On Thursday I found out a close family friends daughter was self harming and threatening suicide and she’s only 13. I’ve known this girl since she was 6 years old(I’m 4 years older then her btw). She was always shy but come to found out last year that she has really bad social anxiety and had been suffering from it for awhile and that’s why she was always so shy.

I went to the same school she did for a few months to just take these two classes but still saw her around and always greeted her since she only had a few friends and I was someone she knew for a long time and she told her mom it was nice seeing a friendly face and made her feel less anxious about being at school. I felt the same way she did as well. I have depression and anxiety and have had it since I was 14 and even though I’m better with my depression, I’m not with my anxiety and just seeing her made me feel better too.

Last year when I went to school with her I got to sit down and talk with her and realized that her older sister who she is close to she can rarely talk to and she isn’t close with her older brothers and wouldn’t talk to her younger sister who is 10 about things, so I had the thought of letting her know I’m here to listen if she ever needs someone to talk to but I never did.(I really feel awful about it too)

Now that I know what has happen I really want to reach out and talk to her because I’m sure I’m one of the very few people in her life that can relate to her. I had thoughts of suicide daily and different ways I could die and even thought about self harming too but never did. Her mom said she can’t be left alone for awhile because of what has happened and I would reach out to her by text but I’m fairly certain her phone might have been taken away and I would have to talk with her in person.

Why I need advice is because I don’t know how to go about reaching out to her. I would have to go through her mom to ask if that was alright but I also don’t want my mom to found out her youngest daughter had thoughts of suicide so much as well. But if it does come to that, I’m still okay with it I guess because it’s more about this younger girl then me. I also would have no clue on how to start up and conversation with the girl. She’s younger then me but I’m still awkward when it comes to starting out any type of conversation with anyone. Any advice on how I could go about talking to her about what has happened or let her know she can trust me if she wants to talk?