first post if they could be used against your friend. Wasnt that the point of your post?

Besides, a restraining order doesn't just mean coming into close proximity to... it also can restrict all communication to the defendant, including email.

Exactly, Her parents should be very careful about what they do with those emails it might just backfire on them & she will be the one that gets into trouble with the police, you can't go around doing things like this girl is doing

Lux23

I actually told him to break up with her so i feel responsible myself. I never would have thought so many people would have no little knowledge about suicide and mental health issues.

ravenhead

Lux23 wrote:

I actually told him to break up with her so i feel responsible myself. I never would have thought so many people would have no little knowledge about suicide and mental health issues.

that's just an excuse & you really shouldn't generalise you know nothing about the people that have been replying to this post

Lux23

Well Ravenhead you just called this girl a freak?

I don't think he is accountable for her suicide but he had encouraged her to stop taking her medication which she did which he should never have done. Especially as he really had no intention of keeping the realtionship going. I know that she had been doing quite well as she is sometimes in a group therapy session that I go to as well and that she had stopped self harming several months before she met him. So I do feel he had a negative effect on her and whoever said i was a bad friend to him, your right. I don't wnat much to do with him anymore.

Savman

Lux23 wrote:

I actually told him to break up with her so i feel responsible myself. I never would have thought so many people would have no little knowledge about suicide and mental health issues.

What did you expect? Professional counselling? You posted on a web board, naturally the responses are going to be things you don't want to hear.

I've nothing constructive to offer so, toodles.

The Corinthian

Lux23 wrote:

I never would have thought so many people would have no little knowledge about suicide and mental health issues.

Are you looking for advice or someone to agree with you?

ravenhead

Lux23 wrote:

Well Ravenhead you just called this girl a freak?

Well personal thought that she was, if you read back on the posts you will see that up till then you had mentioned nothing about this girls pervious mental issues. We can only work with the info that you give us & up till then she really sounded like an attention seeking freak.

Fysh

Just to clarify : you blame your "friend" for encouraging her not to take her medication which you say had helped, and yet you don't think there's anything stupid on her part about taking advice from her then-boyfriend over her doctor?

Mental health issues are delicate and awkward matters, and people who suffer from them may not always be rational. That doesn't mean everyone else should have to give in to their requests or demands; frankly it sounds like this girl has had too many people trying to appease her ("in case she does something crazy, like!") instead of trying to help her lead a normal life, including learning how to cope with emotional pain.

ravenhead

Fysh wrote:

Just to clarify : you blame your "friend" for encouraging her not to take her medication which you say had helped, and yet you don't think there's anything stupid on her part about taking advice from her then-boyfriend over her doctor?

Mental health issues are delicate and awkward matters, and people who suffer from them may not always be rational. That doesn't mean everyone else should have to give in to their requests or demands; frankly it sounds like this girl has had too many people trying to appease her ("in case she does something crazy, like!") instead of trying to help her lead a normal life, including learning how to cope with emotional pain.

Again completely agree, you seem more concerned about this girl then on what effect her actions might be having on your friend

monroe

May the dark depths of mental illness never visit any of you...

The girl is sick, what she did was wrong, you'll find much of the behaviour of people with borderline personality disorders could be considered wrong, odd, irrational ect.

I think you wrote the original post because you feel guilty. I don't think you have any reason to feel guilty and neither does your friend. You did what any of us would have done - said get the hell out!

From experience...if it wasn't over her boyf it could just as easily have been over something else...a family issue ect... when that kind of instability of mind exists then that is the problem...anything else is simply fuel to the fire...

I think this young woman has enough problems to face without people actively turning against her...

restraining order in hospital........nice one, wouldn't wanna piss you off!

If he can't handle it he should walk away. Now and fast and never look back.
Cut every communication, period. You can't expect to have one of those on/off break ups with someone who is clearly suffering from a mental disorder. If he wants out he needs to concentrate on cutting all communication now.

