How can I get my friend help for scary thoughts?

[Oscar Doe]

So I don't know this person's full name, just their first name. I don't know what school they go to, I don't know where they live except for the state. We have been talking to eachother online and we've become pretty good friends. This person has been going through a lot of mental health issues lately and they just confided in me that they are having murderous thoughts that they would love to act on but they only won't because they "can't" I basically asked them to talk to someone irl and they refused a lot, they don't really have safe people in their life. We agreed that they would try to find someone to tell and it ended there. I want to contact someone who can help my friend but I'm not sure how. Help. I can tell that these feelings scare them. And I wouldn't be able to forgive them if they ended up hurting someone, which is probably horrible of me to say because they're a kid going through mental health issues and they probably cannot help their feelings. Keeping this super vague because I don't know if they have scarleteen and I also want to protect their privacy.

[KierC]

Hey there Oscar <3

Thank you for caring for your friend and for asking for help. I know this is scary, but you’re doing the right thing asking for help!

If you only know their first name and the state they live in, it may be hard to get help for them without them getting it themselves. Know what I mean? Asking them to get help is a good thing to do. Maybe dropping the number of a crisis line, or our mental health resource list, could be helpful too: https://www.scarleteen.com/read/feeling ... -resources

As for the violent thoughts, can I ask where you’re speaking to them/where you met them? Depending on the platform, you may be able to reach out to the platform directly to try to get them to offer support resources. How does that sound to you?

I want to ask too, how did hearing that make you feel? Are you holding up ok? I know hearing such things can be frightening.

[Oscar Doe]

I'm talking to them on discord. I'm not sure if I can do that on there. I'll send them some resources if I can find any.
I'm ok I'm just worried. They're pretty much like a little sibling to me and this is really scary to hear from them. I always knew they had issues, but this just really worries me. It also reminds me of myself because I used to have really bad intrusive thoughts like that, they said it's not intrusive for them but I can tell it still scares them a bit. I never got help for my intrusive thoughts and it really sucks to see my friend going through something similar. Because I know how much it sucks to be alone in that. I hope they will be ok. Thank you for your response, I really appreciate the resources.

[Heather]

Hi, Oscar.

Have you said what you just said here to us about them and your experiences to them? If not, I'd see if sharing all of that with them lands with them at all. I also want to check in with you and make sure that you know that you're allowed to set and hold limits and boundaries with this friend, as you are with anyone, about what they say to you or share with you. Sometimes when someone is saying things like this to us, but refusing to seek out help, it puts us in a pretty awful position where we are effectively -- and nonconsensually -- asked to be the only person holding someone's scary stuff like this, and it can be really bad for us.

How do you feel about being the person they are saying this stuff to, but also about their refusal to tell anyone *but* you? What do you need for yourself in this?