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.

714 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 13h ago

my mom killed herself 2 days ago.

264 Upvotes

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

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

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

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

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


r/SuicideWatch 7h ago

My son is dead

51 Upvotes

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


r/SuicideWatch 8h ago

I FUCKING HATE YOU

53 Upvotes

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


r/SuicideWatch 6h ago

Why is life so fucking pointless?

31 Upvotes

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


r/SuicideWatch 14h ago

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

105 Upvotes

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


r/SuicideWatch 17h ago

Being autistic is a death sentence

170 Upvotes

I am autistic and life has no meaning for me.

EDIT: thank you everyone for your replies!


r/SuicideWatch 8h ago

knowing i won’t make it through this

28 Upvotes

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


r/SuicideWatch 4h ago

I can't take life anymore

11 Upvotes

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


r/SuicideWatch 16h ago

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

91 Upvotes

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

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


r/SuicideWatch 3h ago

i feel so hopeless

7 Upvotes

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


r/SuicideWatch 17m ago

There's no point in living

Upvotes

I don't want to live when I there's no point in working everyday and still not feeling there's a reason to live. I'm alone, depressed, angry, and broken. I hate being at work and dealing with people. I'm not good enough for anyone. At least that's how they see it. I'll always be single and alone. I think about killing myself everyday. Everyone in this world just invalidates and dismisses what you're going through and then I get extremely angry and think about killing myself right in front of everyone where I work. You all judge me. I'll never be good enough.


r/SuicideWatch 53m ago

pathetic

Upvotes

im a pathetic asshole that now even fears death. it used to bring me comfort a few days ago when i almost attempted. what if i go to hell? i will, most probably. im trans. i have a disgusting kink that i hate. and im pretty sure i've done other bad things that makes hell a possibility.


r/SuicideWatch 20h ago

My mom called me a whore today

145 Upvotes

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


r/SuicideWatch 3h ago

I am in fight or flight - prolonged

6 Upvotes

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

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


r/SuicideWatch 4h ago

Things don't get better

5 Upvotes

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


r/SuicideWatch 1h ago

Absolutely fucking done

Upvotes

Good riddance to this awful world


r/SuicideWatch 1h ago

god help me.

Upvotes

you can read my prior posts for more context but im basically im tired. im tired of my lust and my sick desires. they completely destroy my self esteem. ive been feeling good for 2 days but not today. i wish i could be normal. i wish i could be confident. i wish my brain wasn't this way


r/SuicideWatch 2h ago

What I do with my feelings

3 Upvotes

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


r/SuicideWatch 1h ago

My friend set herself a date

Upvotes

Today was a really shitty day and she pretty much decided she will do it on a pretty looking date and I know which one. The struggle she goes through is so intense that I support her decision. I feel so conflicted, because I can't even come and save her. We are in diffrent countries and we are just teens. So I settled with allowing her decision, providing her this sick comfort instead of trying to hold her from doing it. Am I in the wrong? I genuinely want her to just stay alive and be happy, but it seems to be impossible. Even I see suicide as her best option. But I love her, she means so much to me. I don't want to pressure her into living so miserably, but would also love if she stayed.


r/SuicideWatch 4h ago

At my wits end; 16 is enough

7 Upvotes

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


r/SuicideWatch 18h ago

GOD IM GOING FUCKING CRAZY

62 Upvotes

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


r/SuicideWatch 8h ago

I hope I have cancer

10 Upvotes

I discovered a mole that’s been growing and been sketchy. My family has a history of melanoma. My first feeling was excitement and “oh my god I hope I have cancer” so I have an excuse to just coast and enjoy life for a few months before I pass away.


r/SuicideWatch 4h ago

I feel alone

4 Upvotes

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


r/SuicideWatch 2h ago

I was going to end my life but I didn't

3 Upvotes

My parents left for a week long trip and I was left to watch the house. I had a plan, I ate the forbidden jelly beans (candy I'm not allowed to have not a euphemism), I watched a movie and I was going to but I changed my mind. My parents came home and I got yelled at, like I always do, even if I think I'm not breaking the rules. I'm tired of being autistic, I'm tired of everyone expecting me not to act autistic. I'm tired of being compared to different versions of me that my mother made up in her head of who I would be and who I was. I wish I was allowed to wash my clothes and I wish someone would help me with my executive functioning issues. I am not enough but maybe I would be if I was dead.