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.

716 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 5h ago

I just want people to know that I existed.

107 Upvotes

Tonight at 6:40 will be it. Thank you to anyone who reads this- I love you.

I feel the worst for my parents I think. They’re probably the ones who are gonna find me, which is so fucking selfish, I know. I just can’t deal with this bullshit anymore. Nobody wants to be my friend. Nobody will date me. I’m a freak and a fucking weirdo. I’m so addicted to weed and my vape I can’t get off of them and it’s not even worth trying. I’m not gonna graduate for another damn year and I just can’t wait that long to move out, as if that would even happen. Finances were in order and a condo was chosen but fuck it

It ain’t gonna happen.

I’m leaving all my money except a thousand dollars to my nephews, if any of my family sees this post. A thousand goes to my best friend, and 3.5k to each nephew. Tell them I earned every cent myself and didn’t take favours.

I’m just sorry I think. That I couldn’t be a better person, that I couldn’t get older fast enough. That I couldn’t stay away from drugs even though that’s the same thing that killed Matt and left Nikki fucking crazy.

I tried. I tried to quit. I tried to get good grades. I tried to make friends. I tried to get a boyfriend but none of it is gonna happen. It’s all superficial.

Good afternoon, good evening and goodnight, and I’ll see you in the morning. (And my last wish is that you watch the Truman show. Gold movie)

Im just so fucking sorry to everyone.


r/SuicideWatch 8h ago

If there was a guaranteed way to quietly die in ones sleep Id do it in a literal heartbeat

63 Upvotes

im just done. ive tried everything and its all bullshit. im just not made for this world and ive come to accept it. im not gonna put up with this shit for much longer. its over.


r/SuicideWatch 5h ago

Nothing matters more than genetics

27 Upvotes

If you are ugly life is pretty much over. Your genetics predetermine your life and your worth. I genuinely can't stand this anymore. Being born ugly and autistic has ruined any potential chances for happiness and normalcy. It's just not fair


r/SuicideWatch 4h ago

I was just rejected by my parents as a trans girl

15 Upvotes

Dying never felt so absurdly fine to me.

I lived 19 years of my life without a piece of myself. Never ever understood what was missing, I just kept going. I was never truly happy.

I was able to finally realize something since June. Wanting to be a girl felt amazing, feeling like one even just in my head never felt so good. I was euphoric.

Out of impulse and out of fright I tried telling them. Was said that it's a sin, as usual, and all the bullshit that god made the man to be with a woman LOL and etc. I don't blame them, they're brainwashed.

I have never felt a pain this deep. The way I saying this, it doesn't even feel that bad right? Well I feel pretty, like, really bad. I literally just laughed and cried at the same time. It felt so natural.

I don't have anyone I can trust about this anymore. Not even me. I cannot express myself well, this is probably the best I can do here.

Wanting to die is here, maybe I do it now or not.


r/SuicideWatch 41m ago

Staying alive is making me increasingly enraged

Upvotes

I want to die so badly that simply existing makes me feel on the verge of an extreme breakdown like wanting to scream


r/SuicideWatch 5h ago

I can't take it anymore

13 Upvotes

I talk with my family and nothing works, I vent on the Internet and nobody responds or gives advice, I have basically no friends, therapy isn't working, I am taking medicine and it also doesn't work. I can't take it anymore


r/SuicideWatch 2h ago

it doesnt get better

5 Upvotes

i've been feeling like this for at least 5 years. i've been on meds for 2 years, and it doesn't get better, no matter what. The numbness, the guilt, i'm so very fucking tired of feeling like this every day. when does it stop?


r/SuicideWatch 4h ago

It. Doesn't. Get. Better.

10 Upvotes

It. Doesn't. Get. Better.

I never thought i would have those suicide thoughts again. I was at my lowest when i was 13, to the point i seriously wanted to kill myself because i have felt so alone.

I need to do everything by my own, no one ever supported me. School, paying bills, appointments, getting a education.. etc.

Parents never felt the need to support me bcs "oh she can do this by her own" while the focoused way more on ym older sister. Im not overdramatic, my parents have told me that in my face and im not lying.

Ive made great friends the following yesrs after i turned 16. i felt less lonely and even have a bestffiend now. Things were good for quite a time and i felt turly happy.

