Is it ok to kick someone out of your home after they try to kill themself?

Not unless you want him to try it again, I don’t think that would be smart.

Your housemate needs help but you can’t stay with this person either.
A person that just tried to kill themselves, who has massive drug and alcohol problems, can’t be left on their own. This person could be potentially dangerous to others too.

Have someone get ahold of his relatives, any relative, to come and get him now. It’s not your problem, he needs to get some help, but it shouldn’t be on you guys to deal with it.

I don’t see how you can let him stay, but it’s true that he shouldn’t be left on his own. Is there any third party who can do something for this guy?

@The_Compassionate_Heretic

I am not a nurse and I am not a cop. Do I have to sit at home and watch him all day every day to fulfill my obligations?

@trailsillustrated

His parents don’t care much (he’s done this before according to his dad) & they live far away – PLUS his brother is schizophrenic and his mother has bipolar. He went to stay with them last week but he comes back tomorrow to get his stuff.

The best option or compromise might be to find him help outside of the house. There’s therapy, there are clinics, there’s Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous, etc.

If you’re going to send him on his way you should try to make sure he’ll be all right. Right?

Discuss it thoroughly with your housemates, too. They probably have a better idea of what’s at stake and what kind of person this guy is. But it sounds as though he probably isn’t capable of living with other people—at the moment.

@jobe It’s not your problem. Give him his stuff, all of it, and wash your hands of it. If your’e really really worried take him to hospital they’ll put him in lockdown for a week then you can change the locks.

You and your housemates are not a medical or psychiatric care unit. Don’t put it on yourselves to take care of him. I understand the urge to be supportive, but this way bigger than that… Letting him stay while he’s actively working through issues would be one thing. But letting him stay just because you’re afraid of what he might do if you kick him out…? You can’t think that way. It’s nice to be willing to lend a hand, but they have to be willing to take it. (And in this case, that absolutely means addiction and psychiatric care at a minimum…)

What is it going to take for you to not feel like shit about the whole situation? It sounds like this person needs someone to care about him and support him. Are you capable and up to being that person?

Call a suicide hotline and ask for some resources in your area. Do what you are willing to do just don’t let him drag you down with him.

I wouldn’t force him out of the house. That may just make him feel worse, more lonely, or whatever. It just doesn’t seem wise, and think of it from his point of view too. Give him some time to stay there but in the immediate future, like others have said, get him help, now. Call his family or whoever. This shouldn’t be placed on you guys just because you live with him but there should be someone there that he knows well.

He needs to be in rehab. Its not wrong to want him out, but you can make arrangements for him to have somewhere to go where he can get help. You can help him move his stuff to a storage unit and take him over there to get started. Its the best way you can help him.

Yeah, he seriously needs to be in rehab or mental ward of a hospital. I mean that in all niceness, I had to check myself in for a brief stay years ago because I really wanted to kill myself (I was in an abusive relationship). They kept an eye on me, gave me some meds, I had group therapy, it ultimately was really good for me. The meds worked and I left a week later feeling like a new person, no joke.

@jobe Well you’re pretty much in it now regardless.
Now that you’re involved, ask yourself what you can do for them.
1. Staying with you probably isn’t a good idea
2. Setting them loose in an unstable psychological state in which they might harm themselves or others is also not a good option. This has legal implications for you.

Who do you know who might be able to help this person most effectively?

If you make sure he gets someone else to take care of him, yes.
But if you just kick him out, and then he kills himself, you have his blood on your hands.
Think about it.

You are in no way responsible for this person or his choices. If you want him to find other living arrangements, give him a time limit, and help him find appropriate lodgings.

@ragingloli

That’s a very messed up thing to say, I dragged him to the hospital, I asked him to stop when he finally came clean about what he was doing, I told him I loved him and forgave him but couldn’t help someone that wouldn’t help himself. He didn’t care, he still picked being able to do drugs whenever he likes and ignoring his problems over having my love in his life. It’s my fault I’m always sober the same way it’s his fault he’s always out of it. I’m not questioning his accountability, I’m just seeking some sort of moral compass.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic

his friends are the same as he is, irresponsible and ignorant of what is wrong with him. I’ve tried to contact a few of them and they don’t really take this seriously the way my house does. I suppose we could dump him in rehab but I don’t see the point if he doesn’t want to change or help himself.

