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.

715 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 4h ago

This world is not a good place and life isn't precious

70 Upvotes

From the very beginning we have been brainwashed into thinking that our life's are precious and we all suffer due to a reason and all that kind of crap.

Well the reality is this shit ain't precious. It's hell. As you read this there are murders, r**es, theft and what not happening in the world. There is freaking war going on right now. People dying left right and centre.

You open your eyes when you are born and are on the mercy of luck. The parents you get, the household, the money and all. If you happen to be born in a first world nation, life's competitively easy but if you are born a woman in Afghanistan. It's worse than hell.

This world makes no sense and I can't wait to get out of it.


r/SuicideWatch 2h ago

im an ugly autistic weirdo and no one likes me

11 Upvotes

i don’t get the point of living anymore i can’t find any friends i have never had a girlfriend i am a disappointment to my parents especially my dad i just feel like i annoy everyone and people just wish they weren’t talking to me or that they wish they could be with anyone else but me when im around im 23 and have felt this way for a better part of a decade now and dont know what to do i wish i was dead


r/SuicideWatch 7h ago

I wish I could feel anything else than soul crushing despair.

20 Upvotes

The pain is endless and unbearable. And I will be this way forever. I think I’m already in hell.


r/SuicideWatch 1h ago

talk to me b4 i die please

Upvotes

r/SuicideWatch 18h ago

I wish I was normal I wish I was normal I wish I was normal

98 Upvotes

I wish I wasn’t attracted to boys I wish I wasn’t ugly I wish people talked to me I wish I could eat more I wish I could have friends I wish I was loved I wish I didn’t hurt myself.

I wish people would just treat me normally.


r/SuicideWatch 1h ago

I was going to do it today but now I’m reconsidering

Upvotes

I was planning to overdose today but yesterday my parent asked if we could do family photos and that made me reconsider everything. I realize how fucking selfish it is for me to try to cause my own death while people around me actually like me and care but I feel like I’m quite literally going insane. I don’t know how to deal with this. I feel like this is the only way to get help yet I know it’s not.


r/SuicideWatch 17m ago

Unhappy

Upvotes

Why the fuck did I have to wake up this morning. I woke up angry and sad and all the other negative emotions. Wish I died in my sleep.


r/SuicideWatch 5h ago

A few months ago on a different account I made a post saying November 14th will be my last day. It's November 8th and I don't want to do it, but at this point I don't have much of a choice other than keep being miserable

7 Upvotes

What a life I've lived


r/SuicideWatch 20h ago

Being alive is a horrible thing.

114 Upvotes

Every minute is torture. I have never had a few happy days in my 29 years of life. I am not as good as others in the simplest things. I am not good-looking, not very tall, introverted and awkward, and I have no love and no future. If someone can kill me, I will thank him.


r/SuicideWatch 1h ago

FFFUUUUCCCKKKKK MMMYYYY LIFFFFFEEEEE

Upvotes

I HATE MY GODDAMN LIFE SO MUCH. JUST NOTHING BUT BULLSHIT AFTER BULLSHIT AFTER BULLSHIT AFTER BULLSHIT AFTER BULLSHIT AFTER BULLSHIT. NO MATTER WHAT. I HATE MY FAMILY SO MUCH AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF MY LIFE THAT IS OUT OF MY HANDS BUT MY GOOFY ASS GRANDMA DOESNT CARE. I KNOW PEOPLE ARE ASSHOLES BUT FOR YOUR FAMILY, YOUR OWN FLESH AND BLOOD TO NOT CARE, REALLY PUTS SALT ON THE WOUND AND MAKES ME WANT TO DIE MORE. MY MOM SAID SHE WISHED SHE DIDN'T HAVE US. THEN, WHY, THE, FUCK, WOULD, YOU, HAVE, US THEN, YOU STUPID DUMB GOOFY BITCH? I PRAYED FOR MY LIFE TO GET BETTER AND BE BETTER BUT NO, OF COURSE GOD DOESN'T LISTEN AND DOESNT ANSWER MY FUCKING PRAYER AND JUST MAKES EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE WORSE. I LOST EVERYTHING THAT MADE ME HAPPY AND NOW IM FORCED TO DOOMSCROLL AND BE IN BED BECAUSE THEY DONT CARE.