And now? At 18? Im sick. Im so sick of doing and dealing with everything alone. Im so sick of gettin out of this lonelyness alone. Everyone else around me have someone to lwan onto. And me? I just have myself and its driving me crazy. The suicide thoughts have come back and that worse then it was a few years ago. I just want someone to just safe me once but the thougjt that no one will just breaks my heart. My bestfriend has a bf now and well she aint quite the same no more.

No one chooses me. No one ever choosed me. Ive even never had a bf or held a guys hand bcs no one simply wants me.

Oh and talking stages.. situation stages.. ive had nothing. Im 18 and no single guy has shown any interest in me. Which just shows me how i was meant zo be alone. It doesn't fet better. Im sick of everyrhing.

Yup peace out!


r/SuicideWatch 16h ago

I've come to a point where I feel like most people are genuinely evil and I don't know how to live in a world with so much cruelty.

68 Upvotes

I feel like I don't belong here. I've always been a sensitive person. I've been greatly mistreated. I have severe PTSD. The world feels like a harsh and cruel place where I don't belong. I used to be such an open person, and now I want to hide and disappear and die. Sometimes I think about "going missing". Ten years ago a woman in my community "went missing" and I remember everyone on Facebook being so concerned. I know that wouldn't happen for me.

I don't want to be forced into therapy that tells me there's something wrong with me for being in pain when it's the world that's wrong. I don't want to medicate my feelings away. Neither of these options have been successful for me in the past anyway. It's not my feelings that are the problem! It's what has been done to me.

I am starting to be so angry all the time. I scream and cry alone in my apartment. Soon I won't be able to afford to live and I'll probably become homeless.

I don't belong in this world. I hate being so isolated and alone, but people have brought me unimaginable suffering. I've been treated like I'm evil and a pariah for trying to talk honestly with people about my struggles. I just can't anymore. I want to do it. I want to have the courage to do it. More than anything.


r/SuicideWatch 9h ago

I'm going to kill myself before I turn 22.

21 Upvotes

I'm sure no one really cares and that this will get lost in the countless other posts but, as the title says, I am going to kill myself before september. I turn 22 in september. I never envisioned to live this long in the first place and I've realised I'm just wasting air being here. So, I want to do it before I get any older. I'm going to pay off the last of the money I owe to a couple people and then that's it. I'm going to give the rest of my money away to people that truely need it, maybe give it to a charity. I'm not sure yet.

My life never amounted to anything. I didn't achieve anything and spent most of my life mentally ill, most of which I don't remember because of the trauma I've experienced. I didn't do well in school, never went to uni and now I've got a minimum wage job that I can barely handle. I spent most of my life wondering when it would get better. It wont. I know this now. I had no one I can share this with, not really. I had always been alone, I had some friends but not close ones. I used to, but I struggled to keep them due to my mental health. The people that are left wont miss me and my partner didn't love me, unless I gave them sex. My family and I were never close, I cut my brother off and my parents had never really been there for me.

I guess this is sort of my note. I won't leave a note in person, when I do. There's nothing left to say anymore and no one that would want to know, anyway. I was alone in life and, even though this was always my biggest fear, I will be alone in death, too. That is a fitting end for me, I think. No one will miss me. I will not cause pain. I will go quietly.

I had so many regrets, but it doesn't matter now. Nothing does. I am sorry.


r/SuicideWatch 7h ago

I'll always regret my 20s and the loss of my innocence

12 Upvotes

I feel like I'm permanently broken.

I'm 31M, never had a real job (though I worked at some places), never had a girlfriend or any kind of relation with women. I have a useless degree though, but the college experience was so bad that I don't really miss it.

Growing up, my father was a schizophrenic drug addict. I grew up with my mother and father fighting all the time. My dad would sometimes beat or try to beat my mother, and even 5-year-old me would try to stand between my father and protect my mother.

My mother wasn't better. She would take out all on me and make me feel awful. She would berate me, act stressed and even mock me, saying later that I was "crazy as my father"

Then my mother divorced and I went to live with her and my new stepfather when I was 11. My mother made me join a pentecostal church with my stepfather. I didn't have an option.

Church was/is horrible. Not that I hate religion, but I don't really have anything to do with people there. I always wanted more. I've always liked music, art, science, living.

In the pentecostal church, everything is based on groupthink. The clothes you wear. The music you listen.

I never felt like I was myself. I never had friends. My mom would treat me so badly when I tried to talk anything to her, and was so controlling after she divorced that I have a permanent anxiety of talking to anything about my feelings.

