Friend's in a bad situation, what should she do? EDIT

[johnjohn320]

A good friend of mine is now attending a private boarding school. I just got a panicked phone call from her, she found a friend of hers at the school really messed up. Apparently the girl took like 15-20 Excedrin or something, and was just vomitting and shaking and crying uncontrollably. My friend is the only one who knows about this now (and me and the girl herself, obviously).

I of course advised my friend to get help as soon as possible. Problem is, she explained to me, if the school found out about this, they would kick the girl out (as happened to my friend's room mate already who tried to cut herself). As my friend has explained to me, this girl has a horrible home life (very abusive and drug-addict mom), and she doesnt want to send her back there.

So, as of now, my friend is in the girl's room with the girl sleeping on the bed. In other words, the girl has calmed down and is fine now. She (my friend) is obviously scared and doesn't know what to do.

I frankly don't know, either. It seems like a lose-lose situation. Any help?

EDIT-A better title for this thread would have been "I think we all know what my friend needs to do. But how do I get her to do it when I'm so far away?"

 

[Jmman]

Excedrin can be dangerous......Overdose warning: Taking more than the recommended dose can cause serious health problems. In case of overdose, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away. Quick medical attention is critical for adults as well as for children even if you do not notice any signs or symptoms



If she dies, think of the consequences.......

 

[johnjohn320]

Originally posted by: Jmman
Excedrin can be dangerous......Overdose warning: Taking more than the recommended dose can cause serious health problems. In case of overdose, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away. Quick medical attention is critical for adults as well as for children even if you do not notice any signs or symptoms



If she dies, think of the consequences.......

She's fine now, she's not dying from this time. We're worried about next time...

 

[tweakmm]

Originally posted by: johnjohn320

Originally posted by: Jmman
Excedrin can be dangerous......Overdose warning: Taking more than the recommended dose can cause serious health problems. In case of overdose, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away. Quick medical attention is critical for adults as well as for children even if you do not notice any signs or symptoms



If she dies, think of the consequences.......

She's fine now, she's not dying from this time. We're worried about next time...

How do know that she is fine? Going to sleep after taking a lot of pills is not a good idea.
If your friend's roomate is suicidal now, its highly unlikely that she is going to stop being suicidal unless she gets help or finishes the job. The school is going to find out about it one way or another.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

All OTC drugs have dire warnings. 15-20 Excedrin isn't even close to being dangerous for an adult.

 

[Amorphus]

now, why would she do that?

also, tell your friend to talk to her. or, if your friend isn't mature enough, get a trusted adult. local pastors/youth counselors are great people. also good are teachers, family friends, or parents of friends. best to keep it on the down low, if you are sure she won't cause herself harm. if you, at ANY POINT IN TIME, think she may end up causing great harm to herself, then you must report her to the proper authorities. and commit her to a foster home, it sounds like.

 

[Yossarian]

you should call the poison control center to get more information.

 

[BD231]

She's obviously depressed out of her mind. Consol with her about the event and tell her your really worried, have fun and tell her how much everyone cares about her.

She needs help .

 

[Jugernot]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt
All OTC drugs have dire warnings. 15-20 Excedrin isn't even close to being dangerous for an adult.

15 Tylenol will shut down your kidneys, which can easily kill you. You think Excedrin is any different?

 

[Kadarin]

Let's see.. Your friend's roommate cutting herself, and another friend attempting suicide with an excedrin overdose. Just what the hell is this "boarding school" doing to these kids?

 

[EvilYoda]

laugh at her? (testing out how it feels to be an average ATOTer...not cool)

seriously tho, just keep tell your friend to keep an eye on her, TALK to her, try to reason with her, otherwise she's doomed to repeat everything again. If her home life is really as bad as they say it is, make her think about what'll happen if she doesn't calm down (assuming that she doesn't try to commit suicide again).

 

[Nocturnal]

Try to talk her into getting counseling or something. That's the only thing I can think of. Doesn't she have other relatives that could watch over her? Grandparents, father, cousins, aunts, etc?

 

[PlatinumGold]

Neither you nor your friend are qualified to make the decisions you face. Hate to say it, but this is really a situation where you have to get some authorities involved. so often it is easy to think that you can accomplish this and that with your own effort but some things are really beyond you.

i believe this to be the case.

