Tell one person
A helpline counts. So does a friend, a family member, or a crisis text service. The single most protective thing in this hour is not being alone with it.
Crisis support
If you need help now
If you are thinking about harming yourself, or you do not feel safe, please stop reading this site and contact one of the services below. They are free, confidential, and available now.
Free confidential helplines
Available 24 hours a day unless stated. You do not have to be suicidal to contact them — distress is enough.
| Where you are | How to reach someone |
|---|---|
| United States and Canada | Call or text 988 — the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Free, confidential, 24/7. |
| United States (text) | Text HOME to 741741 — Crisis Text Line, if speaking aloud is not possible. |
| United Kingdom and Ireland | Call 116 123 — Samaritans. Free, 24/7, and you do not need to be suicidal to call. |
| United Kingdom (text) | Text SHOUT to 85258 — Shout Crisis Text Line, 24/7. |
| Australia | Call 13 11 14 — Lifeline Australia, 24/7. |
| Anywhere else | findahelpline.com lists verified free services by country, in your language. |
| Immediate danger, anywhere | Your local emergency number — 999, 911, 112, or the equivalent where you are. Or go to your nearest emergency department. |
Getting through the next hour
Not a treatment plan. Things people report helping in the specific window when the urge is at its highest — alongside contacting someone, not instead of it.
Put distance between you and the means
Give them to someone, lock them away, leave the room, leave the building. Distance and delay are what the evidence most consistently supports.
Change your temperature
Cold water on your face, a cold shower, holding ice. This works on your physiology rather than your thinking, which is why it can work when nothing else is reachable.
Ride it rather than solve it
Urges peak and fall. You do not have to resolve anything tonight — you have to get to the other side of this wave, and it will pass even if it does not feel like it will.
Do not make any permanent decision
Nothing has to be decided while you feel like this. Whatever it is, it can be looked at tomorrow, with someone.
Tell someone who can act
A GP, a therapist, a crisis team. Tonight's goal is safety; tomorrow's is getting this in front of someone who can help properly.
Questions people have about calling
The reasons people give for not contacting a helpline, answered.
I'm not suicidal enough to call.
There is no threshold. Helplines exist for distress, not only for imminent risk, and the people answering would far rather speak to you now than later. You do not have to justify calling.
Will they send an ambulance or the police?
Very rarely, and generally only if there is an immediate risk to life. The large majority of calls are simply a conversation. If this is a worry, you can ask them about it at the start of the call.
I can't speak on the phone.
Text services exist for exactly this — 741741 in the US, 85258 in the UK. Many services also offer webchat, and findahelpline.com lets you filter by contact method.
I've called before and it didn't help.
Different call, different person, different day. If a service was not a good fit, another may be — and a text service is a genuinely different experience from a phone call.
I don't want to waste their time.
This is the most common reason people give, and it is the one worth setting aside. Their time is for this. You are not taking it from someone more deserving.
Why this page exists
Every page on this site carries a line saying it does not provide crisis support and pointing you to a crisis line. That is honest but insufficient on its own, so this page names actual services.
Self-harm and suicidal crisis are part of the clinical picture for many people with a borderline personality disorder diagnosis. That is not a reason for shame and it is not a permanent state — but it does mean a self-directed guide is the wrong tool at the wrong moment, and being clear about that matters more than anything else on this site.
If you are reading this in a bad hour: the intensity you are feeling is not a permanent condition of your life, however completely it fills the present. Urges peak and subside. The single most useful thing you can do is put time and distance between the feeling and any action, and tell one person.
The book, the guides, and everything else here will still be here tomorrow. Tonight, please contact someone on the list above.
A book cannot notice that you have gone quiet. A person can.
If you are in immediate danger, contact your local emergency number now. This page lists crisis services but is not one — it cannot respond to you.