Being a teenager is scary, stressful, and confusing.  It’s sort of like being trapped in a Blitzkrieg for eight straight years.  The internet gives kids who are in trouble lots of places to go for help, and it also gives them a bunch of opportunities to ask for help if they need it.  If you find one of these cries for help on a friend’s blog or in a chat room, you’ll probably want to help, but you’ll probably also be a little freaked out and not really sure how to help.

Here are some things to do if you find someone online who’s threatening to hurt or kill themselves, or who you think might be in danger:

• Right away, call the person if you have their phone number or find some other way to get in touch with them, through emails or IMs or whatever.  It’s important to get them to talk about what’s wrong and make sure they know they’re not alone.

• Tell someone!  Ttalk to your school guidance counselor, your favorite teacher, your pastor or rabbi, or even your parents.   They’ll be able to help you make sure the person is ok.  If you’ve been asked to keep suicidal behavior secret, don’t!  Some secrets shouldn’t be kept.

• Ok now, this is really important:  If you believe the person is in immediate danger of hurting themselves, call 911 immediately and tell the operator that you want to report a suicidal person.  If you can, tell the operator exactly where the person lives.  If you can’t, give as much information as you can: full name, age, gender, general location, screen names, email addresses, IP address, where the threats were posted, and anything else you can think of.

Suicide is the third most common cause of death for American teenagers, after accidental injury and homicide.  The Surgeon General says that someone in America commits suicide every two hours.  That’s pretty freaky, but the good news (well, good in a still really depressing way) is people who are suicidal almost always show some warning signs before hand.  They could be more withdrawn or depressed than usual, talk about suicide and death, or start giving away their possessions.

If one of your friends seems suicidal, do everything you can to make sure they get help, even if they say they don’t want help or that you’re worrying too much.  In situations like this, it’s a whole lot better to be safe than sorry.