 

[todesengel]

Originally posted by: johnjohn320
So, as of now, my friend is in the girl's room with the girl sleeping on the bed. In other words, the girl has calmed down and is fine now. She (my friend) is obviously scared and doesn't know what to do.

I frankly don't know, either. It seems like a lose-lose situation. Any help?

You're an idiot if you have to post an emergency situation on a message board.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: todesengel

Originally posted by: johnjohn320
So, as of now, my friend is in the girl's room with the girl sleeping on the bed. In other words, the girl has calmed down and is fine now. She (my friend) is obviously scared and doesn't know what to do.

I frankly don't know, either. It seems like a lose-lose situation. Any help?

You're an idiot if you have to post an emergency situation on a message board.

what bothers me is that they don't see it as an emergency situation, but a situation they are trying to hide from school officials and the girls parents.

bad judgement.

 

[VioletAura]

Originally posted by: Jugernot

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt
All OTC drugs have dire warnings. 15-20 Excedrin isn't even close to being dangerous for an adult.

15 Tylenol will shut down your kidneys, which can easily kill you. You think Excedrin is any different?

15 Tylenol at once will not kill you... neither will 25.

 

[johnjohn320]

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold
Neither you nor your friend are qualified to make the decisions you face. Hate to say it, but this is really a situation where you have to get some authorities involved. so often it is easy to think that you can accomplish this and that with your own effort but some things are really beyond you.

i believe this to be the case.

I know, it's nothing either of us can handle, especially since I'm about 450-500 miles away from the action right now. She knows she can't handle it alone. She's going to get help from groups outside of the school (youth groups, within the church, etc).

I called poison control for her, got the info. They said just keep her awake for awhile, lots of water, etc. Stay with her basically. So that's what she's doing.

You're an idiot if you have to post an emergency situation on a message board.

This happened 8 hours ago. My friend just called me. Why did she call me of all people, someone no where near there? I don't know. I called poison control for her. Gave her the info and told her to inform the authorities (school officials/teachers). I'm fvcking 500 miles away from her, what do you want me to do? :| FYI, I've been in similar situations before (with attempted suicides, that is), when I've actually been THERE. My course of action then has been quite different. I'm not that stupid or pathetic. From here, my hands are tied. (see edit in original post)

 

[johnjohn320]

bump

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: todesengel

Originally posted by: johnjohn320
So, as of now, my friend is in the girl's room with the girl sleeping on the bed. In other words, the girl has calmed down and is fine now. She (my friend) is obviously scared and doesn't know what to do.

I frankly don't know, either. It seems like a lose-lose situation. Any help?

You're an idiot if you have to post an emergency situation on a message board.

what bothers me is that they don't see it as an emergency situation, but a situation they are trying to hide from school officials and the girls parents.

bad judgement.

I disagree. The girl needs help, yes.. but if you read the first post, her parents are not the people to go to.

As for the school thing.. well, I can understand them not wanting her to get kicked out, that could just make things worse..

 

[crystal]

Originally posted by: Eli

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: todesengel

Originally posted by: johnjohn320
So, as of now, my friend is in the girl's room with the girl sleeping on the bed. In other words, the girl has calmed down and is fine now. She (my friend) is obviously scared and doesn't know what to do.

I frankly don't know, either. It seems like a lose-lose situation. Any help?

You're an idiot if you have to post an emergency situation on a message board.

what bothers me is that they don't see it as an emergency situation, but a situation they are trying to hide from school officials and the girls parents.

bad judgement.

I disagree. The girl needs help, yes.. but if you read the first post, her parents are not the people to go to.

As for the school thing.. well, I can understand them not wanting her to get kicked out, that could just make things worse..

If the girl is depressed enough to attemp at killing herself, do you think she will worry (or care) about being kick out of school. You need to contact the school officials and the girl's parents to get her some help. Whether or not she will be kick out of the school after this is not really that important. What really important is that she will have help for her problems.

 

[Kelemvor]

Call an anonymous support line (check the pohone book) and tel soeone what's going on ans ESPECIALLY the part about the homelife. If nother else she could be placed in a foster type place or the school might make allownaces if sending her back would basically be killing her.

 

[Pastore]

Originally posted by: crystal

Originally posted by: Eli

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: todesengel

Originally posted by: johnjohn320
So, as of now, my friend is in the girl's room with the girl sleeping on the bed. In other words, the girl has calmed down and is fine now. She (my friend) is obviously scared and doesn't know what to do.

