What would you do in a situation like this?
About a month ago a girl (in her 20's with some learning disabilities) who is also a volunteer at my place of work was messaging me on social media for a little while before she starting to complain about her mom, her sister and her life. I am sure she faces additional challenges that most people don't so I decided to be her friend, provided her with a listening ear and some advice and I felt like the more I was nice to her, the more she would tell me some off the wall shit. I figured she was saying these things for my attention and even though normally I would cut that shit off real quick, I continued to talk to her. One night, she said she hated life and "Im gonna do it". She never directly said she was going to kill herself but I responded with gentle encouragement to not say things like that because it is taken seriously, at least from my perspective.
The next morning she messaged me saying she had taken a bunch of Tylenol or some equivalent. I was talking to someone at work who I consider a friend, his advice and what he would do in a situation like that. A co-worker happened to walk in at the tail end of the conversation and started to ask a bunch of questions about who and what we are talking about. I ended up telling her what volunteer it was a it quickly went to management and spiraled out of control.
Personally, I wanted to contact this girls mom but after she told me her mom "beats" her, I was hesitant but again I was taking the things she said with a grain of salt. My work encouraged me to call the police and when I was hesitant to do that but finally agreed to call non-emergency, my work had already done it. I was pissed and threw myself right into a huge panic attack. Within minutes (and I still don't know how this volunteer knew) she messages me saying the cops are on their way to her house. I figured if she wasn't really going to kill herself, she might now.
She never found out it was because of me, she blamed her sisters friends, if they even really exist. She still tries to talk to me and I am a little withdrawn after getting in touch with her mom after the situation went down and finding out that 99% percent of the stuff she told me was not true. Including the fight she got into with her sister's friend resulting in a broken foot. I got the picture of the broken/casted foot, but it wasn't hers.
I didn't feel like calling the cops was the most appropriate first choice, but maybe it was? I've only talked to small group of people about it and have gotten 50/50 answers. Some thought it was appropriate and some didn't. I ask because it is still something that bothers me from time to time because I was so torn between not feeding into the games and not discrediting something potentially serious š
