“People who talk about it never do it”

This one is usually said reassuringly. Somebody reports a worrying conversation, and a friend or relative offers it as comfort: ah, the ones who talk about it never actually do it.

It is not true, and the comfort it offers is the reason it is dangerous — it provides a ready-made way to file a disclosure as not serious.

What is actually the case

Most people who die by suicide communicated something beforehand. Not necessarily a clear statement of intent, and often not to a professional — but something, to somebody, in the weeks or months before.

Talking about it belongs on the list of warning signs. It is not evidence against risk; if anything it is among the more direct indications available.

Why the myth survives

Because it is usually borne out, in the narrowest sense.

Most people who talk about suicide do not go on to die by suicide. That is true, and it is true simply because most people do not die by suicide. Suicide is, in absolute terms, uncommon; almost any predictor you pick will be followed by survival in the great majority of cases.

So the belief is constantly confirmed by experience. Everyone can think of somebody who said something dark and is still here. What experience does not show you is the other column — and it is the other column this belief is supposed to be a guide to.

The version that is worth keeping

There is a real observation buried in here, and it is worth separating out.

People do sometimes speak about suicide in ways that are not about intent: gallows humour, a way of communicating exhaustion, a phrase reached for when nothing else conveys the scale of it. Not every mention is a plan.

But the way to tell the difference is to ask, not to assume. Asking about suicide plants the idea →

What to do with what you have been told

Take it at face value first. You can always discover it was less serious than it sounded. You cannot undo having waved it away.

Ask directly. When you said that — did you mean it? Then wait.

Do not negotiate with it. "You don't mean that", "you've got so much to live for", "don't be daft" all communicate the same thing: this is not something you can say to me. The person will generally stop saying it, which feels like the problem resolving.

Say it back plainly. That sounds like things have got really bad. Being accurately understood is, on its own, one of the more useful things that can happen in the conversation.

The thing to remember

The belief that talkers do not act converts the clearest signal a person is able to send into a reason to relax. Somebody working up to saying the hardest sentence of their life has, at that moment, the worst possible luck if the person listening has heard this myth.

Supporting someone who is suicidal → · When someone refuses help →