When my Friend told me he wanted to commit Suicide

After travelling through Germany on my Europe-trip 2004, Denmark was my next destination. With my injured leg I sat in the train towards Copenhagen where I had made friends already on my previous visit. I stayed with one of these friends and of course others came to visit.

On my previous trip I had been introduced to a man who is quite popular in Denmark for his healing work for the body. He does certain massages and applies pressure at different points of the body to reduce pain. I obviously still had pain in my leg and when he offered to have a look at it, I did not hesitate to show it to him. I had heard a lot of good stories about his work. He did his massage and it really felt better for some time. But obviously that would not get me around the surgery that had to be done.

I had another, very interesting encounter with another person. Maybe you remember my friend, the writer.

He invited me to his home one day and I was happy to come. When I entered his home, I could understand what people had told me about single men living alone – his place was a big mess! It did not really disturb me, it was rather interesting. In a very informal way he completed the usual formalities of welcoming me and asking whether I wanted to eat or drink anything. I refused because I had the habit of only eating at my regular meal times.

After we had sat down, my friend started talking to me. His tone was just casual, as if he was about to tell me that he would go to the cinema this evening. What he really said however was much more sincere: ‘I want to commit suicide’.

I started laughing.

He smiled at me and asked what I was laughing about, assuring me that he was serious. ‘Why are you laughing?’ he asked. ‘I thought you would ask me for my reasons or you would try to convince me not to kill myself. Instead, you are laughing!’

‘I know you don’t really want to commit suicide. Those who want to end their lives don’t talk like this. Why would they announce it, why would they advertise their idea in their surrounding before doing it? If they really want to, they just do it. Those who say that they are going to kill themselves only want to have sympathy, want to hear the reasons why you think they should not do it.’

I was still laughing a bit and finally he joined me, too. We had a good laugh together and once we had calmed down he told me that he had absolutely not expected this reaction from me.

A long talk followed which started about the topic of life and death. The talk moved on to a lot of different topics, some serious, some not so much. After such a long time I don’t remember anymore what exactly we talked about. Only this first topic, our conversation about my friend’s suicide plans stayed in my mind. I share it from time to time and maybe he still does, too.