Response #9, heavily edited for grammar, not at all for content.

Date: 2003-09-25, 11:28AM

I tried to kill myself few months ago. No one knows how many times I was thinking about jumping off my balcony or taking sleeping pills since then. I thought no one knew how I feel or about things that happened in my life. Sure, life's not perfect, it never is. But people do struggle everyday, it's just the way it is. Just trying to be happy (whatever it means to you). I ran down to the street after crying for hours, I decided to have a long walk, then I saw a mother holding her kids, a guy walking his dog; you can feel the wind touching your skin. Then I realized life's not so bad. One thing for sure, being alive is not so bad.

This is a good response, I love this response. Suicide is a decision, it’s a personal choice. You’re not going to stop them if they don’t want to be stopped. The best thing you can do is make them want to be stopped.

The writer of this response gets into the same space or a similar space, it helps that she had been there before, and non-intrusively puts her experience and wisdom into the space, not down the suicide’s throat. She’s non-confrontational and doesn’t put the suicide on the defensive.

She implicitly acknowledges that his choice is his own, but she presents herself, she made her own choices and look at her. She’s OK. Maybe not perfect, maybe not happy ending, maybe this is not the end of the story at all. But for right now, she's OK.