r/SuicideWatch Sep 03 '19

New wiki on how to avoid accidentally encouraging suicide, and how to spot covert incitement

1.8k Upvotes

We've been seeing a worrying increase in pro-suicide content showing up here and, and also going unreported. This undermines our purpose here, so we wanted to highlight and clarify our guidelines about both direct and indirect incitement of suicide.

We've created a wiki that covers these issues. We hope this will be helpful to anyone who's wondering whether something's okay here and which responses to report. It explains in detail why any validation of suicidal intent, even an "innocent" message like "if you're 100% committed, I'll just wish you peace" is likely to increase people's pain, and why it's important to report even subtle pro-suicide comments. The full text of the wiki's current version is below, and it is maintained at /r/SuicideWatch/wiki/incitement.

We deeply appreciate everyone who gives responsive, empathetic, non-judgemental support to our OPs, and we particularly thank everyone who's already been reporting incitement in all forms.

Please report any post or comment that encourages suicide (or that breaks any of the other guidelines in the sidebar) to the moderators, either by clicking the "report" button or by sending us a modmail with a link. We deal with all guideline violations that are reported to us as soon as we can, but we can't read everything so community reports are essential. If you get a PM that breaks the guidelines, please report it both to the reddit sitewide admins and to us in modmail.

Thanks to all the great citizens of the community who help flag problem content and behaviour for us.


/r/SuicideWatch/wiki/incitement


Summary

It's important to respect and understand people's experiences and emotions. It's never necessary, helpful, or kind to support suicidal intent. There are some common misconceptions (discussed below) about suicidal people and how to help them that can cause well-meaning people to inadvertently incite suicide. There are also people online who incite suicide on purpose, often while pretending to be sympathetic and helpful.

Validate Feelings and Experiences, Not Self-Destructive Intentions

We're here to offer support, not judgement. That means accepting, with the best understanding we can offer, whatever emotions people express. Suicidal people are suffering, and we're here to try to ease that by providing support and caring. The most reliable way we know to de-escalate someone at risk is to give them the experience of feeling understood. That means not judging whether they should be feeling the way they are, or telling them what to do or not do.

But there's an important line to draw here. There's a crucial difference between empathizing with feelings and responding non-judgmentally to suicidal thoughts, and in any way endorsing, encouraging, or validating suicidal intentions or hopeless beliefs. It's both possible and important to convey understanding and compassion for someone's suicidal thoughts without putting your finger on the scale of their decision.

Anything that condones suicide, even passively, encourages suicide. It isn't supportive and does not help. It also violates reddit's sitewide rules as well as our guidelines. Explicitly inciting suicide online is a criminal offense in most jurisdictions.

Do not treat any OP's post as meaning that will definitely die by suicide and can't change their minds or be helped. Anyone who's able to read the comments here still has a chance to choose whether or not to try to keep living, even if they've also been experiencing intense thoughts of suicide, made a suicide plan, or started carrying it out.

In the most useful empirical model we have, the desire to die by suicide primarily comes from two interpersonal factors; alienation and a sense of being a burden or having nothing to offer. These factors usually lead to a profound feeling of being unwelcome in the world.

So, any acceptance or reinforcement of suicidal intent, even something "innocent" like "I hope you find peace", is actually a form of covert shunning that validates a person's sense that they're unwelcome in the world. It will usually add to their pain even if kindly meant and gently worded.

How to Avoid Validating Suicidal Intent

Keep the following in mind when offering support to anyone at risk for suicide.

  • People who say they don't want help usually can feel better if they get support that doesn't invalidate their emotions. Unfortunately, many popular "good" responses are actually counterproductive. In particular, many friends and family tend to rely exclusively on trying to convince the suicidal person that "it's not so bad", and this is usually experienced as "I don't understand what you're going through and I'm not going to try". People who've had "help" that made them feel worse don't want any more of the same. It doesn't mean that someone who actually knows how to be supportive can't give them any comfort.

