First off, I'm sorry for completely disappearing from PT for so long! Life has been INSANE for a while, especially with the start of my senior year in high school. I've got loads to tell you all, but that's another thread (or five )

Also, I want to say that I do NOT self-harm. When I say it's my friend, I really do mean that it's my friend.


A few nights ago, my friend (we'll call him B) told me that he's struggling with depression. It was a little weird because we've never been super close but I was fine talking to him about it until he told me that he "just really wanted to die right now." I talked to him about it and he told me that he's bipolar and struggles with self-esteem issues.

He then told me that he has a problem with self-harming. I guess he's been cutting for almost a year now, and confided in me because he feels like our group of friends/newspaper staff is the only family he has right now. I was a little scared at this point because I think he must have been feeling really desperate to come to me out of all of our friends. Like I said, we've been friends for a couple years but we've never been really good friends.

BUT ANYWAYS. I didn't know what to do so I just started asking him why he did it, and he said that he has a really low self esteem and cuts when he feels like he's done something wrong or hasn't been good enough. I made him promise to text me the next time he felt the need to cut (at that point he hadn't in about 3 weeks) and I got a text a few hours after I fell asleep (I think you can guess what it said).

Before he told me that he cuts, he made me promise not to tell any of our friends on staff because he didn't want them to look at him differently, which I was fine with. I know there are some pretty judgmental people on staff who would NOT help him out at all. He did tell me that one of our friends, E, knows about this and has for a little while.

But I think it's gotten a lot worse for him lately. First, he started talking to me about it. He's also acting differently in class to the point that a few of the people who are closer to him noticed. He left class at one point yesterday and after I went out after him (I don't know what I thought he was gonna do but I followed him out to make sure he was okay), one of my friends came out trying to figure out what was wrong. I didn't tell her anything because he asked me not to but they all know that he's not okay. And if they notice, it worries me that it's really, really bad.

I talked to E yesterday to let her know that he had cut again and that I was ******** out (I don't know how to handle this!) and she let me know that she had told our newspaper adviser (who is more of a friend/mentor than a teacher) and I think she mentioned having talked to the counselors at school. I'm not sure exactly where she stands with the counselors. Like I said, I've only known for like 3 days and our newspaper is currently imploding on itself (we're fighting the principal about prior review/censorship right now) so we haven't had time to talk alone.

I'm just...confused. And a little scared for him. He knows that he can talk to me whenever he needs to (that first night I was up until 3am texting him) and that I'm not judging him on anything and I'm trying to be as supportive to him as I can, but I don't know what else to do. And he HAS come to me when he's feeling really low - I've started keeping my phone on me at all times and checking it during class in case he sends a text because I really don't want a repeat of that first night, where he needed help and I wasn't responding.

He texted me about 30 minutes ago saying "I just can't deal with these problems anymore." and then didn't respond for about 20 minutes when I texted back asking what was wrong. I'm not even gonna lie...I was really, really scared waiting for that text to come back because he wasn't answering... but he answered and mentioned family problems and he's going to text me when he wakes up from his nap so I guess I'm going to be finding out more about WHY he's doing what he's doing tonight.

I'm really glad that he's told me and he trusts me enough to confide and I want to help him, but I don't know how. I watched my sister unravel a few years ago but she never self-harmed and we were a lot closer so it was easier for me to comfort her.

What do I do the next time he tells me he feels like he needs to cut?! What are alternatives/steps to help him stop/avoid cutting?

One of my/his best friends knows that something's wrong/that he's depressed but she doesn't know about the cutting. She's REALLY worried and respects that I won't tell her what's up but I know she's kind of been monitoring him with me, if that makes sense.

I know that I should go to the counselors about this but I really don't want to betray his trust, y'know? And I think they already know if my friend told them...

I'm honestly at a loss right now. It's stressing me out because I'm constantly worried about him/what he's doing and I haven't been sleeping and the stress is making my migraines worse and I STILL have to worry about the fact that we might end up going to the school board to start a battle that could take YEARS to be resolved and ugh.

I'm not sure why I'm posting this, or what I expect to get out of this. But if you guys have any insight on what I can say/do, I'd love to hear it.

I am SO not equipped to handle this. I swear, I have this inability to connect to people's emotions and I have no idea how to comfort him or what to say (other than holy ****) when he's telling me all this.

Welp. Senior year certainly is interesting so far!