I hit a very low point on Friday feeling a lack of meaning in my life. One thing that really helped was having a friend who I could phone and they would just li

I hit a very low point on Friday feeling a lack of meaning in my life. One thing that really helped was having a friend who I could phone and they would just listen. If someone's at a bridge, and phones up the number on the sign for a suicide hotline they'll say something like "I'm going to jump off". The wrong response to this is "Don't do it" or give reasons why it's a bad idea. The correct response is "Why?" It's taken me a long time to end up with a friend who's matured enough to take themselves out of the situation, so that when I phone them up they'll listen and not give me advice and tell me what to/not to do. If the conversation progresses enough, or I ask for advice then my friend might give some as advice does have its place. The trick is knowing where that is. This is of course what a (good) therapist is trained to do, so if you feel there's no-one you can phone up it's an option to explore. The psychological concept of resilience[0] may also be something that's worth exploring, if you want to understand how people cope with bad situations. [0] https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/road-resilience https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/road-resilience