I frankly don't know, either. It seems like a lose-lose situation. Any help?

You're an idiot if you have to post an emergency situation on a message board.

what bothers me is that they don't see it as an emergency situation, but a situation they are trying to hide from school officials and the girls parents.

bad judgement.

I disagree. The girl needs help, yes.. but if you read the first post, her parents are not the people to go to.

As for the school thing.. well, I can understand them not wanting her to get kicked out, that could just make things worse..

If the girl is depressed enough to attemp at killing herself, do you think she will worry (or care) about being kick out of school. You need to contact the school officials and the girl's parents to get her some help. Whether or not she will be kick out of the school after this is not really that important. What really important is that she will have help for her problems.

Being kicked out of school is a big deal (maybe not for you, but for most it is). I can't imagine what the girl would do if that happened. Taking pills is a drastic cry for help. USUALLY the only thing that happens is the person gets really sick ( i know 3 girls that have taken pills to commit suicide, none were successful). If someone really wants to kill themselves, they will throw themselves off a tall building, this girl needs help. What about therapy?

 

[johnjohn320]

Originally posted by: Beast1284

Originally posted by: crystal

Originally posted by: Eli

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: todesengel

Originally posted by: johnjohn320
So, as of now, my friend is in the girl's room with the girl sleeping on the bed. In other words, the girl has calmed down and is fine now. She (my friend) is obviously scared and doesn't know what to do.

I frankly don't know, either. It seems like a lose-lose situation. Any help?

You're an idiot if you have to post an emergency situation on a message board.

what bothers me is that they don't see it as an emergency situation, but a situation they are trying to hide from school officials and the girls parents.

bad judgement.

I disagree. The girl needs help, yes.. but if you read the first post, her parents are not the people to go to.

As for the school thing.. well, I can understand them not wanting her to get kicked out, that could just make things worse..

If the girl is depressed enough to attemp at killing herself, do you think she will worry (or care) about being kick out of school. You need to contact the school officials and the girl's parents to get her some help. Whether or not she will be kick out of the school after this is not really that important. What really important is that she will have help for her problems.

Being kicked out of school is a big deal (maybe not for you, but for most it is). I can't imagine what the girl would do if that happened. Taking pills is a drastic cry for help. USUALLY the only thing that happens is the person gets really sick ( i know 3 girls that have taken pills to commit suicide, none were successful). If someone really wants to kill themselves, they will throw themselves off a tall building, this girl needs help. What about therapy?

I've heard that, too. Anyway, something that might be important here is that the girl apparently doens't even remember taking the pills, or much that happened afterwards. She did a bunch of creepy paintings in that time, that's about it. But, the girl didn't KNOWINGLY attempt suicide, as far as I can tell. My guess is she had some sort of nervous or emotional breakdown.

I keep telling my friend to get help, get help, 'you can't handle this alone' I say. She swears she's going to get help from places outside the school as soon as she can leave the girl alone long enough.

 

[djheater]

She could unknowingly do serious damage to her liver and kidneys. That would give her something to be depressed about.

It may be better to have her thrown out of school if that's the only way she can get help.

 

[Yax]

Originally posted by: johnjohn320
A good friend of mine is now attending a private boarding school. I just got a panicked phone call from her, she found a friend of hers at the school really messed up. Apparently the girl took like 15-20 Excedrin or something, and was just vomitting and shaking and crying uncontrollably. My friend is the only one who knows about this now (and me and the girl herself, obviously).

I of course advised my friend to get help as soon as possible. Problem is, she explained to me, if the school found out about this, they would kick the girl out (as happened to my friend's room mate already who tried to cut herself). As my friend has explained to me, this girl has a horrible home life (very abusive and drug-addict mom), and she doesnt want to send her back there.

So, as of now, my friend is in the girl's room with the girl sleeping on the bed. In other words, the girl has calmed down and is fine now. She (my friend) is obviously scared and doesn't know what to do.

I frankly don't know, either. It seems like a lose-lose situation. Any help?

EDIT-A better title for this thread would have been "I think we all know what my friend needs to do. But how do I get her to do it when I'm so far away?"

Mustve been one horrible headache to take that much excedrin.