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From: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Barry Gold)
Newsgroups: net.suicide
Subject: Re: countering suicidal tendencies
Message-ID: <1690@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 20-Jan-85 14:48:17 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.1690
Posted: Sun Jan 20 14:48:17 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 24-Jan-85 05:31:55 EST
References: <634@turtlevax.UUCP> <757@aaaaaa.UUCP>
Reply-To: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Barry Gold)
Distribution: net
Organization: System Development Corp. R+D, Santa Monica
Lines: 41
Summary: 

Some years ago one of our friends decided to commit suicide (because of a
romance gone sour).  He was going to do it immediately.  His apartment
mate (a male friend) suggested he might prefer an audience, and got him
toi make up a set of (black bordered) announcement cards, which he drove
around town depositing in people's mail boxes.

I noticed ours the next morning, called the guy up, and asked if it were
a joke.  He said, that no, he was indeed planning to jump off an airport
hotel roof on noon that day.  I told him I would be personally offended if
he left his apartment before I got a chance to talk to him, that I'd
already lost one dear friend that year (due to a STUPID home accident)
and objected on purely selfish grounds to losing another.  And then called
up a number of other people.

We ended up having a "party" of most of the guy's friends.  We didn't try
to tell him that life was wonderful.  We DID tell him that we were going to
be vicious and mean and not let him get anywhere near the door or windows.
We also did normal party-type stuff, including introducing him to a new
roleplaying game (one of his hobbies).  And told him we liked him.

He was awfully imprssed by our concern, and eventually decided not to
commit suicide after all.  At which point the thing turned into a normal
party, and went on for the rest of the day.

He's now happily married (to another girl).  And some of us still remember
the Suicide Party as the time we first heard of Runequest.

In short, I think that Monica's approach (which I'll paraphrase as --
tell them not to commit suicide because I don't want them to do so)
can work.

Suicide's effect on a group of friends is terrible.  Setting aside the
guilt/concern that your friend was that unhappy and you ignored it and
didn't help him, setting aside the fact that you'll never be able to
interact with that friend again,...there's also the fact that (as C S
Lewis mentioned in THE FOUR LOVES) a friend's loss also loses you those
aspects he brought out in all your other friends.  People who lose a friend
lose also a part of themselves and a part of all their other friends as
well.

--Lee Gold