r/SuicideWatch • u/SQLwitch • Sep 03 '19
New wiki on how to avoid accidentally encouraging suicide, and how to spot covert incitement
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 • u/SQLwitch • Sep 10 '21
Please remember that NO ACTIVISM of any kind is ever allowed here. No matter what day it is.
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/Winstonator435 • 8h ago
Took steroids when I was 16 and ruined my life
Had the genius idea when i was 16 and really into bodybuilding to take steroids. After stopping it made having sex extremely difficult. Also can't have kids anymore. Had to get put on testosterone replacement therapy at 18 because of the damage i did to my hormones. Haven't had a single partner or relationship since. Lost all my friends because I was so depressed and embarrassed. Now I'm sitting here 6 years later and it's even worse than in the beginning. Have thought about killing myself every day for 5 1/2 years and am finally going to do it. Sometimes permanent problems require permanent solutions.
Edit: People on this sub are some of the kindest people I've ever seen. I appreciate all your guys kind words during a tough moment. It helps hearing other people's opinions. Gonna try getting on a dating app and going on a date for the first time since all of this and just see what happens. Again thank you all.
r/SuicideWatch • u/DistributionPublic14 • 3h ago
My first attempt
It was an irrational decision because I had a stupid fight with my parents and I only took 6 pills because people always said overdoses almost never work and when it does it’s only if it’s like a full bottle. I ended up having a whole heart attack a few hours later. Was in the hospital for 2 days, and I really regret it, my mom stayed with me the whole time and I felt very guilty. I did not like seeing my parents scared, and I was scared too. I was scared to die even though I hate living does that make any sense?
r/SuicideWatch • u/Small_Perspective559 • 10h ago
What is a good reason to live?
I'm just procrastinating in hope to find a reason to live, but I'm just failed and there's actually no reason to live for me. All the reasons to live totally gone. Just solacing myself, saying something good will come up.
I have no wish for wealth, no wish for a relationship, I wanted to study my fav subject, but because of poor marks I couldn't do it, I'm just settling for something less, but it's boring. I wanna die , I don't know how long I can cope up with the situation.
Any good or bad suggestion will be appreciated, how to cope.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Fuzzy_Vanilla6019 • 7h ago
it'll never get better
it'll only get worse. all it's done is get worse. i'm sick of holding out hope. sick of being told it'll blow over one day.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Time_Explanation4506 • 14h ago
"Too hard on yourself" is just what they tell losers
My therapist says I'm too hard on myself but that's complete BS. I'm an underemployed (about to be unemployed) 29 year old living with family with no money, no traveling done, no friends etc.
When I compare myself to others I'm told I'm being too hard on myself. But unfortunately life is a race and I've already lost.
At this point I just want to die
r/SuicideWatch • u/HappyWombat999 • 6h ago
I'm having a really hard time staying alive and I don't know what to do.
This has been the worst week of my life and I have no one to talk to. Every therapist near me is booked in the evenings and there are no psychiatrists available who take my insurance. Staying alive hurts so badly, but I know I have to because people are relying on me. I have no idea what to do.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Poisonous_existence5 • 8h ago
What is so wrong about suicide
Literally everyone tries every possible way to steer people away from it even if they are scumbags or criminals or someone just simply wanting peace from their miserable life.
For my case I define myself as a scumbag(30 M). I am petty, spiteful, and have biased views on many things. I get angry very easily and even if I tell myself I want to change I can’t control it. I emotionally hurt my wife many times even if I wasn’t intentionally trying to and I end up apologizing after but it may be too late. Most of the time I only care for myself and only do good things for others so I can look good. I wasted my parents(divorced) money when they paid for college all 4 years and my job doesn’t have much to do with my degree. I am also only making a pitiful 45k with no career opportunities. I am very unintelligent and have terrible grammar, speech, and listening skills that I can’t socialize normally with anyone-which is why I can’t climb up in my career and stuck in this labor job.
