Guilt

L.Jenkins

I'm feeling extremely guilty at the moment, because I feel I wasn't able to do enough for someone in a given situation. The story is:

I met a nice girl through a radio station a few weeks back. It was all a bit of craic. We exchanged numbers and have had casual conversations up until now, nothing to serious, but plans of eventually meeting up sometime. I still only know her by her first name though. Last friday she attended a Doctor and got some bad news health wise. It depressed her extremely and I tried to give her words of encouragement that she would be ok, but nothing seemed to lift her out of it. I'm the only one she told and I've tried to reassure her to tell her cousin who she lives with and her family.

Over the course of the day though, she fell even deeper into a state of depression and has threatened suicide and unsuccessfully trying to contact her after some distressing messages, I rang the samaritans and gave them all the information I could about her. I feel shítty that I wasn't able to help her the best I could. Maybe I could have done more, I don't know. I just feel so rotten, that the best I could do was give someone a name and a number and hope for the best.

Mods, if this is inappropriate of me, you can delete this. I'm not looking for advice. I'm just upset and need to get it off my chest.

Ickle Magoo

This is an advice forum so posters will offer advice and maybe some empathy and support - and perhaps that's not a bad thing?

L.Jenkins

It's just, I didn't know what else to do given all the information I had, so I could only think to ring the samaritans. It's beyond belief how shítty I feel right now.

Ickle Magoo

You have to remember that you are not nor cannot be held responsible for the actions of other people - from the info you've given it seems clear you did what you could while recognising she needed more than what you could offer. What else do you think you could/should have done?

L.Jenkins

I could have called the gardai but Im hesitant incase it would be difficult in locating her based on a phone number.

dekbhoy

i once had a friend when i was a teenager who confided in me about suicidal thoughts and self harm, he asked me to "not to tell anybody what he was about to tell me and i agreed " turns out he wrote a suicde letter for his family and was on the verge of doing something terrible . i immediately told my mum who in turn went straight to his mum , she go him to a doctor as soon as she could , months later he thanked me for saving his life......... point is sometimes the burden of somone elses problem is too much for any one person to handle and has to be passed on to someone who is better able to deal witht the situation...... i definitely think you did the right thing .