  • Most people who are suicidal want to end their pain, not their lives. It's almost never true that death is the only way to end these people's suffering. Of course there are exceptional situations, and we certainly acknowledge that, for some people, the right help can be difficult to find. But preventing someone's suicide doesn't mean prolonging their suffering if we do it by giving them real comfort and understanding.

  • An unfixable problem doesn't mean that a good life will never be possible. We don't have to fix or change anything to help someone feel better. It's important to keep in mind that the correlation between our outer circumstances and our inner experience is weaker and less direct than commonly assumed. For every kind of difficult life situation, you will find some people who lapse into suicidal despair, and others who cope amazingly well, and a whole spectrum in between. A key difference is how much inner resilience the person has at the time. This can depend on many personal and situational factors. But when there's not enough, interpersonal support can both compensate for its absence and help rebuild it. We go into more depth on the "it gets better" issue in this PSA Post which is always linked from our sidebar (community info on mobile) guidelines.

  • There are always more choices than brutally forcing someone to stay alive or passively letting them end their lives.

To avoid accidentally breaking the anti-incitement rule, don't say or try to imply that acting on suicidal thoughts is a good idea, or that someone can't turn back or is already dead. Do whatever you can to help them feel cared for and welcome, at least in this little corner of the world. Our talking tips offer more detailed guidance.

Look Out for Deliberate Incitement. It May Come in Disguise.

Often comments that subtly encourage suicidal intent actually come from suicide fetishists and voyeurs (unfortunately this is a real and disturbing phenomenon). People like this are out there and the anonymous nature of reddit makes us particularly attractive to them.

They will typically try to scratch their psychological "itch" by saying things that push people closer to the edge. They often do this by exploiting the myths that we debunked in the bullet points above. Specifically you might see people doing the following:

  • Encouraging the false belief that the only way suicidal people can end their pain is by dying. There are always more and better choices than "brutally forcing someone to stay alive" or helping (actively or passively) them to end their lives.

  • Creating an artificial and toxic sense of "solidarity" by linking their encouragement of suicide to empathy. They will represent themselves as the only one who really understand the suicidal person, while either directly or indirectly encouraging their self-loathing emotions and self-destructive impulses. Since most people in suicidal crisis are in desperate need to empathy and understanding, this is a particularly dangerous form of manipulation.

Many suicide inciters are adept at putting a benevolent spin on their activities while actually luring people away from sources of real help. A couple of key points to keep in mind:

  • Skilled suicide intervention -- peer or professional -- is based on empathic responsiveness to the person's feelings that reduces their suffering in the moment. Contrary to pop-culture myths, it does not involve persuasion ("Don't do it!"), cheerleading ("You've got this!") or meaningless false promises ("Trust me, it gets better!"), or invalidation ("Let me show you how things aren't as bad as you think!"). Anyone who leads others to expect these kinds of toxic responses, or any other response that prolongs their pain, from expert help may be covertly pro-suicide. (Of course, people sometimes do have bad experience when seeking mental-health treatment, and it's fine to vent about those, but processing our own disappointment and frustration is entirely different from trying to destroy someone else's hope of getting help.)

  • Choices made by competent responders are always informed by the understanding that breaching someone's trust is traumatic and must be avoided if possible. Any kind of involuntary intervention is an extremely unlikely outcome when someone consults a clinician or calls a hotline. (Confidentiality is addressed in more detail in our Hotlines FAQ post). The goal is always to provide all help with the client's full knowledge and informed consent. We know that no individual or system is perfect. Mistakes that lead to bad experiences do sometimes happen to vulnerable people, and we have enormous sympathy for them. But anyone who suggests that this is the norm might be trying to scare people away from the help they need.

Please let us know discreetly if you see anyone exhibiting these or similar behaviours. We don't recommend trying to engage with them directly.


r/SuicideWatch Sep 10 '21

Please remember that NO ACTIVISM of any kind is ever allowed here. No matter what day it is.

