I at least find the pain of impending loss much worse than actual loss. After an actual loss, I just move on. But I find an impending loss very oppressive. I'd check to see if the loss was impending, or had already occurred. If it has occurred, getting them to really accept that it has already occurred may help. If it hasn't occurred yet, temporize, and tell them that you never know how things will turn out. Wouldn't it be a shame to kill yourself when the Awful Thing ended up not happening? At least stick around to find out.
Along the lines of temporizing, try to convince them that they can always kill themselves tomorrow. Should work like a charm for the procrastinators around here. Surely there must be something they'd like to do before they go. You may as well do it first, before you kill yourself. Too busy killing yourself to go to a movie? Do they have any money they could give to charity? Movies they'd like to see? Places they've wanted to visit. Freaky sex they never got around to? Drugs they never tried? Some fancy restaurant they were always too cheap to go to? No point in dying with a dollar in your jeans.
Last month, two people far at the periphery of my social circles have threatened suicide. Seems like a sign for me to learn some ledge-fu.
I reviewed the stuff I'd learned back in high school ("Listen." "Be supportive." "Don't argue." "Etc etc etc.") I have trouble believing that this would work outside of movieland, especially on strangers. More so, in person I'm an awkward, fidgeting introvert---the impact of everything I say is thus diminished, and I sound very insincere or clinical, like I'm following a bad movie script, when I say anything like, "You are not alone in this. I’m here for you." or "How can I best support you right now?" I doubt that this would sound any better in writing.
I suppose I could split my question into two related ones: what would you say to a person threatening to commit suicide, 1. in person, and 2. in an email?
I'm looking for out-of-the-box ideas that don't rely on charisma or compassion shining through. Personally, if I ever need to talk myself out of suicidal thoughts, I apply the "bum comparison principle": if my life is so crummy that I'm willing to commit suicide, then I should be willing to just walk out on everything I value and drift off in a random direction, survive by dine-and-dashing out of cheap restaurants and wash dishes if I get caught, maybe take odd jobs or hitchhike or gather roots and berries or blog from public libraries. I don't see this possibility in a negative light, and yet I still haven't done it. To me, it means that however bad my life may seem, I'm still too attached to it to walk out; therefore, suicide isn't on the menu.
People have different reasons to want suicide, and I understand that what works for me with my first world problems probably won't work for a person who is in too much physical pain from an incurable disease. To the best of my knowledge, the two people I mentioned earlier are both unskilled laborers who had lost their jobs, one of them so long ago that he's no longer eligible for unemployment benefits. I don't think I'll meet these particular people again, but I'd appreciate everyone's thoughts on what I could've said if my brain hadn't frozen.