Get off fluther and call a suicide hotline.

@jobe
Not messed up, honest.
If you simply kick him out, the signal you send to him is “I don’t care about you, fuck off.” and this will reinforce his urge to kill himself and if he does, you become partially responsible for his death.
Besides, people can be forced to change even if they do not want to and putting him in rehab at least sends him the message that you care about him at least a little bit.

You didn’t cause it, you can’t control it and you can’t cure it. But if you care about him, try to get him into a rehab or hospital. If you get him into that safe place, what he does after that is no longer your concern whether he wants to change or help himself.

You did all that you could do. I never knew anyone who changed until they themselves were ready to and wanted to and even then it sure isn’t an easy thing to accomplish.

@ragingloli There is no way any person is in any way responsible for the choices and decisions another person makes. Every one of us is totally and unilaterally responsible for our own choices, and any other suggestion is a cop-out.

“Every one of us is totally and unilaterally responsible for our own choices, and any other suggestion is a cop-out.”
I find this viewpoint an extremely simplistic and selfish rejection of the reality of sociology and psychology.

@YARNLADY Untrue.

@avvooooooo @ragingloli There is absolutely no way that any one of us can choose the actions of another person. To say “You made me do it” it totally mistaken. It is physically and mentally impossible to “make” another person do anything. Any person who claims different is trying to absolve themselves of their own personal responsibility.

@YARNLADY
so you deny the reality of propaganda, brain washing and hypnosis?

“Any person who claims different is trying to absolve themselves of their own personal responsibility.”
Sounds to me like you want to absolve yourself of your own personal responsibility you have towards people around you.

What you also so conveniently ignored is the fact that someone who claims this truth, that everyone is partially responsible for his peers’ actions also willingly takes partial responsibilty for it
Society is not a collection of isolated systems that do not interact with each other, it is a complex network of interconnected components that interact with each other and cause each other to do different things. The most basic property of reality is causality and society is in no way excempt from this fundamental property.

You should be asking him to leave because of his drug problems, not his suicide attempt.

@ragingloli While there are extreme circumstances where brainwashing and hypnosis can alter a person’s ability to choose, even under hypnosis, a person cannot be compelled to commit an act they would not otherwise commit. There is also the extreme of torture, which will compel acts that are not by choice, and acts induced by drugs.

However, we are not talking about any of these extremes. The mere act of causing a possibly suicidal person to find other living arrangements does not meet any of these extreme examples. In fact, quite the opposite. In the usual behavior of every day life, most of the accommodations toward a suicidal person are actually ‘enabling’ the self-destructive behavior, rather than helping overcome it.

In the normal course of life, when people try to put the “blame” on someone else, it is a ruse to avoid accepting responsibility for their own choices. There is absolutely nothing an untrained, inexperienced lay person can do to prevent a determined person who is ‘bent’ on suicide.

Each person is totally responsible for their own behavior, and any and every claim to the contrary, outside the extremes already discussed, is false.

@ragingloli, either you own your own life, or you don’t. Interactions with people may cause you to have feelings that influence your behavior, but ultimately, you and only you, are responsible for what you do. Every choice is a choice, every action has a consequence, whether you like it or not.

Taking in a roommate with a profound drug problem and suicidal tendencies does not make him the responsibility of his flat mates. Nor does it make him their friend, even if they share living space.

“Each person is totally responsible for their own behavior, and any and every claim to the contrary, outside the extremes already discussed, is false.”
god of the gaps, eh

Anyway, still false.
Here are some everyday examples.
Let us assume for a moment that you want to buy a nice piece of meat from a butcher.
You want to decide between piece A and piece B and from how it looks and your personal preference, you slightly favour piece B. The butcher now tells you that piece A is not only cheaper, but that he will give you one additional piece of it for free if you decide to buy piece A. At the end you buy piece A. Since your decision is ultimately based on your predisposition and information, by simply telling you the conditions of the exchange, the butcher has actively manipulated your decision making process, and thus inevitably bears a partial responsibility for your decision.

Or this one: You tell your daughter to do the dishes, or you will give her a beating. She is now very likely to comply.
Compare this to a scenario where the beating is replaced by a mere ban to go to the party that evening. She will now be less likely to comply. Your threat of consequences actively manipulates her decision making process in a major way. Since your manipulation plays a major role in her decision and you, by your own admission of being responsible for your actions, are responsible for this manipulation, you become partially responsible for her decision.