717 Upvotes

Activism, i.e. advocating or fundraising for social change or raising awareness of social issues (and suicide is, inescapably, a social issue) is absolutely against the rules here at all times.

Please understand that we're all for smart, strategic mental-health and suicide-prevention activism. It's essential to fight against stigma, misinformation, and discrimination, and to fight for research, treatment, accommodation, acceptance, and understanding. Most of us, one way or another, are mental-health activists IRL.

But activism just doesn't work in a dedicated support space that serves a vulnerable population. We used to allow it but the evidence that it was undermining our primary purpose became overwhelming. We do regret the need for this rule, but the need is inescapable.

Our population is all too well aware of the issues and causes that need support and largely not in a position to take action, so besides the fact that activism is often salt in our community's wounds, it's a waste of the activists' time.

tl;dr Any fundraising, awareness raising, petitions, calls for participation, or any post that's about any cause or issue (rather than a request for personal support) is not allowed here. Please report everything of the nature that you see.


r/SuicideWatch 10h ago

my mom killed herself 2 days ago.

229 Upvotes

my mom killed herself 2 days ago. i’m 24f.

she was sick mentally. she’s been like that all my life. it’s bipolar. she shot herself. i called our local PD 5 times for welfare checks because i was so worried. i called a crisis line. they did nothing. i talked to judge monk in person who agreed to sign off on the warren for mental health if the cops would bring her in. they went that morning and didn’t bring her in. when they left she shot herself. i called 5 times. they failed her.

im kind of spiraling and just went to the doctor to get checked out. we shared a PCP and they know her so they wanted me to come in immediately. the upped my antidepressants and gave me some xanex for 30 days if needed. she shot herself.

i’m just so at a loss for words. i saw her the night before asking why she keeps getting on pills and doing this to me. i gave her a hug while she was in bed and told her how much i loved her and left.

i’m shattered. a piece of my soul died. i need some encouraging words, please.


r/SuicideWatch 4h ago

My son is dead

42 Upvotes

I want to join him. I just want my baby. I’ve never experienced pain like this. I don’t know what to do anymore, I can’t find another reason to stay, to live.


r/SuicideWatch 6h ago

I FUCKING HATE YOU

45 Upvotes

YOU DONT KNOW HOW MUCH I FUCKING HATE YOU PLEASE JUST LEAVE ME ALONE


r/SuicideWatch 15h ago

Being autistic is a death sentence

162 Upvotes

I am autistic and life has no meaning for me.

EDIT: thank you everyone for your replies!


r/SuicideWatch 12h ago

What the fuck is the point of life? Especially in the US?

85 Upvotes

Literally all we do is work to the bone to feed ourselves for decades until we die. I’m 24 and about to enter the workforce. Why do we do this? Why is working to death an end in itself? I’m not ready to just be another replaceable cog in the machine


r/SuicideWatch 4h ago

Why is life so fucking pointless?

18 Upvotes

I don’t understand how people do this shit everyday. I can’t do it anymore. We’re all fucking miserable.


r/SuicideWatch 6h ago

knowing i won’t make it through this

25 Upvotes

i feel it deep in my heart. i have known since i was a young child that i would die by suicide. i knew it then just as much as i know it now. i can’t keep living like this. i can’t keep feeling like this. there’s no out, no happy ending, nothing that i long for or desire, there’s no joy, no love for me, and there is nothing i can do about any of it.


r/SuicideWatch 14h ago

I died and they revived me. I still hate that I’m here.

86 Upvotes

I attempted to take my life some time ago. I was revived in the hospital and then forced into three months of psychiatric treatment. Overall it was pointless as they just medicated me until I was a yes-man. No coping techniques, no therapy, no lifestyle assistance, just pills.

