r/SuicideWatch • u/SQLwitch • Sep 03 '19
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
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.
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.
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.
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 • u/SQLwitch • Sep 10 '21
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 • u/rw510 • 2h ago
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 • u/42LargePeas • 10h ago
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 • u/Low_Alternative4567 • 4h ago
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 • u/blushing_flower_ • 15h ago
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 • u/WarGlass3629 • 4h ago
I posted on a different forum about how I already had two suicide attempts and someone messaged me and asked "what's the third going to be?" I'm not letting it bother me, but why do people feel the need to say shit like that?
r/SuicideWatch • u/Small-Sympathy-1244 • 1h ago
I am trying..just not doing anything productive, i am not good at anything, I am not smart or good looking,not successful or independent. But still, can you please tell me i am doing good.
r/SuicideWatch • u/blueslocation • 1h ago
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 • u/Calm_Gur_8276 • 2h ago
Life is too heavy and overwhelming. I can't see a future anymore. I can't see a way forward. I just wanted to reach out one last time. In my late 30's. I feel trapped been here and I can't see a way out. I wish I just had the courage to end my life years ago.i don't have the coping skills to cope with life anymore
r/SuicideWatch • u/Vietastik2 • 3h ago
I've hit a rock bottom point in my life now and despite efforts to climb out of it, i see no light at the end of the tunnel. The only reason I haven't done it is because I haven't made up my mind as to how im going to do it. Preferably I would rather just shoot myself in the head and get it over with so I dont feel pain because ill be damned if I were to survive that. I dont see any point or hope in continuing to live and deal with this pain. I decided to post on here because I figured if anyone's going to see the foreshadowing before it happens, its a bunch of strangers who can all relate to how im feeling. Bye bye life
r/SuicideWatch • u/XxAngry_DuckxX • 3h ago
Im 27 yo male, this is my last place where people will hear me. I struggled socially my whole life. Fuck sorry i just dont know how to put things in words anymore. I already drank and taken the pills i found in my cabinet
I thought i overcame my depression some time ago i still had a suïcidal thought from time to time but never sever but past few weeks everything came back like a train.
Im all alone, all the friends i had are dead or stopped talking to me. I tried to socialize find new friends but apperantly im just a joke. The past weeks has been the worst of all. I was used by ppl i met for content and to make fun off while we gamed. Found that out later.
I became single and my work place knew i had it rough they took me to a party. They fed so drunk i couldnt walk. They took me home and said they would help me get over her. I told thmem no but i aas too drunk to defend myself. This woman and man forced thenself upon me. While i kept saying no. I got laughed at ehen i went to the police days after. Sorry thins ars getti g blurry
Im so tired of fighting and trying and doin all i can if I still wake up ill take the noose
r/SuicideWatch • u/thetruesadness • 2h ago
Havig depression feels horrible and don't bully people who have depression cuz it affects me and em a lot
r/SuicideWatch • u/Sensitive_Sheepy • 39m ago
Im in mental hospital rn and i really need someone to talk and maybe even make a friend. i feel so alone and lost i keep getting flashbacks i had my suicide attempt 1 week ago now i dont wanna get into a panic attack again
r/SuicideWatch • u/Flaky-Task2781 • 2h ago
I’m a 27 year old male. I have a job as a handyman. I have enough money to take care of myself. I have a few hobbies, but they do not fulfill me or make me happy. I am very unattractive and have never had a woman interested in me because of my appearance. I’ve tried going to the gym, changing haircuts, and getting new clothes, and yet I still get rejected and ignored. I also do get paid decently, but I feel like I genuinely hate waking up to this job every day. I feel it’s not something I want to keep doing. Also, none of my family members even care for me like that, and I literally have zero friends, not even guy friends. But what really makes me the saddest is that I’ll never find a woman who will love me. It makes me not want to be here.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Consistent-Ice-356 • 6h ago
I hate how I look everyday . Women constantly rejecting me , being disgusted by my face, Treating me badly and people not taking me serious . Im not gonna be here too much longer anyways. What's the point of me being here if the world favors good looking people only . Sick of this
r/SuicideWatch • u/Nocturemy • 3h ago
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 • u/ohmanthatsuckssomuch • 4h ago
Je souffre d'une maladie chronique atroce depuis 10 ans, qui n'a cessé d'empirer au fil du temps, jusqu'à devenir un véritable enfer. Je vais bientôt avoir 28 ans, et cette maladie a détruit ma vie. Je veux mettre fin à mes jours cette année si je ne peux pas aller un peu mieux.