Or this: You are in a supermarket and you want to buy a pack of corn flakes. It is a fact that the physical arrangement of products, the lighting, the background music and the layout of the supermarket subconsciously manipulates customers in their buying behaviour, and supermarkets are consciously and intentionally arrange their layout and product arrangement, lighting and music to achieve just this manipulation. Due to this manipulation, you end up buying the more expensive pack of flakes instead of the cheaper one you initially wanted to buy. The act of manipulation makes the supermarket partially responsible for your decision to buy the expensive product.

These are all everyday and clear examples of partial responsibility of one party for the actions of another which each by themselves proves you wrong.

@ragingloli In every one of the examples you have given the choice is still up to the party making the choice. The lack of information, or mis-information is one factor that the person takes into consideration, and makes his/her choice accordingly. When a party chooses to accept the manipulation of others in making their choice, that is their own responsibility. If the information they act upon is faulty, they have – never the less – made the consious decision to act on that information.

The only way to avoid such misinformation or manipulation is to know and trust your sources. Grow your own food, only trade with people you can trust and so on. It is not only possible to do this, it is up to each person to choose yes I will take the necessary precautions, or I will simply rely on the possible nefarious acts of others.

But in none of the examples does the decision making party bear 100% of the responsibility for their decisions because the other party has a hand in these decisions. They may bear the majority of it, but not the entirety.

@ragingloli, Your are giving in to obsfucation. Yes, in every single example, you are entirely responsible for the outcome of your decisions. Unless you’re saying people are incapable of having the ability to make judgement calls. I buy meat by looking at it and determining what the cut looks like vs intending cooking project vs. price. What the butcher says is irrelevant; it is only advice.

I can’t figure out what you mean by the “beat your daughter” example, but your daughter should wash the dishes because she lives in your home, you pay her bills, and she’s part of the family. End of discussion.

As for subliminal messaging in grocery stores, are you say Muzak is really marketing mind control? What planet do you live on?

@ragingloli You still are overlooking the original choice to accept the veracity of the “other” party. If you choose to trust the other party, you have made your choice, and the ‘other’ party does not “make” you do it. You and only you (100%) are the ultimate source of your own choices. If you choose to place your trust in an unknown source, that is your choice, and you cannot say anyone else “made” you choose an unreliable source.

There is absolutely, irrefutable no way anyone can “make” you choose to accept or not accept their decision, and no way anyone can say you “made” them do something.

You and only you are the sole decision maker in your own life. You are 100% responsible for the choices and decisions you make. If you choose to delegate any part of that responsibility to someone else, that is 100% your own choice.

When a parent tells you wash the dishes or you can’t go to the party, if you don’t wash the dishes, you are choosing not to go to the party.

Every action has a consequence. Law of physics.

“You still are overlooking the original choice to accept the veracity of the “other” party.”

Even that decision is based on information that comes from the other party, like speech, looks, demeanors, etc.
And you are wrong, the decision to trust that party does not make you 100% responsible for every decision that follows from it, nor are you 100% responsible for the decision to place trust in that party, as this decision is invariably and irrefutably based on information and manipulation supplied by that party.

“You and only you (100%) are the ultimate source of your own choices.”

Wrong again.
The choice does not only consist of the actual even of the choice, but also every piece of information, every thought and every neurochemical process that leads to that choice, the majority of which comes from outside, including the other party.

“There is absolutely, irrefutable no way anyone can “make” you choose to accept or not accept their decision, and no way anyone can say you “made” them do something.”

Yes there is. By manipulation, which I demonstrated in the examples in my prior posts. That is irrefutable.

“You and only you are the sole decision maker in your own life. You are 100% responsible for the choices and decisions you make.”

You are wrong, as I have already shown and I am not going to endlessly repeat myself.

You choose to rely on the information of others. The consequence of that choice is that their input is flawed. When you choose to make decisions based upon the decisions of others, you’re accepting the possibility that they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. That is the consequence of relying on the judgement of someone else- there is always the possibility that they are wrong.

@ragingloli Your comments, my friend, are the perfect example of the person who refuses to accept personal responsibility for your own choices. You and only you are responsible fot the choices you make and to continue to deny it does not make it any less true.

