Hi I’m Michelle, I’m a senior in high school and I have a friend I don’t know how to help. I don’t even know where to begin…So my friend Emma started not coming to school a few months after senior year started. At first i thought it was just stress from classes and family matters (she doesn’t really communicate with her family well) and she just needed some time off. we use to ride the bus in the morning together but for the rest of the school year I did not see her on the morning bus once. she either skips the entire day or just one class or two. As you can imagine, her grades are slipping and she needs to pass history and English in order to graduate. She continues to skip school and she did not apply to any college/university. She said that she’ll kill herself if she couldn’t graduate but she never comes to school or do anything to change her situation.

So today I heard that she didn’t manage to pass English from one of our close friend, who sent me their chat history and asked me for advice. and Emma had said things like “I’m just gonna return the graduation dress i got,nvm,actually I’ll keep it as a reminder of me failing highschool”,”send me pictures after the ceremony where everyone’s looking pretty”,”it’s ok i’ll just cry by myself in my room everyday”, and “I didn’t even want to graduate anyway”. Both the other friend and I agreed that it’s frustrating because there is no way that we could reply “correctly” and what she said made us felt bad for just graduating!

and it’s not the first time either, couple months back, she said really nonchalantly that she cuts herself and punches the wall until her knuckles are bruised, I don’t want to judge or be patronizing so i just listened and tried to be understanding. But then she’ll even like punch the wall in front of with a smile as I try my best to stop her. I mean, I’m glad that she trusts me enough to tell me about her problems and such, but part of me wonders if, and I feel really bad for saying it, she’s just trying to get attention. She’ll say things are fine and act nonchalant but you can clearly tell that it’s BS.

And with what happened today…I just don’t know what to do…Do I call her out on her self pity? I couldn’t really tell an adult b/c she said her parents already got her to go to group therapy or something and that’s not doing her any good….

I am quite worried and ANY advice/suggestions are welcomed and greatly appreciated!
Thank you!