I have a friend that has Bi-polar that wants too die.
I'll tell a personal and peculiar story here, but you can make what you think of it. It's part of my experience.
I was in a certain Presbyterian Church from the time I became a Christian at the age of 28 in late 1982 (bit of a giveaway - not much hair left these days), until I got married in September 1991 and moved away. I became Catholic a few years later. The pastor effectively "left" at the same time as he had developed cancer, and died in January 1992, just four months later.
However around Easter 1983 only about 6 months after I joined his church if I my memory is accurate, the pastor's eldest son committed suicide. He had bipolar like Johnboy53's friend. The pastor had five other sons who all did very well in their own trades, but for some unknown reason the eldest suffered badly from what was then called "manic-depression". He was either right up (manic) or right down (depressive - most of the time). I didn't get to know him very well, but I know it hit the family hard.
I almost wonder if Satan was allowed to put the pastor's family to the test to be honest eg. Job's children. It's just the sort of cruel vindictive thing he'd do, absolute mongrel that he is.
However the same pastor was also prophetic, and I developed a lot of respect for him.
In saying that, I'll point out a further peculiar event in that the night my father died in January 1979, he appeared in my room. I was an atheist at the time.
I won't go too much into the details as I've mentioned this before, and this is not the place, but he stated amongst other things "... you'll become a Christian..." and "You'll meet a pastor. You'll think he's great, but all he'll do is discourage you even more!...". The pastor my father was referring to was the same one I started to get to know nearly 4 years later in 1982, whom "... I thought was great...".
On the business of discouragement, towards the end of our dual time in that Presbyterian Church, the pastor said to me in his office, "I owe you an apology." I asked "Why?" He replied, "You needed encouragement, and all I've done is to discourage you even more!"
Now I'd told him about the business of my father's apparition a number of times, and I think he always wondered what exactly had happened. So I said to him, "That's interesting. I've told you about my father visiting me a number of times." He nodded. I continued, "Want to know one of the things he said?" I think he knew it wouldn't be good news, but he indicated I should continue.
I went on, "One of the things he said was 'You'll meet a pastor. You'll think he's great, but all he'll do is to discourage you even more!' And you've just quoted him back to me almost word for word!"
That shook the pastor, and he blurted out "You really did see your father that night!"
But to get back to the main thread - in turn amongst the pastor's predictions were "I think you'll become Catholic ... I think you might be happier there ... I think the Lord might use you to bring the churches together somehow... " (hasn't happened yet).
But he also said "I think you'll be doing a cleaning job for a short time. You won't like it much, but I think the Lord will just want you to hear about a ghost." There was a bit more, which I won't go into here.
Now I knew by that time just how accurate his predictions were but I was cynical. Cleaning job? I had an admin job already - cleaning!!? Ghost!!? And particularly, "...I think the
Lord will just want you to hear about a ghost..."
To me it sounded right over the top, so I ignored it. But I didn't forget it.
Fast forward to the early part of 2006 and I did a cleaning job for a short time, about four months. I didn't like it much (600 kilometres a week driving, split shifts, and other factors), but "I heard about a ghost". I'm not going into the whole story, but apparently a former manager of the store committed suicide sometime in the 1960's by hanging himself downstairs.
The previous cleaner who showed me the store told me he didn't like being there after 7pm as it seemed to do things to scare him. He said one night
all the stock on one complete row of shelves just jumped up and landed on the floor. At other times he could push a very heavy buffer (and I mean
heavy) with his little finger as something was pushing it with him.
But I felt positive vibes and had no trouble. If anything, I had this sense the "ghost" wanted me to do something for him. To cut a long story short, I ended up getting a mass said for this "ghost", ex-suicide a few years later. That's another story in itself.
I wonder if the reason "The
Lord wanted me to hear about this ghost" was
partly to get the message that some suicides don't go to hell. In this case, I think the former manager was working out his Purgatory (yes, I'm Catholic) by being confined to a
very boring store for over 40 years (which probably went under water in the 1974 floods to make it more miserable - great fun - spiritually imprisoned in a store underwater - dirty, dark, cold, grimy, full of mud etc).. But he wasn't in Hell. I suspect he was delivered by having the mass said, but I've never gone back there to find out, since the shop is a good 40 kilometres away from where I live, and I also wonder how I'd go about asking current staff about supernatural events that might well have ceased around 2010.
So will your friend go to hell if he commits suicide? I don't know. I wouldn't take the risk if I were him. As the writer of Hebrews pointed out, 10:31 "It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
In the end though, the judgement is up to God - not us. We just don't know all the circumstances.