@YARNLADY Your comments, my friend, are the perfect example of the person who refuses to accept personal responsibility for the part you have in the choices of others.

”You and only you are responsible fot the choices you make and to continue to deny it does not make it any less true.”
No it doesn’t. The argument I presented on the other hand, does.

@ragingloli You choose to believe or accept what someone else says. The veracity of that claim is either correct or not. Your choice is to accept or not accept. You are the only person responsible for your own decisions, no one can make your choices for you. It makes no difference what they say, you and only you choose to accept or not accpt what happens. You have not and cannot present any “argument” that takes away that personal responsibility for your own choices.

I can and I did. In this very thread. Thef fact that you ignored it speaks volumes.
As a small addition, “It makes no difference what they say, you and only you choose to accept or not accpt what happens.” could only be true if you were aware of each and every factor that leads to any decision you make. Which is simply. not. the. case.
Decisions are largely based on subconscious processes that you are neither aware of existing nor able to control yourself, but which can be and are being manipulated by other parties.

@ragingloli On a personal level, you are making it clear that you do not believe you are in charge of your own choices, and you refuse to accept personal responsibility for your choices. This is a very regretable, yet common belief with many people. I believe the attitude that “the devil made me do it” instead of “I made a poor choice” is the main reason for many of the worst problems our society faces today.

“On a personal level, you are making it clear that you do not believe you are in charge of your own choices, and you refuse to accept personal responsibility for your choices.”
Wrong.
I realise that the control over my decisions is not absolute in most cases and that part of the responsibility lies with someone else.
I realise that my actions influence the actions of the people surrounding me to varying degrees, and by extension I realise that part of the responsibility of the decisions of others lies with me.
I realise that. You do not.
On a personal level, I accept more responsibilty than you do, while you on the other hand selfishly reject the responsibility you partially bear for the decisions of your peers.
My attitude is not “the devil made me do it”. On the contrary. My attitude is “I am the devil that influences the decisions of others.”

@ragingloli Yet, every single example you have given is an excuse for someone – not only yourself – for not being responsible for their own choices. Every comment you have made says “they lie, so it’s not my fault”. You are deluded to believe that your own actions “influence” others. You must have it that way, in order to also blame your actions on others. There is no way that any person, you, or your parents, or your neighbors, or your friends can cause you to make the choices you make.

The only way that can happen if when you have already, voluntarily given up your own power to choose to someone else, and that is a concious choice you have made. You have decded to let others “influence” you, and you are under the delusion it works both ways, that you, somehow have influence over others.

“Yet, every single example you have given is an excuse for someone – not only yourself – for not being responsible for their own choices.”
Wrong
They are examples of what is real, and none of the examples relieves the person making the choice from their responsibility. It relieves them from a small part of it. The majority of it still lies with the decision making party. Responsibility is not a binary value. It is a fluid continuum. The world is not black and white even though you believe it is.

”Every comment you have made says “they lie, so it’s not my fault””
Wrong
My comments say “people are influence in their decisions by other people so partial responsibility for the decisions lie with the influencing party”. Your simplistic corruptions of what I said does not make anything I said any less true.

”There is no way that any person, you, or your parents, or your neighbors, or your friends can cause you to make the choices you make.”
Wrong
Every example I gave you describes just that.

”You are deluded to believe that your own actions “influence” others.”
Wrong
They do. Recently I conducted research on WebCMSs for my boss to decide which one to choose. Based on my findings, he decided to not choose one at all and instead do everything manually for the sake of flexibility. I am partially, responsible for that decision because I was the one who supplied the main reason for it. And I am responsible for any negative repercussions that decision might have.
This is not a delusion, this is reality.

You on the other hand have deluded yourself into believing that everyone is 100% responsible for his decisions because you must have it that way since you don’t want to be responsible, not even partially, for the decisions of others.

The answer is very simple, send the roommate to @ragingloli and let him take care of him!

I’d call the local mental health facility, the local Alliance for the Mentally Ill chapter or your town’s mental health government agency (it might be called “Health and Human Services” or “Department of Health and Mental Hygiene” or something like that), explain the situation and ask for help. I’m certain that these places have dealt with situations like yours before.

