If it is urgent, the numbers are on the help-now page. Several of those lines will talk to you about someone else, not only about yourself.

If you are trying to help someone

Short, because you are probably reading this in a hurry. The first part applies whatever is happening. The last part is where the cases differ.

A few things that hold in every case

Ask directly. If you think someone may be considering suicide, ask them plainly. The belief that asking increases the risk is widespread and wrong, and acting on it is one of the more costly folk beliefs there is. The question does not plant the idea.

Do not make your help conditional on their decision. Support that is withdrawn if they stay, or keep using, or do not do the recommended thing, is not support — and the moment it is withdrawn is the moment they stop telling you anything. Being the person who still knows is worth more than being the person who was right.

Make specific offers, not general ones. “Tell me if you need anything” produces nothing. “I can take Wednesday evenings” or “I’ll drive you and wait outside” produces Wednesdays and a lift. It is the single highest-yield change in how most people offer help.

You are not the risk assessor. Specialist services do that, with training and information you do not have. Calling one to ask how to help someone is a normal and intended use of them.

Presence is not the same as advice, and it is frequently the thing that mattered — sitting with someone, doing something practical, being in the room without an agenda.

Your own upkeep is the arrangement’s infrastructure. If you break, their situation gets worse too. You cannot hold someone up from underwater. Protecting your own capacity is not a claim you are making against them.

One thing not to do

Do not do their thinking for them out loud. People in difficulty are usually being told what their situation means by everyone around them, and the effect is that they stop describing it accurately — to you, and eventually to themselves. Asking what it is like is more useful than explaining what it is.

Where the cases differ

If they may be in immediate danger from themselves. Try not to leave them alone, and do not agree to keep it secret from everyone — you can promise to tell them who you are telling, which is a promise you can keep. If there are pills, a weapon, or a specific means they have mentioned, it is reasonable and helpful to ask whether they will let you hold it or move it for now. Reducing access to a specific method is one of the better-supported things a person who is not a professional can do. Then call a line, with them or for advice.

If someone is being controlled or hurt by a partner. Do not tell them to leave, and do not confront the other person. The risk of serious violence rises around the period of separation, so leaving is not automatically the safe option and pushing it can move a timetable they were managing. What helps: staying in contact; saying once, plainly, that what is happening is not normal and not their fault; keeping a dated note of what you are told; and knowing the number of a specialist service before it is needed. If they go back, do not treat that as the end of your involvement — most people leave more than once. The page written for them is here.

If someone has died. Most support arrives in the first fortnight and then stops, which is the opposite of what is needed. Put a date in your calendar for six weeks, six months, and the anniversary. Use the dead person’s name; people avoid it and the avoidance is felt. Do not measure how they are doing against any schedule.