When my best friend said her daughter’s suicide attempt was “just for attention,” I knew something was broken. This morning, I watched her cry outside a courtroom where her daughter was finally being heard.
When my best friend said her daughter’s suicide attempt was “just for attention,” I knew something was broken.
This morning, I watched her cry outside a courtroom where her daughter was finally being heard.
My best friend, Laura Whitman, refused to come home from vacation after her daughter attempted suicide. She was in Mexico with her new boyfriend when it happened. I remember the call clearly—the hospital number flashing on my phone, the doctor’s careful tone, the way my hands started shaking before he even finished his first sentence.
Emily Whitman was sixteen. Quiet, sharp, painfully polite. She swallowed a bottle of antidepressants and texted her mother goodbye. The pills didn’t kill her, but they did enough damage to land her in the ICU for three days.
Laura didn’t come back.
Instead, she texted me: Can you stay with Emily for a few days? I need space. This is a lot.
A few days turned into weeks.
Emily was discharged into my care because someone had to sign the papers, attend the psych evaluation, make sure she wasn’t left alone. I took time off work. I locked away medications, knives, anything that could be used against herself. At night, she slept on my couch, knees tucked to her chest like she was trying to disappear into her own ribs.
When I finally confronted Laura—called her, demanded she come home—she laughed. Not nervously. Not in disbelief. She scoffed.
“She did it for attention,” Laura said. “Emily’s always been dramatic. Don’t let her manipulate you.”
I remember staring at my kitchen wall, unable to speak. My best friend of twenty years had just dismissed her own child’s suicide attempt like a bad performance.
That was the moment something cracked.
Laura accused me the next day of “kidnapping” her daughter. Said I was poisoning Emily against her. Threatened to call the police. I told her to go ahead. The hospital records, the text messages, the therapist’s notes were all there.
She never did.
Emily stayed with me for six months. Therapy twice a week. Medication adjustments. Nightmares. Progress. Setbacks. Slowly, she began to smile again—small, tentative smiles, like she didn’t quite trust them yet.
And Laura? She stayed away. Partied. Posted beach photos. Lived her life.
This morning, I saw her again.
She was crying on the courthouse steps, mascara streaked down her face, screaming at a set of locked doors she wasn’t allowed to pass through.
Inside, her daughter was testifying.
And for the first time, Laura wasn’t the one controlling the story..
