For those who don’t know someone very well, the apparently casual statement, “I feel like dying” may seem unimportant.
But it is important to take every statement about suicide seriously, especially in people whose behavior has changed over the last weeks or months.
My uncle, then in his 80’s, told me one day that he wanted me to give him some sleeping pills. I asked why he couldn’t get them from his physician. My uncle said, “He won’t give me enough.” This was highly irregular behavior from a man who was in vigorous health and who taught daily at a prestigious school of music. I pursued the question, and discovered that he was indeed thinking of killing himself.
I took the threat very seriously, called his son in a distant city and told him to get here quickly, and we both took my uncle to his physician. The doctor gave him some antidepressants, and we all gave him lots of support, love, and told him we’d stay with him and by him until he no longer felt like dying.
The result was that my uncle lived another ten years, dying from heart failure in his mid-nineties.
Find more information to help a loved one who is feeling suicidal.
