Sorry this is so long but...
Nicolaou.. I wasn't able to read the letter, guess it is gone, so don't know the specifics. If someone is really threatening suicide, that is a serious deal I agree. I had an ex-boyfriend that I had split up with, but was still friends with. He had some alcohol and other substance issues, he used to always call me and tell me how depressed he was and I would try to encourage him to go to the doctor and get some help.
Once day he emailed me and told me goodbye while I was at work. I was very worried and didn't know what to do. He wouldn't answer his phone for several hours. I didn't know what to do, didn't know if I should try to find his family or what, or if he was even serious. Later that evening he called me and said he was okay, just depressed and worried, hated his job and drowning his sorrows in booze and pot.
A couple of weeks later, he told me that he had been fired from his job, that night he messaged me online and said that this would be his last night on earth, he was going to watch the sun go down and then take a bunch of tranquilizers and kill himself. I panicked and kept trying to reach him by phone, finally I reached him and I could tell that he had been drinking and had already taken a bunch of pills. I asked him if I could come get him and take him to the hospital, he told me NO and that he had a gun and would use it if I called the police or came up there, he lived way out in the country an hour away. I called a former police officer that is a friend of mine and he said that I should call the County Sheriff's office and have them do an involuntary committment. I was afraid to call the cops because he grows his own and I didn't want him to get busted for that on top of all his other problems. But I couldn't not call and have him go through with his threat. So I called the Sheriff's office and told them that he was threatening suicide and I believed he would carry through with it. They asked me if he had a gun and I had to tell them yes and they told me if he pointed it at them, it would be very ugly and would probably be shot. They went out there to his house with all available manpower and my friend went willingly with them. They took him to a mental health hospital and he was in hospital for 5 days and then had to go before a judge before he could be released.
At first, he was so mad at me he would not speak to me. I had lined up a rehab center he could go to for free, but he refused to go. At first he wouldn't return my calls or emails. Then a couple of months later, he called me and thanked me for what I did, because he told me he would have killed himself that night for sure. He was put on medication and started doing better. Long story, but since then, he met a wonderful woman, is happy and they are getting married.
This was one of the hardest things that I had ever done, agonizing if I was doing the right thing by having him committed involuntarily, but I believe it saved his life. I am so glad because I care for him deeply and hated to see him in such pain. Anyway, this doesn't have anything to do with the letter that guy wrote, but that is my experience with someone threatening to commit suicide.