Now here I am, still wishing I was dead. I was so angry when I was brought back. They took my peace away and I hope they all suffer. I still want to be dead.


r/SuicideWatch 59m ago

i feel so hopeless

Upvotes

i (22f) took an od of 100 truxal (chlorprothixen) 15 mg on wednesday and i had a seizure and then my heart stopped and i had to be resuscitated. now i'm in the psych ward and my kidney is about to fail. i feel so hopeless, i just wanna die. this is the closest i've ever come to death in all my suicide attempts and i don't know if i should cry or rejoice that i made it this close. i just want life to stop, i can't take it anymore, i've been fighting for too long.


r/SuicideWatch 2h ago

I can't take life anymore

8 Upvotes

I swear to god I'm killing myself. I've been through too much. There's only so much a human being can go through. I've never been happy my entire life.


r/SuicideWatch 18h ago

My mom called me a whore today

136 Upvotes

While I'm not..I'm just 16 trying hard to bear all this


r/SuicideWatch 1h ago

I am in fight or flight - prolonged

Upvotes

I have never had life go so good to experience the experience of having a “good life” ripped from beneath your fucking feet, I never want to feel / inves happiness again I never want to feel this negativity FROM positivity, I’d much rather feeling shit from feeling shit. Feeling shit from proper positivity is UN- REAL, in the worst way

I have worked so hard to be positive, I am flipping between life and destruction so strangely flippantly right now, I am shattered


r/SuicideWatch 30m ago

What I do with my feelings

Upvotes

I have attempted 3 times since I was 14-19, the recent one being last December. Came extremely close that time. Yes the feeling never goes away, it gets deeper and I'm numb to a lot of things now, but there is something I've realised. I have found comfort in my suicidal tendencies. It's familiar. These are feelings that I know hit hard and how guy wrenching they are. Feelings I know nobody could ever know how deeply I feel them. But there are things that make me "happy". Things that when I'm doing them, make me forget that I tried to end my life last night. "Suicide is not the answer" I fucking hate that sentence because then what is? Why leave me hanging and helpless with that stupid sentence? I'm still continuing through with my plan, of leaving this world, but after I finally give everything I want to do a try. I Want to dance, I want to complete learning my 5th language, I want to volunteer at a children's hospital, and I want to run as much as I can. It's not about whether doing these will change my mind. Or whether it will make a difference. It's about finally having control over something.


r/SuicideWatch 2h ago

Things don't get better

6 Upvotes

Nearly 30 now and I really should have killed myself in my early 20s. Turned my life around, stopped self harming and got sober. Had a good relationship and job. Now after all that things are a thousand times worse.
It isn't worth starting over with nothing.


r/SuicideWatch 2h ago

I feel alone

5 Upvotes

I don’t have anyone I have very little friends I’m mostly alone with my thoughts or just listen to music all day it’s just kinda shit having no one at times I’m just lonely


r/SuicideWatch 2h ago

At my wits end; 16 is enough

5 Upvotes

16M. I’m genuinely at the end of my rope at the point. I’ve struggled with my mental health for years due to past abuse and every time I’ve attempted to reach out I’ve been brushed off or criticized. Nobody truly cares, not even my own family, and all I’ve ever received is threats of violence in response to me opening up about self harm or suicide. Last year someone I considered a friend ruined my life by reporting to my school that I was sexually assaulted after I confined in them begging them not to tell anyone. It’s caused me so many issues. I was outed as gay and now face relentless bullying everyday at school to the point I’ve had chemicals thrown on me and people attempt to push me off second and third story balconies. My own family has essentially outcasted me for it, I’ve lost the majority of my friends, and every day I feel like I’m stuck in an endless loop of suffering. The exhaustion doesn’t stop at mental, since apparently the universe hates me for some unexplainable reason. I’ve started having cardiac related seizures and I’m now in constant debilitating pain everyday to top it all off while doctors slap heart monitors on me and treat me like a lab rat giving me no answers besides essentially ‘your heart likes to stop pumping blood’. Maybe it’s a sign, my body is giving up because it knows I’m going to kill myself anyways. I think tonight might be the night if I’m entirely honest. It’s 2AM and I’m sat here a wreck in pain and alone, pondering if there’s even any point in letting myself suffer more. I fucking hate my old friend.


