A Suicide Risk?
Dear Dr. Holmes: I follow your column for many years but don’t write you because I write in Bisaya and broken English. But I very worried like susan. My son always talk of suicide now. I don’t know what to do. Like susan, I feel hopeless. Think of killing myself if I cannot help son. Do I listen, do MORE than listen—like forcing him to go to psychiatrist? Do I ignore because maybe only encourage him to talk and talk about suicide? It make me nervous and I don’t know what to do. Please help. CHERRYL Dear CHERRYL: Thank you very much for your letter. I hope you don’t mind if I occasionally write in Tagalog. First, definitely do NOT ignore any talk about suicide. In fact, what we (psychologists) tell both parents and mental health professionals we train is, even if the person doesn’t talk about suicide, if you feel something is wrong and the person might consider sucide as a possibility, you must ask him about. It. Sometimes parents and psychologists, etc are frightened to bring up the su
