take them to a doctor probably need anti-depressents

Yes, medication and also, be there to genuinely listen to them and let them talk about their problems every day to you and help them out. It might get tiring on your part, but always be there for them and try to solve it & do tell someone else, their family, a doctor, a church member-priest, nun, or someone, but just be there:)

i'd tell them to find a reason to start living then. Death may be the easy way out but going to the doctor and talking with someone who knows everything you are going though can really help you get your head out of that fog... *i'm like the Zoloft sponsor over here

that is a hard question. and a very hard situation. first of all they need a reason to live. someone should tell them that they need them. Tell them how hard it would be without them

Point out all the people that will be affected by their death - Their family, their friends, people THEY don't know who know them, people of their age, people they've not yet met, etc. Share some of your own "down times", and why you never felt the need to end your own life. Try to understand WHY they feel there's no point, and rebut the argument, while making them feel, and letting them know that you DO care. If you feel at all overwhelmed by trying to help them, suggest they call a crisis center/suicide hotline. And if you feel it's inevitable, call the police.

Get them to speak to a counselor and help them realize that someone is always worse off than they are. Help them see what they have to live for.

Help them get professional help and help them realize that they have a lot to live for and let them know that there are people who are in far worse situations than they are. Most importantly, be there for them.

I'd show them this excerpt from one of my favorite articles about suicide: "The average person lives to be about 75 years old. So if you're less than 38 and have more than half of your life left, the odds are that, for instance, the funniest joke you'll ever hear in your life is one you haven't heard yet. It's just statistics. Odds are you also haven't yet... ...met the girl you'll love the most; ...met your best friend; ...heard your favorite album; ...started the best job you'll ever have; ...read the best book; ...seen the best movie or played the coolest video game; ...found the hobby you're most interested in; ...had the best sex; ...had the most original, mind-blowing idea; ...met the dumbest person you'll ever meet; ...or seen the stupidest haircut. You can make your own list. Look around your room, look around your life. If you're less than 38, the sheer odds are that the future holds a more awesome version of everything you see. You've got to weigh all of that shit. You're not really even conscious of your life until age 7 or 8, so to decide it's all bullshit after just ten or fifteen more years is like judging a movie by its poster. " From this article: http://www.cracked.com/article_15658_ten-minute-suicide-guide.html

That's tough. Philosophers have argued for thousands of years, and one of the big questions is "why live at all, as opposed to killing oneself or allowing oneself to die?". Angles have come up from various religions. Non-religious philosophical theories have suggested things such as "intrinsic value" in life, or attempts to define, absolutely, a "meaning of life" which would provide a "point to living" for a person feeing this way. None of those arguments seem satisfactory to me. Every argument for the "meaning of life" or "why not just die?" that I have read or heard seems to be reducible to (1) preference disguised as a "self-evident" axiom, (2) circular reasoning, (3) an infinite regress, or (4) dishonesty about the necessity of making one or more assumptions. Based on that, I feel obliged by intellectual honesty to suspend my judgement - it seems right now that, although there might be an answer, one way or the other, there also might not be, and nothing I've encountered suggests any living or deceased human has ever known either way. It seems to me that, given that situation, one can only treat a desire to live as a preference (however indirectly), not necessarily better or worse than a desire to die, or just not caring. Starting from that point, I think we can help someone who doesn't see the point of living, in an intellectually honest manner. An argument can be made that it certainly feels evident that we live, that we exist, or at least that our mind exists. This feeling of "being sure" about that is what led Descartes to conclude that "I think, therefore I am" was the one thing he could know for sure - although I would argue that it is merely something to which we are forced by the way our brains work to give involuntary acceptance, and it may or may not be true that an "I" exists at all. However, by way of the requirements of practical life, we may not be capable of acting or thinking in a way that does not presuppose the "I", even if it is involuntary. If we start from that, we can also speak ex concessis to the evidence that the brain seems to generate this mind's "I" with which we identify ourselves. When the brain's identity critical information is irreparably damaged, not long after death in most cases, we can conclude, based on that assumption, that death will be the end of the mind, and hence, of choices, options, hope. Even if we don't make that assumption, we can easily point out that people who believe that the self lives on after death aren't SURE of that, and sometimes don't even feel sure of it. For this reason, perhaps some atheists may convert in foxholes, but perhaps moreso, many people of faith fear death when facing it themselves. We are forced by the nature of our minds to feel "sure" about our own living consciousness existing, but there does not seem to be any forced sense of "feeling sure" about continuing after death - it is an act of faith and takes effort. Of course, both or neither propositions, "that we exist now" and "we will survive after death", may be true or false, or both or neither, or one or the other. Our feeling of "sureness" for even the most obvious things should never be confused for real justified certainty, or else we're guilty of intellectual dishonesty. That said, since we seem compelled to act practically based on what we "feel sure" about, and we "feel sure" about our own living existence, and not about alternatives which may come afterwards, it seems to make sense, as an argument similar to "Pascal's wager", to present that although we MAY very well persist after death, we only feel sure about this life, and that, if we treat the one life that seems sure like garbage, and pointless, we risk everything we are, whereas if we treat it as everything, we risk nothing. Of course, someone who says they don't see a point to living anymore may be mentally ill, suffering from some level of depression, and rational arguments, or arguments from self-preservation or self-interest, may not be effective there. In these cases, where there is mental illness, we are obliged to advise the person to seek medical assistance so they may once again be of sound mind. If the person seems likely to harm themselves, we are obliged to force medical assistance upon them until they are once again of sound mind and can make reasonable choices on their own.