To me, suicide something I feel I have to flirt with in order to back off from it. That may sound worrying, but for me it's always worked for some strange reason. However, it's nothing something I'd really recommend due to how risky it might be for certain other people.
Depression is something I've become familiar with personally. It's like you realize something's wrong and you know you're depressed, but you always throw up mental barriers telling you nothing's going to get better. It's like there's two parts of you, you have two faces. One is telling you to not give up hope, while the other tempts you to give into despair. And oftentimes, the latter voice wins. Things you used to enjoy suddenly seem meaningless, you get irritable, and you have trouble sleeping or waking up. You feel absolutely worthless, inadequate, and you keep telling yourself you aren't as good as others. You aren't as informed, you aren't as smart, and you aren't talented. And sometimes, you find temporary relief, temporary happiness, but then the barriers come up again and convince you that happiness is nothing more than an illusion, a veil, and that the temporary happiness is just that. Temporary. Pretty soon you convince yourself that there's only one way out.
But for me, flirting with just the thought of suicide throughout my entire life (I've had such thoughts for as long as I can remember) keeps me from doing it. There's just some kind of stress relief from just imagining myself taking my own life and there's something saddening about thinking how many people will miss me that makes me realize how idiotic actually carrying out the act is.
And you start to think about it logically. You say to yourself "Dude, you're a f****** moron. You've only lived a quarter of your life and you want to call it quits? Jackass." At least that's how I've always dealt with such thoughts.
Despite my horrible cynicism (it just comes naturally to me), I always find something in the world worth living for. You just have to keep looking. That's all I can recommend.
Suicidal thoughts and depression aren't something you can just say "don't do it" to someone in order for them to stop doing it. It doesn't work like that. The enemy is within and for the most part, they have to face it themselves. In fighting their battles and winning, they grow stronger. There is, however, nothing wrong with comforting them and letting them know you've always got their back if they ever need it.
But if you're truly going to take your life, all I can say is, do what you feel is right. Do it or don't. The choice is up to you. It's not my place to make you or someone you know back off. But at the very least, think twice. Oftentimes the reasons for suicide are not justified, but nothing is absolute. If statistics taught me anything, it's that there's always outliers.
And to anyone here having the similar thoughts to what I just described, I can recommend the following method:
Step 1: Type "suicide hotline [insert your state/country here]" into Google
Step 2: Pick up a phone and dial the number
Step 3: Have a friendly chat.
Easy as one-two-three. It may not solve all your problems, but it'll let you know you aren't alone. There are other ways to get out of your problems besides a bullet to the left temple or a knife slash across the throat. Keep looking. Also, blasting heavy metal takes a load of stress off for me. Of course, I realize the genre isn't for everyone.
However, if you are going to kill yourself, don't kill others while doing it. They aren't you and they don't all have the same thoughts as you. Don't be an @sshole. (I don't care if some moderator cites me for bypassing that one)
Peace. \m/