As for the police?!? I think her parents are just angry, hurt, frightened. I'd be stunned if they had any leg to stand on. Are we by law obliged to report someone who threatens to commit suicide?

I'd tell him to run and keep on running...and maybe say a small prayer for her on the way...

xzanti

sillysausage wrote:

I don't think he was selfish. I think she was the selfish one. She was thinking of no one but herself.

My thoughts exactly... But like someone above said.. we dont know what it's like to be severely depressed.. If it was for attention then may god forgive her...

My cousin took his life 10 years ago and to this day his family and our extended family still spend hours disecting the last few hours of his life (that he was seen) trying to figure out wtf happened... Twas a more sure fire method of suicide that he chose so it was in no way a cry for help which OD's can sometimes be... Tragic.. He was only 21

His immediate family have fallen apart in every sense...

ravenhead

monroe wrote:

May the dark depths of mental illness never visit any of you...

The girl is sick, what she did was wrong, you'll find much of the behaviour of people with borderline personality disorders could be considered wrong, odd, irrational ect.

I think you wrote the original post because you feel guilty. I don't think you have any reason to feel guilty and neither does your friend. You did what any of us would have done - said get the hell out!

From experience...if it wasn't over her boyf it could just as easily have been over something else...a family issue ect... when that kind of instability of mind exists then that is the problem...anything else is simply fuel to the fire...

I think this young woman has enough problems to face without people actively turning against her...

restraining order in hospital........nice one, wouldn't wanna piss you off!

If he can't handle it he should walk away. Now and fast and never look back.
Cut every communication, period. You can't expect to have one of those on/off break ups with someone who is clearly suffering from a mental disorder. If he wants out he needs to concentrate on cutting all communication now.

As for the police?!? I think her parents are just angry, hurt, frightened. I'd be stunned if they had any leg to stand on. Are we by law obliged to report someone who threatens to commit suicide?

I'd tell him to run and keep on running...and maybe say a small prayer for her on the way...

I don't think anyone is actively turning on this girl, it's the thought of what she did to this poor guy that's hard to deal with. Also OP should have included the info about this girls health in the first post, I don't think my replys would have been so straight forward if I'd had all the facts, but we can only work with what people tell us...
this issue is very personal to me as something very similiar happened to a friend of mine in early december ... i just can't understand it at all, i really can't..

Zulu

ravenhead wrote:

Also OP should have included the info about this girls health in the first post...

I don't think the info existed then tbh. :cool:

Lux23

The girl wasn't seeking attention and I know from someone in the family that she should be dead. The fact she survived was a miracle. She really did mean to die. I really hate this label 'attention seeker'! He has been one of the only people she had to talk and then all of a sudden he wanted nothing to do with her. She obviously tried to deal with the pain as it was late November when he broke up with her and she had told him that she was fine. I do feel for her more then my friend becuase he will move on and get over this but she may never lead a normal life again. He was worried about getting in trouble with the police then what she has done to herself.

ravenhead

Lux23 wrote:

The girl wasn't seeking attention and I know from someone in the family that she should be dead. The fact she survived was a miracle. She really did mean to die. I really hate this label 'attention seeker'! He has been one of the only people she had to talk and then all of a sudden he wanted nothing to do with her. She obviously tried to deal with the pain as it was late November when he broke up with her and she had told him that she was fine. I do feel for her more then my friend becuase he will move on and get over this but she may never lead a normal life again. He was worried about getting in trouble with the police then what she has done to herself.

I hear what you're saying but you really have no idea how your friend is really feeling about this, that girl is in the right place, where she can get the help that she needs but what has your friend got? Who has he got to talk to about it? From the sounds of things you're very much on this girls side & your friend isn't going to talk to you about it

Fysh

Lux23 wrote:

The girl wasn't seeking attention and I know from someone in the family that she should be dead. The fact she survived was a miracle. She really did mean to die. I really hate this label 'attention seeker'! He has been one of the only people she had to talk and then all of a sudden he wanted nothing to do with her. She obviously tried to deal with the pain as it was late November when he broke up with her and she had told him that she was fine. I do feel for her more then my friend becuase he will move on and get over this but she may never lead a normal life again. He was worried about getting in trouble with the police then what she has done to herself.