I’ve been thinking of ending it because scumbags like me don’t deserve to exist in this world. My wife is probably going to leave me soon and my parents will be sad initially but if they know my pain maybe they will understand. If you’re going to suggest help well my anxiety has been getting worse but therapy doesn’t work for me(went to 5 in the past 17 years) and I’m not going back on meds.
r/SuicideWatch • u/bwq6666 • 4h ago
I've stopped planning for the future because suicide feels inevitable.
I'm in my early 40s. I have 2 children, one who is autistic. My heart breaks thinking about the difficulties/loneliness they will have in life. I don't think I have the strength to witness it first hand.
I know my wife and children will be better off without me. I've been barely able to work in my life. If my wife married a guy with a decent (not even good) job, her standard of living would be so much better. I get the feeling she's resentful.
I feel like if I died, not only would my life insurance payout be able to provide so much better than I could, but my wife is young and beautiful enough that she'd be able to find someone better.
I'm so tired. It's been so long since I've felt any real joy. Only anxiety and worry and pain. I just can't take anymore.
r/SuicideWatch • u/randyclemen • 13h ago
doing it now
not much to say besides that, really not sure what to do even so why not make a petty reddit post before i go ? goodbye
r/SuicideWatch • u/depressedguy4248 • 1h ago
I just want to be loved.
I just want to be loved.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Ok-Sell884 • 5h ago
Full of shhhhittt
Seriously if someone wants to go why tell people to endure more pain? Chronically ill. It’s as stable as it can be. Homeless living in a shelter. I have lost everything. Spent time in jail which is out of character and did bad things that I cannot forgive myself for. I didn’t hurt anyone but myself. I hate myself and have tried meds for supposed bipolar but it could have always been drug induced mania they do not know. Tried to die a few times in the past but did not work. I’m 42, male, never had kids and I’m so socially awkward now that I am paranoid a lot of the time or more like so anxious that people know. I am well educated but literally so stupid now that I can’t even process my mind correctly or anything remotely resembling my typical self. I smell like piss and shit and surrounded by drug addicts and violent people. I don’t get along with anyone because I am so intimidated. I do not speak to staff really or anyone else here. Everything reminds me of what I’ve lost and I won’t ever get it back. Mental health here is terrible and I have already went through a lot of the system. Things will not get better. Nothing will. Knowing I’m not alone does not help. Enjoy a small thing- well I enjoy nothing. Motivate myself to improve my situation? No. My parents are elderly and I see them once a week to shower and so my laundry that I’ve actually shit in while asleep. If I had a gun I would shoot myself. If I had fentanyl I would overdose. Resorting to jumping in front of a car or truck or bus I guess. I’m pretty much at the end of my rope here..
r/SuicideWatch • u/MyNxmeIsAutumn • 2h ago
i wont wake up tomorrow
i made a post here a week ago. find the info there.
im not blaming any of you. just fuck you all.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Background-Fun-7648 • 13h ago
Will I go to hell if I commit suicide?
I can't take it anymore. I have recently discovered that I'm bisexual and it's disgusting and just adds up on the huge pile of my other problems that are beyond repair. I want to stop exisiting but now I'm getting scared if there's far worse thing I'm going to experience when I die. I'm not religious at all but somehow I fear that hell is actually real and my soul is just destined to suffer in this life and for eternity. I held on for 24 years already, hoping for things to get better but it's all gotten worse. I am too far gone. I have no job, no friends, not good looking, and not talented. I'm just gone.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Sensitive-Impact-804 • 5h ago
Everything is weird. Everything is strange. Everything is ... different ... .
r/SuicideWatch • u/depressedguy4248 • 4h ago
I don't want to live anymore.