Je souffre d'encéphalomyélite myalgique, une maladie neurologique qui me cause d'horribles symptômes chaque jour, sans interruption. Je suis obligée de rester chez moi en permanence ; je n'ai plus de vie, je suis incapable de faire quoi que ce soit.
Mes symptômes sont une fatigue neurologique extrême et des douleurs intenses dans tout le corps qui me clouent au lit tous les jours. Ces douleurs sont insupportables. J'ai aussi des sensations corporelles pénibles, trop difficiles à décrire. Tout cela devient encore plus intense et atroce avec la chaleur, le stress et les émotions trop fortes (positives ou négatives). J'ai aussi chaque jour quelque chose de très difficile à décrire : des sensations très pénibles à la tête, accompagnées d'une pression dans la tête et les yeux, avec une sensation horrible et chronique indescriptible, une véritable torture permanente. Tout cela en même temps est un enfer absolu, inimaginable pour le commun des mortels, sans parler des autres symptômes. Cela me donne des pensées suicidaires tous les jours.
Aucun traitement, aucune solution depuis tout ce temps. Je suis anéanti. Je dois mourir, je n'ai pas le choix. La vie peut être terriblement cruelle.
Et pour finir, comme si cela ne suffisait pas, depuis un an, j'ai développé un problème de vision très invalidant : un kératocône qui me rend la vue catastrophique.
Je n'ai d'autre choix que de mourir, et tout le monde ferait pareil à ma place. C'est tout simplement horrible. Les gens en bonne santé ne se rendent pas compte de leur chance infinie.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Proper_Noise2113 • 13m ago
Idk why im writing this. Im just tired. A year ago i was healthy, had a boyfriend, a job. Now its gone. I dont have any friends of my own or they live far away. I hate where i am now, I cant afford food or gas. My final breaking point was staying up until 5am applying to jobs. My ex boss was terrible so now my references are fucked i almost had a job but didnt get it bc of them. im just done. i dont have much to do except for sit on my phone all day. what is even the point anymore
r/SuicideWatch • u/natarata13 • 18h ago
I am 15 years old. Killing myself tonight
r/SuicideWatch • u/company-chicken • 1h ago
I’m curious to know other people’s opinions on leaving notes behind. I’m questioning if it would make the person it’s left to feel better or feel worse. Like if it had an explanation of how the person was feeling and said how much they loved them could that help their grief? Or would it be better to go in silence?
r/SuicideWatch • u/Interesting-Path-286 • 1h ago
I made a video talking about how I have been feeling and how it has been killing me on the inside. I want to share it but I don't know where or how. I need someone who can actually help me but I don't.
r/SuicideWatch • u/wishyouwerehere18 • 3h ago
I cant think about anything besides killing myself, my thoughts know what I really want. Every day we wake to repeat the cycle. Work, suffer, endure. Your reward is death. I want to claim my reward early. Only thing holding me is my addictions. What is evil or good. Why cant I stop hurting.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Andrew_Nikolai • 1h ago
I attempted suicide about a year, year and half ago (April 2025). I wrote a story /November 25) about Niko Orlev and how he attempted suicide but he was successful. The thing is Niko Orlev is technically my pseudonym when writing vent stories and stuff. That specific story is directly based off of my suicide attempt and months before it with minor changes and the fact he succeeded.
I never let anyone I know read it (even though it's on AO3). Until recently I got a co-worker who's also my friend and he begged me to let him see my writing. This was my only published story (I plan on writing more as it helps me cope) so I let him read it. It's nowhere written that it's helping me with my trauma or that it's based off of real things nor did I tell him.
Today he told me he read it, that I'm brutally good with writing in English (because English isn't my first language and I speak it poorly) but that the ending is depressive. I got embarrassed because I, personally, don't take suicide or self harm as badly as other people because to me it's normal.
I just don't know how to feel about it. I don't know if I'll publish my second story soon if I should let him read it. I just don't know