The behaviour you've described is that of someone seeking attention by any means necessary and attempting to get your friend in trouble for not providing that attention.

Imagine yourself in your friend's situation for a minute : you see this girl for a while, then decide that either you're not interested or her condition is making it too difficult to cope. You break things off, then she starts sending you emails saying she's going to kill herself. You know she's done this before and not followed through. You ignore her. She makes a serious attempt on her own life and tries to lay the blame at your feet by printing out parts of your email conversation in which she told you she wanted to kill herself.

Looks a bit different now, doesn't it? Mental health issues aren't easy to deal with, and you're being rather naive by blaming your friend for finding it difficult to be involved with this girl. If you really are concerned for her, become her friend yourself. You can't demand that someone be willing and able to provide a certain level of friendship/love/support; if they are unable or unwilling to do so, it's their choice to make. Your friend has not, as far as I understand it, broken the law. Nor has he done anything exceptionally wrong, though I imagine in future situations he might be more cautious in his approach.

I get the feeling you're not telling us something about the link between you and this girl here...

ravenhead

Fysh wrote:

.

I get the feeling you're not telling us something about the link between you and this girl here...

Have to agree 100% with you on this one, there must be more to this that you're not telling????

Lux23

He just seems angry and when I asked him how he felt about her almost dying he said she chose to do it and that he didnt force her to do anything. Im not friends with this girl but she always seemed to be a nice bubbly girl and now her life is practically over. She may have been better off dead.

Lux23

Well I have the same disorder as her so I feel that maybe I may end up like her too.

Zulu

Lux23 wrote:

He just seems angry and when I asked him how he felt about her almost dying he said she chose to do it and that he didnt force her to do anything. ...

He's dead right though. ...and he has every right to be angry. This girl almost killed herself and blamed him. Why? because he didn't feel the same way as she did. Thats not his fault. He can't change the way he feels for better or worse.
And he didn't force her to do anything.

ravenhead

Lux23 wrote:

Well I have the same disorder as her so I feel that maybe I may end up like her too.

Of course you won't ... you have to remember that she made this choice herself, just remember that you need to talk to people that you trust when you're feeling down, there's no real point talking to a short term partner about things like this as they really won't have the experince to deal with it

Lux23

Well we can't be sure that she killed herself because he broke up with her. There was a period of about 4 weeks between the break up and when she did it. Im not sure if he is telling the truth about whether or not he stopped sleeping with her.

ravenhead

Lux23 wrote:

Well we can't be sure that she killed herself because he broke up with her. There was a period of about 4 weeks between the break up and when she did it. Im not sure if he is telling the truth about whether or not he stopped sleeping with her.

Well if that's true then he's a bit of a sh@t to be messing with her head

Santa Claus

Lux23 wrote:

Well we can't be sure that she killed herself because he broke up with her.

I think you're leaving out 2 important words there.....TRIED TO. She didn't kill herself !

Lux23 wrote:

I don't think he is accountable for her suicide but he had encouraged her to stop taking her medication which she did which he should never have done

And what where her parents doing when she came off her medication ???


Also, you mentioned that her life is as good as over and that she'll be in a bed for the forseeable future.
This is not true. With the right medical help she'll put all this behind her and will have a happy future !

Lux23

I assume they had no idea she had stopped taking the meds. She could have carried on collecting the prescription but just chucked them down the loo or something. She lived in a flat in town on her own so theres no real way of knowing what she had been doing. I know myslef that when I want to I can hide anything thats going inside me so i would say she could be the same.

Zulu

Lux23 wrote:

She lived in a flat in town on her own so...

...so she's a responsible adult, responsible for her own life.

ravenhead

Zulu wrote:

...so she's a responsible adult, responsible for her own life.

Good point Zulu, there are lots of holes in your story OP