Thread by @veganbean1, TWI live with someone who has been threatening suicide and self-harm the [...]

TW

I live with someone who has been threatening suicide and self-harm the last few weeks and I’m doing my best to help this person but i feel ill-equipped to handle the situation & I’m experiencing extreme mental health distress because I feel I need to be hyper vigilant at all

times so they don’t harm themselves. I feel selfish for saying this but I really don’t know if I can handle all of this mentally because I was in a depressed, suicidal place last October. I’m trying my best but now I cant sleep or eat and I’m extremely anxious and depressed

Because I am so worried for this person. I feel it’s my responsibility even though I don’t know them. Idk I am just confused on what to do ans how to care for this person so they don’t do anything harmful and permanent. Idk how to live in my house and maintain good mental health.

I want this person to be mentally healthy and to be able to work through the depression (they are threatening suicide because their boyfriend has been trying to break up with them) but they have been in and out of treatments and I don’t know that I can give as good as help as you

can get in treatment. I feel incredibly awful and selfish for expressing my discomfort and mental anguish but living with a person (who I don’t know) who’s threatening suicide after a break up is very distressing and I’m just wanting to do my best to help but I don’t know enough.

Im not anywhere near mentally healthy enough to live in this environment.
Please don’t hate me or look down on me for voicing this issue. Please educate me if I’m wrong. I’m doing the most to try to intervene but I’m not equipped to handle this situation at all...especially

because my own mental health is struggling right now. I am not depressed as much, but my anxiety has been very unbearable for the last 3 weeks. I’m just very confused and lost and it’s very triggering to live with someone who is threatening suicide on their phone calls.

Please don’t hate me for voicing this. I have been up all night trying to talk to this person, then let them try to get sleep. Everytime I hear a siren I think they might be coming to my house. I am awake because of unbearable anxiety & so I can be ready to help them at anytime.

I have been in therapy these last weeks to try to solve my own struggles but I feel unable to focus on my own issues because I feel compelled to address someone else’s mental struggles! Which is not my responsibility, technically. Being an empath and physically feeling others

Emotions and energies is killing me. I can’t keep taking these issues on me because I have been neglecting myself and my mental health. Idk. I’m just very worried for this person and I can’t find a way to both live my life to the best I can and to help them completely. How do you

help a person who isn’t concerned about being helped? They keep making scary statements and I feel so terrified and mentally overwhelmed and very helpless even though I am trying my best. I know I have so much to learn about this situation so I can be the best helper for the

person, but since I have only recently (within the last few months) gotten over my own suicidal ideation/thoughts, I really struggle to stay mentally healthy in this situation and try to not resort to this suicidal thinking again......everything is very confusing now

Please try to educate me on how I can be equipped to help this person right now. They are struggling and I think I need to be doing more to assist. But I haven’t known this person long, and they don’t want me to say much about the situation to them.

I try to let them know I am there for them, I ask them to color with me (they enjoy that), I try to ask them what they need and I let them know that I will help connect them to resources,etc. I try to just let the person know I am a friend to them and I can sit with them as long

as they need. I have gotten my other roommates involved so we are as supportive & helpful to this and to keep watch of them to ensure their safety (but we all work, & can’t be home 100% of the time). I haven’t dealt with this type of situation (roommate threatening harm) before.

My final questions are:

How can I be the most helpful? Ensure their safety? Do the right thing in this situation? Also, as an empath, how can I protect myself and my mental health in this situation?

If you have any advice or can educate me then please take the time to do so. Please respond with love in this situation. I know the struggle of being/feeling suicidal and I know that this person must be struggling so deeply and it must be so terrifying for them to feel this way.

I bet that they are very overwhelmed and scared and so I want to do the most I can to break these feelings. I’m not trained like a therapist but I can do my part to be a supportive friend to them.

Thank you for reading this thread. I hope I can learn more about taking care of other people’s mental health and still having the capability to balance my own mental health. Ahhhhhhhhhhjjjjhhhk I just want to the best for everyone but I feel in-equipped to make that happen

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