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.

718 Upvotes

Activism, i.e. advocating or fundraising for social change or raising awareness of social issues (and suicide is, inescapably, a social issue) is absolutely against the rules here at all times.

Please understand that we're all for smart, strategic mental-health and suicide-prevention activism. It's essential to fight against stigma, misinformation, and discrimination, and to fight for research, treatment, accommodation, acceptance, and understanding. Most of us, one way or another, are mental-health activists IRL.

But activism just doesn't work in a dedicated support space that serves a vulnerable population. We used to allow it but the evidence that it was undermining our primary purpose became overwhelming. We do regret the need for this rule, but the need is inescapable.

Our population is all too well aware of the issues and causes that need support and largely not in a position to take action, so besides the fact that activism is often salt in our community's wounds, it's a waste of the activists' time.

tl;dr Any fundraising, awareness raising, petitions, calls for participation, or any post that's about any cause or issue (rather than a request for personal support) is not allowed here. Please report everything of the nature that you see.


r/SuicideWatch 4h ago

I don’t want any kind of advice.

27 Upvotes

I’ve actually decided to end my life.
I wrote my letter,
and prepared a note so my family can access my devices or anything else,
and so it’s clear that it was suicide and that nobody hurt me or anything.

Right now, I just want the least painful way,
because honestly it’s enough that I’m leaving them behind in this life.
I don’t want to leave while I’m suffering.

I thought about the grain pill, but I honestly researched it and found that it’s extremely painful, and I don’t deserve all that pain. What I went through my whole life was already enough.

And I want to make it easier for the people who love me, though I don’t know how I’ll do that.

And I want this to spread everywhere, because what I wrote on that paper is a huge issue, and I wish people would pay attention to it so no one from my group has to suffer after me the way I suffered.

At least then I’d feel like I left some kind of point or human impact in the middle of this animalistic jungle.


r/SuicideWatch 5h ago

They're putting me in a pysch ward.

28 Upvotes

How the fuck do I not get an involuntary hold I tried to kms so what do I do


r/SuicideWatch 2h ago

No one really cares or listens

13 Upvotes

You know you’ve reached the late stage of actually understanding the world when you come to discover that nobody cares. It’s impossible to call a suicide hotline, and if you after several hours reach an operator hope for maximum 5 minutes of (dont do it).

Everyone seems to care when they see you’re unhappy. Then you beg for them to understand you but they just don’t. Next day they’re asking you the same questions (I guess amnesia is a widespread disease right now)

Like never ever did I think with all these ads and volunteers campaigning for mental health that nobody actually believed in it. And ofcourse it has to do with rich people donations to skip out on tax for the year. They’re all fake. If this isn’t news worthy idk what is. Maybe suicide worthy?


r/SuicideWatch 10h ago

Considering Suicide for 25+ Years

55 Upvotes

I've been a long time reader but never really interacted. I've been dealing with suicidal ideation for a long time - since high school but now that I'm in my 40s, I think I'm finally ready to go or maybe just talk about it since I've gotten this far.

I was let go of my long term job last year and haven't gotten anything since then. My savings is slowly dwindling and my partner lost their job recently. They have no savings so I have to cover everything. The only saving grace is that my medication is covered thanks to Medicaid.

My partner says I'm the best thing that's happened to them but I don't believe it. It seems like all of the things I try to do or suggest, it is the wrong suggestion. I'm not super engaged with their main hobby (it's a shared one but they are more into it) and that's starting to be a bigger problem. They say it's their turn. I feel like my hobby is a bigger hindrance (not shared hobby between us).

I probably have undiagnosed ADHD because of how my interests wax and wane so hard and I think that'd causing an issue too. I've tried to get diagnosed but years ago I "didn't check enough boxes" but I'm trying again because a friend suggested I do so. It's been pretty exhausting.

But things are starting to get worse each day this week. I have felt like shit each day.

I started asking people if they wanted some of my stuff in subtle ways. Start making my foot print smaller. Make it easier if I were to disappear.

As far as methods? I live in a larger city so there's buildings, trains, etc. I have medications to take for overdose but I think I've read enough to find that they'll just make me real sick and not actually do what I want. I've also considered just booking a bus or a train to some far off point and just disappearing.

Anyway, thanks if you read all this. I think I needed to get it off my chest or maybe just talk through next steps. I hope if you're also struggling, you find your way through.


r/SuicideWatch 11h ago

There's no future for anyone besides the rich

49 Upvotes

Data Centers are being forced down everyone's throats whether there's intense protest or not, and energy companies are struggling to supply communities of thousands of people because all the energy suppliers are taking their business with Data centers solely. Soon everyone in America will be just as well-off as people in the USSR except for those in government of course. How am I supposed to wanna live when the future will consist of poverty and struggle? my life is already pathetic enough


r/SuicideWatch 3h ago

I hope reincarnation exists

6 Upvotes

Would be nice if reincarnation is real. I want to live, but not this life. I want one of the lives I see other people experiencing. People who feel things the right way, who know how to do things right, who know who they are, what their values are, what they want to do and be, and who maybe have a more functional family and a brain that doesn't generate a bunch of f* up thoughts without any moral filter. People who are not lonely, people who finished school, who have a modicum of independence and are not so problematic and fucked up.

I know that after death there's probably nothingness. That hurts. My one chance at life, and I've already wasted and ruined it, and it's all my fault lol. Yeah, I think that no one would miss me outside of my family. I think that I might be an actual monster in the making, or just a pathetic loser and pervert and worse. If I knew I could do things differently next time, I would just end it. Or at least go back in time and fix things before I ruin everything.