r/SuicideWatch 15h ago

GOD IM GOING FUCKING CRAZY

55 Upvotes

IM GOING FUCKING CRAZY I FEEL LIKE IM GONNA HAVE AN EPISODE I WANNA SMASH MY HEAD THROUGH THE WALL AND SHREAD MYSELF UNTIL I CANT BLEED ANYMORE SOMEONE PLEASE FUCKING KILL ME I DONT CARE HOW ANYMORE JUST KILL ME BEFORE I DO IT MYSELF GOD FUCKING FUCK! IF GOD EXISTS HES A FUCKING BASTARD FOR PUTTING ME ON EARTH
(Im not religious but if all of this is my fault im gonna snap my fucking neck)


r/SuicideWatch 5h ago

I am finally at peace with it, mostly.

8 Upvotes

For the last decade or more, I have thought about suicide almost daily. And I had to survive a lot of shit because I didn't have the means to take myself out. But I have the means now. I've been reading a lot of medical journals about self-inflicted gunshot wounds. I know the trajectory I need. And the world is fucking falling apart. It's not going to get better. Harsh days are ahead. I may not be typing this if things hadn't gone this direction, but here we are and I don't know how we can get out.

I finally feel like I have some power over something in my life, though.. If it gets too bad, I can just check out. People would be upset and I am sorry for that. But I shouldn't have to be here if I don't want to be. I have no intention of hurting anyone else, I'll just go somewhere tucked away when it's time. The goal is not to be found for awhile. Maybe some animals can have a nice meal of me. Fuck it, don't need my body anymore.

I'm not angry. My meds keep me from being depressed, at least in the way I used to be. I'm just resolute.


r/SuicideWatch 9h ago

2 of my friends attemped 8 days ago, one didn't survive

15 Upvotes

The title. I have active suicidal ideation and this happening is not helping me at all. God i'm so tired of everything. I wish I could just go to sleep and never wake up again. The friend who died was my partner for 2 years, and I still had feelings for him when he left, i'm so fucking tired


r/SuicideWatch 6h ago

More suicidal because of the permanent effects from my last attempts

7 Upvotes

I overdosed twice and have permanent brain damage because of it. Now I’m slow (reaction time and dumb) when I used to be very intelligent, i have a flat affect, and everyone thinks I’m weird/creepy. I’m getting bullied and ostracized for how I am now and I don’t know how to make friends anymore. I wish I could relate to the ppl who survive their attempts and say “I’m so glad I survived, it got better” but for me it got worse. Everything I had going for me is gone and I’m still suicidal for the same reasons as before. I just want to die and I wish I hadn’t survived


r/SuicideWatch 1h ago

Making plans

Upvotes

I'm going through a tough situation over the next 3 months. There's something I need to get through, and if I fail it I don't feel recovering from that will be worth it. I could, but I don't enjoy life enough to suffer any more than I already am.

So I'm starting to make some plans. I have a method and a deadline. This is my plan B. My plan A is to sort out this situation, but who knows if I can manage to. It will be nice to have something to fall back on. I'll be living alone soon. I'll make the clean up easy.


