Not really. If you phone a friend saying "I feel really depressed, I feel like I want to harm myself" then they might have time for a chat then and there, or tell you to come over to their house for some support and keeping an eye out for you... but they also might come out with "gosh, look, I'm sorry but I've got to go" or "I've got plans tonight, we'll have to get together at some point though" and never phone you back. Particularly if you ring them like this a lot. If, however, you phone a friend and tell them that you have taken an overdose, (in other words, that as well as the psychological upset there is now a serious and urgent physical problem that may result in a death), you will have their full and undivided attention for quite some time. That's the "point" for a fair few (not all) people in an overdose/phone a friend pattern, whether they are doing it on purpose or not, whether they realise they are doing it or not. I have sympathy for those who really are desperate and for whom this is the only way of getting *any* attention, and/or who don't realise what they're doing. The ones who piss me off are the ones with loads of family and friends around them being as supportive as they can be, who "fake it" - flushing tablets down the loo and then waving the empty container at everyone, etc - with no regard for the upset they are causing to those who care about them, simply because someone else has been ill/had a birthday/got good exam results/whatever, and has temporarily ousted them from the centre-of-attention pedestal.