This is my initial thought on what to do. I would tell him that you don’t want to kick him out and that he may stay there as long as he accepts help from you and makes an effort to get better. That way you know you’re doing everything you can to help rather than just sending him packing. Then, you can be the judge. If he’s continually not following your rules, you can justifiably ask him to move out. But, also, when the time comes that you just cannot take it any more, I would try to have a relative lined up to take care of him, and suggest professional help. It’s not your responsibility to nurse him back to health, but you can help. Just don’t let him walk all over you.

Waaaaay off topic!

@YARNLADY People’s behavior is influenced by others around them. We do not exist in a vacuum. Most people realize that. I don’t have to read all the posts in the exchange with @ragingloli to know what happened there. You insist that your faulty idea of human behavior, based on ignorance, is true. @ragingloli gives examples and the educated consensus, you deny it because you don’t want to believe it. Try listening and learning sometime.

It is likely that he has a mental illness of some kind, too. These things run in families. He has been self-medicating to deal with the illness. Does he get depressed a lot? Does he ever have times of amazing energy? In any case, my money is on bipolar disorder, but who knows?

You can’t make someone get treatment. Mentally ill people often resist getting treated, believing they can handle it on their own, or just not wanting to take meds for any number of reasons. They might even like being mentally ill, or drinking and drugging.

If he’s mentally ill, then it is likely that he doesn’t believe he is loved. Perversely, he’ll want to make it incredibly difficult to love him, because he needs you to pass an incredible test and even then it might not be enough.

Be assured that the really doesn’t want to die, but he also doesn’t want to continue with the pain he’s in, and sometimes it seems like suicide is the only way out. If he’s bipolar, you should know that one-fifth of people with bipolar disorder die of the condition—mostly through suicide.

The problem is the malfunctioning chemicals in his brain. If he dies, it is not your fault. Never-the-less, it will be traumatic for you.

What can you do? Not a whole hell of a lot. You can’t make him do anything. All you can do, I believe, is become a broken record (do people still know what that metaphor means?) and tell him over and over and over that you want him to check himself into a psychiatric hospital.

Tell him what I’ve told you. It’s not his fault. His brain just isn’t working properly. But he doesn’t have to rely on his own medication regimen. There are better ways of treating his condition, and if he fixes it, he will then be able to deal with his addictions. But as long as he has a mental disorder, he can’t get off the drugs because he needs them to treat his condition.

Step one is to get himself treated for the underlying condition. He has to check himself in. Tell him that over and over. In between you can tell him you love him, but he still has to check himself in.

If he doesn’t, then you have a really, really tough choice. You probably have to kick him out. He’ll tell you you don’t love him or care about him. He’ll say all kinds of nasty things (nastier than anything you have heard so far). I can’t tell you whether to stick to your guns or let him come back. Your roommates may not give you a choice in the matter.

It sounds like he’s going back to his family, anyway, so my advice may be irrelevant. If you love him, you should still give him the “check into the hospital” message over and over. He has to choose to do it himself. Well, he doesn’t have to. You could (or his family could) have him committed if he’s an imminent danger to himself. But it is better if he checks himself in, because then he is starting himself on the road to recovery. He’ll probably lapse and need to do this a lot.

He’s got to get treatment, or he won’t have a chance. You can tell him that the odds are really high that he’ll die if he doesn’t get treated. You can tell him that treatment works! He doesn’t have to stay in this pain. He will probably not believe you, but stay on message. You caring makes a huge difference even if he acts like he hates you for it. He is not saying things he would say if his brain was working properly. So try to ignore his attacks and keep on trying to help him. That’s not the real him who is talking.

Good luck. If you need more information about support groups or how to educate yourself about depression and bipolar disorder, you can go to the DBSA website.

Gosh, you all are making me stay on the computer reading this discussion instead of doing other stuff. You will all be responsible for me not getting enough fresh air & exercise, thus also responsible for any health problems I develop as a result. @ragingloli has convinced me that none of it will be my fault. :-/

@ccrow thanks for the laugh of the day : – )

Though I know that this person’s problems are not my responsibility, I, as a person, wouldn’t be able to kick them out – I would as @daloon said continue to tell them to check themselves in and would inform them that if there is another suicide attempt or blatant drug use that I will call a mobile crisis unit from one of the local hospitals to come pick them up

Thanks everyone – he is still alive! But judging from the ‘please return my vest & don’t be calling my mother again’ message I received on the weekend I’d say he’s not accepting responsibility for what he is doing to himself.
I wish I could return his humility instead.