friend on AIM says he's gonna kill himself
i know him exclusively from internet, and i know him pretty well for what the internet can provide, but that's highly limited as we all know.
he has long stricken me as being bipolar or something similar, but he refuses to medicate himself. over the last few months he has more and more being on the low end. things like ridiculously furious and depressed all the time. i dont know the whole story, but a big part we have discussed extensively is his relationships with women. for some reason he is amazingly territorial and jealous to point that he has many times said he wanted to break up with a woman whom he loves simply because he cannot take the anger he has over the jealousy he has for her. i too am a very jealous person, but i dont understand how it could be this bad.
there is at least another issue with him that he hasnt told me, which he will possibly tell me if he answers his phone tonight. he is 20 years old and his dad died 3ish years ago. he still hurts tremendously from his dad's death, he was the type of person who loved high school and has not yet adapted to adult life, and he has a lot of failing relationships.
for a long time he has had only one or two things 'to live for'. things like parkour and his niece. so he is clearly unhappy. he has been telling me about suicide more often lately, and we have discussed it. he told me today that the last few days have gone downhill really fast and he's gonna kill himself on jan 2nd which is his birthday and he figures there's poetry somewhere in there.
he said he felt he owed telling me this because we've grown quite close the last few years (even though just via instant messaging), and ive always been there to try to help him. part of me thinks that he just wants attention, but part of me knows that people 'like him' do kill themselves, and nothing he's done strongly suggests that he wouldnt. i do not know him well enough to lean one way or the other.
our relationship is a very frank one. ive told him things along the lines of how he's super young and, as i have, he'll grow out of it; and things like strong will and perseverance and life isnt just puppies and icecream and anything worth having is worth fighting for. but ive also been through the deepest pits of depression and i told him that if suicide is what he's truly gotta do then it's truly what he's gotta do. if and when he grew out of it he would regret it, but i cannot fault somebody for killing themselves over depression because it's such an amazingly terrible thing to be depressed. i personally would not have gotten out of mine had i not gotten basically lucky imo.
anyways dont know if he's gonna do it, but because we're friends im gonna take him seriously until shown that i shouldnt. im gonna call him in a couple hours, he'll prolly be drugged out of his mind and may not answer, and he said i could call him for an explanation, implying he didnt wanna talk about it, but fuck that i'll talk at him if i get the chance.
so what i wanna know is if anybody has a good handle on this type of situation and knows what i should do, or just any ideas i guess. if he does disappear i will shed a tear, and i dont wanna.
