If this is urgent, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day, or chat online at 988lifeline.org. In Georgia, 988 calls are answered by the Georgia Crisis and Access Line. If someone is in immediate danger, call 911.
Most people who want to help do not say anything.
Not because they do not care. Because they are afraid that raising it will make things worse, or that they will say the wrong thing, or that they will be told something they do not know how to handle. So they wait, and watch, and hope the person brings it up first.
If that describes you, this article is written for you. It covers what the evidence actually says about asking, the words to use, what to do when someone says yes, and the part that almost everyone skips.
Does asking about suicide make it worse?
This is the question that stops most conversations before they start, so let me answer it directly.
No. Asking someone directly whether they are thinking about suicide does not put the idea in their head and does not increase their risk. This has been studied repeatedly and the finding has held up.
What usually happens instead is relief. Most people carrying these thoughts are carrying them alone, and they are often waiting for some signal that it is permissible to say it out loud. A direct question is that signal.
There is also evidence pointing the same direction from the treatment side. Clinicians have historically hesitated to treat conditions like PTSD in patients at risk for suicide, out of concern that it would worsen risk. A systematic review found the opposite: interventions targeting the underlying condition, or targeting both the condition and the suicide risk, appear to reduce risk rather than increase it.
Source: Holliday, Edwards, Holder, and Monteith, Psychiatric Times, September 2026
Avoiding the subject does not protect anyone. It mostly protects the person who is uncomfortable.
How to ask
Ask plainly and use the actual word. Vague questions get vague answers, and a question phrased to avoid the topic tells the person which answer you are hoping for.
"Are you thinking about suicide?"
"You have seemed really low lately and I want to ask you something directly. Have you had thoughts of ending your life?"
Compare that to the version most people reach for:
"You're not thinking about doing anything, are you?"
That question has the answer built into it. It communicates that you want to hear no, and most people will give you the answer you asked for.
A few practical notes. Pick a private moment without a hard stop, because a conversation that has to end in six minutes is not a conversation. Sit next to someone rather than across from them if you can. And if they say no and you still feel uneasy, it is fine to say that you may ask again another time.
What to say when someone says yes
This is the moment people most fear, and the most common reaction is to freeze or to start problem-solving immediately. Neither helps.
The single most useful thing you can say is short.
"I'm glad you told me."
That is a complete response. It communicates that they did not make a mistake by telling you, which is exactly what they are worried about in that moment.
After that, the job is to stay in the conversation rather than to resolve it. A few things that genuinely help:
- Ask how long this has been going on. It signals you intend to keep listening rather than to move on quickly.
- Ask what has been hardest. Open questions do more than reassurance does.
- Let silences sit. People often say the truest thing after a pause. Filling the pause takes that away.
- Say you want them here. Plainly, without qualification.
- Ask what would help. Sometimes they know. It is worth asking before assuming.
You are not expected to fix this in one conversation. You are expected to stay in it and to help them reach someone who can help.
What not to say
Most of these come from a good place, which is exactly why they are worth naming.
- "You have so much to live for." This lands as an argument, and the person will usually stop talking rather than argue back.
- "Think about what it would do to your family." Guilt is not a protective factor. Many people already believe their family would be better off, and this reinforces that they are a burden.
- "Other people have it worse." Suffering is not a competition and this teaches them not to tell you things.
- "Promise me you won't." A promise extracted under pressure is not a safety plan. It mostly ensures they will not tell you next time.
- "Have you tried going for a walk?" Jumping to solutions, however well meant, reads as wanting the conversation to be over.
- Nothing at all. Changing the subject after someone discloses this is more damaging than saying something imperfect.
If you say something clumsy, it is recoverable. You can come back later and say you have been thinking about the conversation and want to try again. That itself is a meaningful message.
What to do next
1. Connect them with professional support. This is the goal of the conversation. That can look like calling or texting 988 together, helping them schedule a psychiatric evaluation, or contacting a clinician they already see. Offering to make the call with them, or to sit with them while they make it, removes the step that most often does not happen.
2. Ask what would help them stay safe. If they raise something specific in their environment that worries them, that is a conversation to have with 988 or a clinician rather than to manage yourself. Trained counselors work through this every day and know how to approach it. You do not have to be the one to figure it out.
3. Do not agree to keep it secret. You can promise to be careful with it and to tell them before you involve anyone. You cannot promise to tell no one. Say that plainly and early, because breaking a confidentiality promise later does more damage than declining to make one.
4. Stay in contact. Not surveillance. Ordinary, unremarkable contact. A text that does not mention the hard thing at all still communicates that you are there.
When it is an emergency
Some situations need immediate help rather than a conversation. Call 988 or 911 if someone has a specific plan and the means to act on it, if they have already done something to harm themselves, if they cannot stay safe until an appointment, or if you are simply frightened and unsure. That last one counts. You do not need to be certain to call.
988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. Available 24 hours a day. You can call about someone else, and you do not have to be in immediate danger to use it. In Georgia, calls are answered by the Georgia Crisis and Access Line.
The part almost everyone skips
Support arrives in a rush and then it thins out.
In the week after something difficult, there are texts, meals, check-ins, offers. By week three, the group chat has moved on and everyone has gone back to their own lives. The person is often no better. They have just stopped mentioning it, because the moment when it was acceptable to talk about has visibly passed.
That gap is where people get loneliest, and it is the easiest thing on this entire list to fix. Put a reminder in your phone for three weeks out. Then send one message. It does not need to reference the hard thing at all.
The check-in that matters most is usually the one nobody else is still making.
If it is your child or teenager
Everything above applies, with a few additions. Ask directly rather than hinting, because adolescents are unusually good at detecting when an adult is circling something. Do not make the conversation contingent on their phone, their grades, or any other consequence, or you have turned honesty into a punishable act.
Loop in professional support rather than trying to manage it within the family. Changes in mood, sleep, appetite, school performance, or withdrawal from things they used to care about are worth an evaluation, and therapy for children and adolescents exists for exactly this. Earlier is meaningfully easier than later.
Taking care of yourself
Supporting someone through this is heavy, and the people doing it often stop attending to themselves entirely. That is how supporters end up developing symptoms of their own.
You are allowed to have your own therapist. You are allowed to tell the person that you need to bring in more help. You are allowed to have limits on what you can carry, and naming them is not abandonment. A supporter who burns out is not available to anyone.
If treatment has not been working
One situation comes up often enough to name. Sometimes the person you are worried about is already in treatment, has been for a while, and is not getting better. Both of you may have quietly concluded that this is as good as it gets.
Two or more antidepressants taken at an adequate dose for an adequate duration without meaningful improvement meets the clinical definition of treatment-resistant depression. It affects roughly one in three people with major depressive disorder, and it has an established treatment pathway that includes TMS therapy, SPRAVATO (esketamine), and office-based IV ketamine.
Running out of first-line medications is not the same as running out of options, and hopelessness about treatment is itself a reason to get another opinion.
Getting help in Norcross, GA
At Georgia Behavioral Health we see new patients within about a week, with evening and Saturday hours and providers who speak Spanish and Korean. We are in network with most commercial plans, Medicare, and Medicare Advantage, and we offer both in-person and virtual appointments.
If you are trying to get someone in, or you have realized while reading this that the person who needs an appointment is you, you can request an appointment here or call (678) 861-6463.