Dear Prudence,
A very kind and generous friend of mine, who was also neuroatypical and feared rejection, committed suicide over the holidays. We met at a sports club that was the hub of our social life and stayed in contact through social media after I moved away. Last summer, he wrote to ask me whether I thought he was a good person, as someone else from the club had accused him of harassment and he was being suspended for a year. (No police report was ever filed, nor was there a hearing for him to present his side of the story—he was simply suspended by the club president.) He asked whether I believed he could do something like that and whether I still trusted him. I told him that while I considered him one of the good guys, I didn’t have the facts and really couldn’t say. He himself said he’d “behaved inappropriately,” but that could just be his lack of a filter. I told him that one way or another, he needed to talk to a therapist about how to deal with it, whether that’s making amends for something he’d actually done or finding ways to deal with unjust allegations.
I know that many sexual predators get away with it simply through convincing everyone else they’re good people. But he also seemed genuinely distressed when he contacted me, and I believe the damage to his reputation and social life were a huge contributing factor in his death. I’m not asking for a ruling on whether he did it or was wrongly accused. I just wonder—should I have expressed unconditional support, knowing he was already struggling with mental health issues? What could I have done differently?
—Supporting a Friend