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Tragedianactor posted that he is contemplating suicide. I believe that online forums aren’t the place for such things, but recognize it’s a call for help at the same time. Do we have a protocol in place when this happens? Yes, we do – unofficially. We should have something official, so let’s use this thread for that. 1) Immediately suggest counseling / professional help – and not much else except empathy.
2) Stress that we can help with faith issues and general life issues but that we are a support group of non-professionals and can’t give professional help for things like suicide.
3) Discourage suicide as an option.
4) Keep an eye on the thread carefully to make sure all commenters stick to that script.
What do you all think?
National Suicide Prevention Lifelinehttp://www.youmatter.suicidepreventionl … tting-hel/1–800–273-TALK (8255)
Live Chats:crisischat.org (2pm-2am ET) or imalive.org Chat anonymously with an Active Listener: http://www.7cupsoftea.com/ I found him on Facebook and reached out to a mutual Facebook friend to see if she knew enough about him to know if he is serious. Let us know, Ray. Last night I was starting to wonder if he was trolling. But not something I want to dismiss. If he is serious, I hope he gets help. HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL:The mutual friend asked if his sexuality had anything to do with it. I told her we aren’t aware of that issue and asked if she minded sharing more. She hasn’t gotten back to me yet.
She also said she knows of a group that might be good for him, and I asked her for that info – so I can include it in a comment, if appropriate, and/or Private Message. if he is gay / attracted to the same sex and in a heterosexual marriage (especially if he knew that and didn’t tell his wife), that could explain a LOT – but I don’t know yet.
All we can do right now is continue to offer love and support and keep asking him to get professional help.
Thanks Ray. That could explain a lot, that’s for sure. It sure goes in line with my comments on trust in the marriage, if he is hiding a huge part of his life, then there will be issues. I don’t know why he would be so adamant about “divorce is not an option”. It certainly works for me. Interesting. We’ll see how it goes and keep an eye on the thread.
She doesn’t now his sexuality, so it might not be the case – but it would explain “TragedianActor” very well. We’ll see.
Personally I think LookingHard’s post might be touching on at least a part of the real issue. We’re only getting one side of the story but if you take what TragedianActor says at face value I’m inclined to think that his wife may have mental illness. A close relationship with someone that has a mental illness can affect a person’s psyche in the exact way that TragedianActor has described. Hope for a resolution dies, the future begins to look more and more bleak, suicide starts to look like a viable option.
Ray, if you could reach out to this mutual friend to find out if his wife shows any signs of mental illness… sometimes people do a very good job of concealing issues from strangers so it can be tricky. An indicator might be the amount of friends she has or in whether or not she is estranged from any family members.
This one cuts
realclose to home for me so I won’t be posting in his thread. 
Yeah, nibbler, I also have had that same thought – as well as the thought that he might be bi-polar or have some other diagnosed mental issue. The overview of his comment history is interesting. I’m trying to gather whatever info I can.
I picked up on that vibe as well, which was what prompted me to reach out to him a little more, since I went through that, my ex-wife is diagnosed bipolar in combination with Borderline Personality Disorders and his brief comments sounded a bit familiar to me. For me, I wished someone had educated me sooner on the mental illnesses, not making me struggle on my own so much to keep a toxic relationship going. If it is mental illness, what he will have to learn is that she won’t change. There is no marriage counseling to address that, and few bishops or therapists will know how to counsel him to cope. In those cases 92% of marriages end in divorce, because the non-mentally ill person in the relationship becomes exhausted (obviously depending on the severity of the mental illness and the situation). There are medications to regulate mood, and DBT or other therapy that helps to provide coping skills, but the root problem of the huge mood swings and angry attacks will likely be part of that marriage no matter what marriage advice he gets.
I don’t want him to rush to divorce…but I thought he would respond more openly to the idea of it as an option.
But he may have his own problems (depression, etc) if he think suicide is a better option than divorce or other options. It’s just a sucky situation. Having gone through that myself.
His over-the-top response about divorce came across as truly unbalanced. Up to that point, I thought the wife is mentally ill, but that suggested to me that there is a hidden component to his story, so you may be on to something with the sexuality angle. As to a policy, I think it would be a good idea to keep the 24 suicide hotline available. I know we eventually got there and we can’t guarantee they will use it, but it may help because any online forum is hard to get full understanding. As a group though I was really impressed with all of us. I really love our ward here, but that day cemented it for me. I kept checking back all day and none of us left him alone. Great job. Proud to be a part.
I copied the Hotline information from West’s comment in the thread into my first comment in this thread – so it will be at the beginning of this thread in case we need it again. If this comes up again in the future, which is likely, we can find this thread and paste the information into any relevant threads. Thanks for that suggestion, mom3.
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