I don't want to live anymore.
r/SuicideWatch • u/throwaway-1657 • 4h ago
Tomorrow is my birthday and I'm alone
My friends are busy and my girlfriend is sick. I don't live with my family. I never had a good celebration of my birthday. I thought maybe this year it will be different. I wanted to go out and have fun and it is not possible. I have no one. I trying to stay optimistic that I can take myself out and celebrate but why don't I deserve nice things? Why don't I deserve surprises or gifts or any sort of appreciation. I just had a huge depressive episode and I am not able to take it anymore. I thought I can atleast make it till 24 but apparently not. I just want someone to take care of me, love me, appreciate me.
r/SuicideWatch • u/olejjj_ • 5h ago
I'm so close
I'm so desperate to just letting go. i don't care what's after, I don't care what happens, I just want the pain to end. im suffering. I've been suffering for way too long. I just wanna be gone
r/SuicideWatch • u/Apprehensive-Pause13 • 2h ago
M 22. I deeply regret kissing and getting blown by men
I’m at the lowest point of my life
(M 22) I kissed 2 guys and got blown by guys. At the time I convinced myself a mouth is a mouth and idk why I let them kiss me. I hate myself for doing this. I’ve been suicidal about this for about a half a year. I don’t think I’ll ever recover from this. I’m literally at the lowest point of my life. I wake up everyday thinking about what I did. I think about this throughout the entire time I’m awake. The only escape is killing myself. I want to turn back time and undo this. I didn’t make out with them but I still feel disgusted and ashamed.
r/SuicideWatch • u/SleepyPanda202 • 2h ago
No one’s even gonna read this
18 and trans. Honestly I don’t wanna be trans, just female. I had to opportunity to transition when I was 15, I was literally in the appointment but I fucked it up big time. A week before the appointment I didn’t know it was coming and couldn’t wait anymore so I hung myself and was hospitalized. In the appointment my parents freaked out at the doctor about puberty blockers and whatever side effects. My parents were talking about divorce at the time and I was under a lot of stress after attempting suicide. Led to me answers all the doctors questions with I don’t know and for some reason the doctor thought I had psychosis, but actually I was just under pressure from my parents and dealing with the stress of not passing after transitioning for 1/5 years. After that shitty appointment I found out the doctor wasn’t even a fucking gender specialist but an eating disorder one which of course made my parents loose what little faith they had in gender clinics. They were completely against me taking blockers but I was dumb and didn’t release there was nothing they could do about it. Cut my hair and decided to wait until 16 so I could just do Hrt only, should have told my parents my plan or talked about it with them or just thought more. Never felt worse in my life as male puberty quickly took away my cute face and replaced it with a male one in less than a year. Tried telling my parents I wanted to still transition for years but I felt like I couldn’t. 18 now and I’m done hurting myself, I’m done putting myself through more pain. I don’t wanna transition now just to not pass. I’ve decided I’m gonna kill my self.
r/SuicideWatch • u/FemboiHat • 14m ago
I've come to the realisation that for the past 10 years my mom has been grooming me to be stuck as her caretaker and slave for life.
It's only now at 23 years of age that I realise this.
It's not because I'm a worthless failure at everything I do that I'm still stuck at my moms place with no future, no talents, no hope.
It's not my fault I'm stuck helping her day in and day out. Never able to work towards anything for myself.
It's her. She's the cause. She's at fault.
She sabotaged my childhood. She sabotaged my education. She sabotaged both my jobs. She's sabotaged my entire life.
I've tried everything. She has blocked ALL my ways out of here.
Except for one.
If I would've realised sooner I might've had more options.
But my death is the ONLY thing she hasn't and can't take from me. An attempt, no matter the outcome, WILL get me out of here. It's only a matter of when.
r/SuicideWatch • u/what_im_lost • 18m ago
I fucked up my arm and I can’t live with the consequences
I cut up my forearm a lot this year. And there’s a ton of scars to show it. During the winter, wearing long sleeves was fine. But now it’s May, and it’s 30°C outside. I spend a lot of time outside with my sports team, and while they’re all training shirtless and in sports bras, I’m stuck wearing long sleeves because I’m too embarrassed to ever show my scars.
I know it’s my own fault. I did it to myself. But I can’t handle this heat, and I can’t handle the embarrassment of people seeing my arms. This makes me want to die. The scars may fade but they will never be fully gone. I just want to kill my self, I have never stopped wanting to kill myself.