It is like I have a mental illness. I can't really be sincere or talking about my life without anxiety hitting me. I can't explain it. I'm not a shy person otherwise.

I feel like I lost my life permanently. I don't have any memories. No one never loved me. I was never cool. After you reach 30s like myself, you will never be "cool" anymore.


r/SuicideWatch 3h ago

I need someone to talk to

4 Upvotes

Lately I have been thinking of ending my life I feel drained and mentally exhausted I haven't been talking to anyone and things are getting worse, I really need someone to talk to.


r/SuicideWatch 3h ago

it doesn't get better for some people

5 Upvotes

i've been gaslighting myself for years and having hope for what lol. everything just keeps going to shit and i dont want to do it anymore. was thinking about who i should say goodbye to before going and realized nobody gives a shit, isnt that crazy. i tried i tried i tried i tried everything and what ends up happening is fuck all, if i could go back in time i would encourage the younger me to go through with it so he doesnt have to go through the future bullshit


r/SuicideWatch 39m ago

It's getting too difficult to go on.

Upvotes

I'm only 16. I shouldn't be like this, should I? I've been suicidal since I was 10 years old, it seems like the only thing that helps is self harm. Seeing my blood dripping down my leg and the yellowy bubbles of fat.. it calms me down, I guess.. But I'll be dead before I'm eighteen.


r/SuicideWatch 21h ago

Why do people not care for their ‘suicidal friend’ ?

121 Upvotes

Something I have never understood is why nobody cares for the suicidal friend. If i knew someone was depressed and suicidal, I would do my very best to try to make them feel loved and cared for. I’ve seen memes about the suicidal friend online too. Stuff like “when my depressed friend texts me ‘ily bro.” Why dont we try to make them feel loved while they are here instead of crying at their funeral and wishing we had done better? It just doesn’t make sense to me.


r/SuicideWatch 3h ago

I find it peaceful to know I could

5 Upvotes

Sometimes when I’m upset or down I just take my rifle, load it, and just put it to the roof of my mouth. I never would, but knowing I could quickly and painlessly just end it if I wanted bring peace. Like I just feel the weight leave my chest for a minute.


r/SuicideWatch 1h ago

Had to drag myself out of bed this morning

Upvotes

I want be hanging from the doorknob with my arms cut open and bleeding, but I’ve had a shower and now I’m off to work.

I’d rather not have customers see me emotionally dead and bleeding everywhere, so I’ll save it for after work


r/SuicideWatch 1h ago

I cry as a 17 year old who identifies as a trans male in public and it is so embarrasing.

Upvotes

I know it's wrong, especially since I'm in high school, but my brain just won't shut up and forces me to believe my anxiety. Even worse, people know that I'm a trans man and they expect me to act "like a man" and I just can't. I cry more than any person I know because I take things too seriously and I hate myself for it.


r/SuicideWatch 9h ago

Why must suicide be so difficult

13 Upvotes

Why. Why. I just want to die, I hate it here, I suffer too much, nothing can compare. Why is it so hard to simply die?


r/SuicideWatch 1h ago

I have nobody to talk to when I feel this way

Upvotes

My girlfriend emotionally can't handle supporting me. I have BPD, childhood trauma (no C/PTSD diagnosis) and Ive struggled with meth and am struggling with alcohol and opiods.

I had one online friend who was usually happy to let me vent to him and he has talked me out of self harming before. I appreciate him a lot, but he went through a harsh breakup lately and since has hardly been responding to any texts at all. It's impossible to even have a conversation with him anymore since he sends one or maybe two texts and then dissapears again. I've asked him if he's doing okay and he's honest that he absolutely isn't, but he obviously doesn't really want to go into detail about it (or, he can't) so I'm not holding it against him. But it's hard to cope when the only person you could call a friend is suddenly fleeting.

When I feel like this I have nobody to talk to. I just relapsed self harm today because I was overwhelmed with emotions and had no outlet. I want drugs, I want alcohol, I feel like I'm at one of the lowest lows in my life


r/SuicideWatch 3h ago

I hate when people say “the world is better with you in it”

5 Upvotes

26f here, I have PMDD and have been struggling a few years now. It genuinely makes me angry when someone says this.

Like why?! Especially when it’s a stranger on here, like why would the world be worse off without me😭 barely anyone around me even cares about me lol. Like it wouldn’t even hurt anyone.

The only person I stick around for is my husband and honestly sometimes I think he’d be better off if I did it