Hello all,

I've been stuck thinking about a situation with an online friend on Discord, I'll call him Noah (not his actual name) for the sake of making it easier to describe. Noah is suicidal (in fact has tried multiple times) and opened up to me about his depression, substance abuse, and one day showed me a photo of self harm.

When he sent me that photo I genuinely didn't know how to react, so I went to ask another friend (I'll call him Eli) who I've been talking to about Noah, and thats when I took a screenshot of my chat with Noah and accidentally sent it back to Noah, instead of to Eli. Completely broke his trust and I really had no appetite and I was really in a state of shutting down for about 4 days after I did that, but the strange thing is that he hasn't unfriended me since, or removed me from his close friends server, it's been about 2 weeks since the incident.

After the incident I looked back on my conversation with Eli and realized that he was kinda only there for the drama in a way, I didn't see the red flags while in the situation. He was manipulative, dismissive, threw around slurs in the same sentences while talking about serious mental health topics, claimed he helped "multiple people" through things like this (he's 15) and acted like he knew everything kinda. Not sure how he convinced me sending stuff to him was okay either. The MOST concerning thing is Eli straight up told Noah he didn't need any rehab or therapy. Directly to him, when he most definitely does (addicted to multiple different substances, and would probably die if he stopped cold turkey) I'll list them out with a trigger.



Ive been carrying a lot of guilt about the situation, like whether or not I traumatized him or made things worse. Part of me wants to reach back out but I'm afraid it might come across as me defending myself, selfish or re opening his wounds again. If anything I'd like to at least tell Noah he does actually need help and he deserves it, and I don't except a reply, I'd probably just feel more at peace knowing I sent smth and he read it. I'm just really not sure what the best thing would be to do now. If anyone has any advice or has been in a similar situation, Id greatly appreciate it.

Thank you so much for reading.