I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before on this blog (if I have, I’m sorry for repeating myself) but a lot of random strangers add me on Facebook, MSN and all of those kinds of sites that I’m a member of. One day, roughly a year ago, I was happily on my laptop and not really doing anything in particular. Then, when I signed onto MSN I found that I had a new friend request (or whatever it’s called when it’s on MSN.)
I accepted the mysterious friend request (assuming that it was somebody I knew in real life who had yet to add me on there) and almost immediately this person (who I later learned was female, but I won’t put their name) began talking to me. It turns out this girl was somebody who was planning on killing themselves sometime soon (their boyfriend had left them or something) and they had chosen me, of all people, to be the person to persuade them not to do it. However, it did take me a while to figure out what exactly her intentions were… Here is a rough transcript (working from memory as usual) of how the conversation turned out:
Suicide Girl: Hey, can you overdose from aspirin?
Me: Well, I don’t think you can die (because I don’t think you’d be able to get a large enough number of them) but it’d probably make you sick. But nothing really to worry about.
Suicide Girl: Damn.
Me: Wait, I don’t think you understand what an overdose is. You don’t want to overdose!
Girl: Yes, I do.
Me: Usually when you say that somebody has overdosed, it means they actually died from taking too many drugs. It doesn’t mean getting some kind of high or anything.
Suicide Girl: I know what it means, I want to die.
Me: You shouldn’t want to die, what’s your reason for wanting to die?
Suicide Girl: My boyfriend left me after a long time, I loved him, now I have nobody. (I really can’t remember the exact details, but it was something like that.)
Me: How old are you?
Suicide Girl: 14. (She may have been a little older, I can’t remember properly.)
Me: Yes… Well I think I should tell you that it’s quite rare for people to find the love of their lives at such a young age. I’m sure you’ll find somebody else, you’ll be fine.
Suicide Girl: No I won’t I only love him, my life is meaningless now.
Me: I don’t suppose you’ve heard the song Everybody Hurts by REM have you?
Suicide Girl: No I haven’t.
Me: Well maybe you should listen to it (I pasted her a link to it on YouTube)
(The length of the song Everybody Hurts by REM later…)
Me: Still wanting to kill yourself?
Suicide Girl: No, I just feel numb.
Me: Goood 😀 heh heh heh.
And so that’s the story of the suicidal girl who decided I would be the one to stop her. I spoke to her regularly for a while after, to make sure she was alright long-term (and she was.) If you’re reading this and feeling suicidal, maybe you should talk to me, as this’ll show you, with the combined effort of myself and REM, you’ll be persuaded not too! Or, at least, I hope so.