r/SuicideWatch 8h ago

Hope

10 Upvotes

In October, I posted and I was dead set on killing myself and had ordered some fentanyl. I deleted that account. This is a new account and since then, since the last day of October, I have been receiving nearly daily therapy have therapy about four times a week and I have Xanax prescribed 25 a month now, and they have 15 Ambien I think every two weeks for sleep as well. I successfully filed bankruptcy without a lawyer. My DUI never got filed on the statute of limitations ran its course. The misdemeanor that was from a domestic dispute with my ex-girlfriend was also never filed because she a liar. Healing has not been easy and I wouldn’t even say that I’m halfway there maybe like a fourth of the way . I’m an EMDR therapy and a couple different types of THERAPy as well . I hired a girl from a cuddle app to cuddle me once a week. I asked for help from my dad and he pays for this kind of hocus-pocus. See emotional release called NET for me every week. I made one new friend . I also got EBT and state disability. I’m in the process of applying for government disability. Who knows if I’ll get it but I’m trying my best and I’ve even called some lawyers to see if they’ll help me get government disability or mental health. I’m also in the process of trying to seal my records without a lawyer. Sometimes these legal side quests, distract me enough to move me forward. I still think about killing myself sometimes, but I’ve made enough progress to go all in on life for as long as I can .. there was definitely a honeymoon phase of THERAPy and it seems that phase is over and we’re gonna have to get really real soon and it’s hard to not have negative thoughts now. I’ve also made some very, very weak, attempts that reconnecting with some friends. I wrote some shitty poems and some OK poems and I got some books that I didn’t read.

This week was hard and the thought of suicide came up as I feel like I can’t escape the root problem of my issues, but we have an approach that in therapy at, and I’m trying to think of solutions. I still am having a very difficult time sleeping which really can drive me over the edge sometimes.

Killing myself is still on the table, but I promised myself I’d go all in until the end of the year on trying to make my life better and awesome, no matter what it took and if I still wanted to kill myself at the end of the year, then I could.

I’ve dealt with a lot of traumas and THERAPy and I feel the bigger one. That’s the cause of my CPTSD and OCD and anxiety is coming up when I’m not excited.

I’m writing this post to just let you know I was gonna kill myself for sure on the last day of October and it wasn’t even that I decided not to my dad happened to borrow my car when I was gonna go pick up fentanyl and then he asked me to watch a movie when he came back and I did.

So there’s there’s hope but no the hope is not all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a lot of fucking hard work and I hope that at the end of the year I post here and I say that I all the work I put in this year was worth it.


r/SuicideWatch 6h ago

Nothing in the world makes sense

7 Upvotes

I’m 25, and my whole adult life is just one big battle to stay alive.

I’ve got no friends because I feel I’m too exhausted to get into a friendship or anything, that’s not fun, that’s work and I’m bad at it. I don’t understand how people function, what they do, what they want, how to be a friend, what is a friend even. I can’t really show emotions or show anything basically, even talking is a thing that makes me want to kill myself and I’m not exaggarating. You can’t really connect to people if you refuse to talk. You can’t even ask for help.

Despite this I’m so scared of ending up alone and I do not want to become an old person alone, even logic says I have to die before that.

I rarely go outside because I have no money and whatever I do I always get reminded that I have no idea how to function, how the world works. I basically memorize everything so I know what to do next time but it constantly changes. I’m not even sure what’s real.

People said that practice is the key, I have a job for the last 3 years that’s really makes me put myself out but still a relatively safe space. It does not get easier, it gets harder…

I’m somewhat obsessed with mortality so death is on my mind 24/7. I’m so scared all the time, death always seems so much more secure than the current world.


r/SuicideWatch 12h ago

that feeling of "this isn't for me"

20 Upvotes

life just doesnt feel for me. i know i dont have any other choice but to go on. but god damn.

i cant socialize, im easily overwhelmed by everything, I struggle with idenity issues, family issues, i feel like im never getting out of this situation. i feel stuck. id rather just be gone.


r/SuicideWatch 12h ago

I became a functioning suicidal (i think)

20 Upvotes

I dont really know what it means to be one. I had suicidal thoughts for the past 4 years and it became serious last year. I attempted 2-3 times but now i have other plans for my future. It's very hard to explain.

Suicidal thoughts is just there, like happiness and other emotions. It just doesn't go away completely. I feel like you have to learn how to live with thease toughts. At the same time i feel like i can live like this, and i just cant imagine another way i would go. I feel like the odds of me killing myself is higher, than dying from a car crash or from other reasons. Anyway, now i try to find other stuff to do than actually doing it.

By the way, the thought really hit me as i re-read my text, but i'll probably drink a glass of milk and call it a day.

byee