TW: Suicide. My [24] aunt [29] wants to go low contact with my family except me. She is struggling with suicide thoughts and I don’t know what I can do to help.

First sorry if there’s some typos. English it’s not my first language. So, I have an aunt “Amy” she is the youngest of my mom family side and we are only 5 years apart, so we are very close. All her life she is struggling with her mental health. She grew up in a toxic environment with her parents (my grandparents) and that affects her a lot until this day. Also, she lives the closest to them (1 hour drive) while all her siblings live a flight away. So, since everyone it’s far away she is in “charge” to see how their parents are doing. My aunt hates to go there because her parents always fight but she can’t just not go NC with them because they are very old and if some emergency happens she needs to be there. This dynamic has been hurting her for a long time and it’s getting into her breaking point.

We are very close even if we live very far away so I visit her like twice a year when I have the money. She is very kind and I really love her. since we are very close on age our relationship it’s more like cousins rather than aunt-niece. She understands me a lot with my feelings (I’m a very emotional person) and gives me a lot of emotional support when I’d need it.

So last week she calls me and told me she was in a very bad place. Her parents relationship it’s getting worse and she is being suicidal. she was admitted in the hospital for a day and now her friends are taking care of her. Even one of them it’s staying with her, and she is also getting therapy. Her therapist advises her that she need it to cut contact with her parents and go LC with people who is not helping with her mental health. That include her siblings. She hasn’t told to her siblings about this. They think she had an easy life compared to them because they were poorer when they live with their parents and also they criticize her a lot because “she is too emotional” but she still wants to talk with me. I really care about her so I’m happy that she is getting help, but in the other hand I’m a little worried also.

So now she is not answering the phone of any of their siblings, and they are worried about her, but I don’t want to say what she told me. My mom has been asking if I been talking to her, but I only have said she is fine. I don’t think it’s good to hide that someone is being suicidal, but I know she is having a good support system with their friends. I think if her family finds out it would only blow up and they would be mad at her because she is not “strong enough” and the comments “you have everything it your life why are you so upset?” would do nothing good to her.

I know what it feels to be suicidal. Some years ago, I was in that same state. She helped me a lot to deal with that feelings because I couldn’t find emotional support in my family and now I want to know what I can do to help her at least a tiny bit to feel better. I’m going to visit her next week so I’m happy I would meet her.