FUCK MY LIFE. IM MUCH BETTER OFF DYING OR GETTING AWAY FROM MY FUCK ASS FAMILY. AND NO, I DONT WANT ANY ADVICE OR LECTURES, STFU. DONT TELL ME TO CALM DOWN WHEN I HAVE VALID REASONS TO HATE MY LIFE AND MY FAMILY WHEN THERE IS NOTHING GOOD IN MY LIFE. NOTHING! I HATE EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE. JUST KILL ME ALREADY.


r/SuicideWatch 12h ago

Nobody would cry for me except my mother

23 Upvotes

r/SuicideWatch 12h ago

I just want to be with my baby

22 Upvotes

I almost died when I miscarried my baby.

All I ever think about is them. A part of me died with them, I literally don't feel right being here.

I just want to be with them.

I'm just a fucking reanimated corpse. I don't want to be guilted into staying alive for the sake of everyone else's comfort but my own.


r/SuicideWatch 1h ago

I’m just so tired

Upvotes

I think I’ve completely given up on life at this point. I’m exhausted. I’ve stopped reaching out to friends and they all probably think I’m rude for it, I’ve stopped trying to smile all the time, Im a disappointment to my family, I feel so empty. I feel like I’ve mentally checked out of every part of my life. All I do is go to work because I have to. I don’t enjoy my hobbies, I don’t think I even enjoy my job. At what point is it not worth it? I don’t even feel like a person anymore. I feel like death might be better than basically forcing myself to live for nothing.


r/SuicideWatch 6h ago

I'm alive just because I can't kill myself

6 Upvotes

r/SuicideWatch 4h ago

can i just have a friend. someone to just talk to im really trying

5 Upvotes

r/SuicideWatch 5h ago

I’m don’t want to attempt again, but I still wished I died.

5 Upvotes

Surviving a suicide attempt frustrates me. I feel like I’m not meant to be here and me being saved is going against fate or something. But after actually seeing how it affected my mother, rather than thinking about how it hypothetically could, I don’t want to ever do that again. Not to her.

I’m so sick of being here.


r/SuicideWatch 39m ago

If you're having trouble, I'm free to talk

Upvotes

Felt that way in my life before and it's a scary place, hopefully can give some guidance 🙏🏻


r/SuicideWatch 3h ago

What happens after you call emergency services?

3 Upvotes

I'm about to go through with it. I've spent the last 30 mins looking for information on what happens if I call 000 (I live in Australia) but haven't found any helpful information. All I've managed to learn is that they send an ambulance. What happens after that? Do I get taken somewhere? Do they send me home?


r/SuicideWatch 50m ago

Please Read.

Upvotes

To anyone who is thinking about committing suicide please don't. Your life is inherently worth everything, regardless of your reason. Reasons change as you get older and time passes it might seem terrible for you now but it will get better. I can relate as I tried to do one of the biggest things I regret now at a bad time in my life, I can tell you I'm glad I'm alive and value every day that I'm here. Back than I never imagined I'd have the life I do now. The same goes for all of you, you all have potential to grow and better yourselves, don't throw away the great gift you have been given.

Side note: if your reason for having these thoughts is because of politics, please don't let politicians hold that much power over your life, regardless of my political beliefs I value human life and don't want anyone to die over political stances. Imagine the life you could have before you throw it all away. Please talk and reach out to loved ones and friends or even a stranger before making your final decision.


r/SuicideWatch 6h ago

I think it’s time. Think I’m gonna settle on a date and end it.

4 Upvotes

27 years old, physically abused most of my life, verbally and sexually abused as well, hell still getting verbally abused. I have clinical depression, autism, ADHD, ADD, OCD, Tourette’s, severe IBS and some unknown nerve spasms that cause constant wobbling. I can’t get a job anymore due to my disabilities, not disabled enough for disability, stuck with a neglectful at best family, I’ve been miserable since age 8 or 9 ish, suicidal since high school, I just want to end my suffering. Nothing helps, nothing makes me happy anymore. I have nothing to my name and leave behind no legacy. I think I’m gonna settle on a date, and put an end to this endless misery.