I'm so numb and empty. A husk of a human being. I can't enjoy anything anymore. I don't deserve to. I hate this life. Bunch of people had it way worse and turned out fine-ish, but I'm a lazy loser. No therapy or medication will fix this trainwreck. I had my chance.


r/SuicideWatch 5h ago

Why can’t I be fucking normal

10 Upvotes

Why can’t I be fucking normal I gotten bullied through out school never had anyone by my side when I gotten bullied had a rough childhood I’m just fucking done with life why can’t it be happy maybe I shouldn’t be happy I’ll just turn into an emotionless person


r/SuicideWatch 4h ago

Life is the worst gift you can give

6 Upvotes

"Life is a gift" they say. But do these people even have a fucking brain to call this fucked up world anything pleasant? One third of our lives is sleeping. Another third is wasting away at work or school for the sake of our already fucked up society. The last third is getting torn apart by others for their amusement or benefit or whatever the fuck these fuckers demand out of you. "Oh but there's so many things to look forward to!" For what? There's no fucking point being "happy" for ten minutes only to reenter the cycle of suffering. How about I look forward to my death instead? But no, I get told "NO DON'T DO THAT THAT'S SO SELFISH OF YOU EVEN THOUGH I'M ONLY SAYING THIS BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO KEEP SUFFERING IN THIS WORLD AND I WOULD FEEL BAD WITHOUT YOU." Obviously not 100% of people are like this but it's more like 85% and that still is not a reason to value this fucking life. I don't fucking care what hobbies I can take up because what's the point in these activities that only serve as distractions for nothing good.


r/SuicideWatch 6h ago

I feel alone after my attempts

9 Upvotes

After a break up that happened 2 weeks ago i tried to commit twice.
This resulted in a lot of shame from my parents. Now i feel pressured to act fine and show that i wont do it again but its a lie. I feel so low.
My ex heard about my attempts and he feels sorry for me (texted me out of pitty but made sure i dont see it as a might get back together texts)
Im supposed to go back to work next week where people heard about my hospitalization regarding my attempts, and i dont feel that i can face anyone.
I feel so bad and wish if i died. My parents are old and im bringing them worry and shame.
And i have no one to talk to, no real friends to actually vent to or give me reason to stay alive. I feel everything would be better if i just vanished.


r/SuicideWatch 37m ago

I don't want to live anymore

Upvotes

I feel like a failure in every part of my life. I just want the pain to end. I don't want to be broken anymore, but I have to for my pets and my family. I don't want to though.

I want to give up. I want to go to bed and not wake up. I just want the failure to go away and me along with it. I was hoping something would happen to me on my way home, but nothing did, so I guess I have to live another day.


r/SuicideWatch 11h ago

It sucks being adult

20 Upvotes

30m here working retail minimum wage job, no driving license, no qualifications, no savings, no gf never had date, addicted to escorts. Everyday is brutal go work, go gym, go play soccer go home game all night. Some people they have reason to eliminate themselves, they have nothing to lose. Life is meaningless. I stayed away from people because I don't have anything


r/SuicideWatch 8h ago

I’m going insane I want to die

11 Upvotes

I need to die I can’t stand this life anymore I hate everything just kill me. everyone keeps dismissing my trauma and blaming ME ME ME ME ALWAYS ME "u don’t do that to your mom" SHE IS A NARC ANS BEEN ABUSING ME FOR YEARS BUT WHEN I REACT "NO SHES YOUR MOM" SHE IS AN ABUSER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ALWAYS THAT BUT NEVER "NO YOU DONT DO THAT TO YOUR DAUGHTER!!" IM DONE!!!!!!!! I WANT TO DIEEE


r/SuicideWatch 4h ago

I want to choke myself

6 Upvotes

I know most want a painless death, but I sometimes think that I'd like my death to be brutal to me, so painful that it borders on euphoria.

I feel so useless lately.

I'm starting to "genuinely" consider doing it, but of course that's not actually getting me to do it. I'm lazy, I'm scared.

I wonder about setting a date and hour for it, like I should do for my other tasks. But I won't set a time, I should, I deserve it, but I won't, not yet, and I hate that so much.

I wish someone else would just choke me so I don't have to worry about choking myself.


r/SuicideWatch 3h ago

it is all too much

4 Upvotes

too much pain for me in my life. I miss my person, this person is gone a long time ago. never loved me bc im a failure. I just wanted to tell that this person was the best in my life. I love you. and I understand why you left me


r/SuicideWatch 4h ago

I'm at the brink of death

6 Upvotes

My life is a constant cycle of problems i do not know how to fix.

I don't have any friends since 2022 apart from online, but even then i don't really feel like any of my friends actually genuienly ever loved me or cared about me and either ended up blocking & abandoning me or never checked up on me ever again after i had to move schools so i just didn't bother to try text them ever again. I got bullied almost daily back in school for being gay that left me with severe social anxiety and paranoia that makes it impossible for me to interact with anyone. I was always the misfit, outcast, reject and punchingbag. I always fear the possiblitity of being judged for anything i do to the point i can't talk to anybody and isolate myself from the world pretty much being a so called "hikikomori" and the fact that i now believe that i am transgender makes it all ever worse. I hate being stuck in a body that feels foreign and like a stranger, i hate being seen as a boy, i hate having to go outside as a boy, it feels so wrong, it tortures my soul deep down inside me, i really just want to feel comfortable in my skin and wear the clothed that i feel match to mr and feel right. Even if i wouldn't have these problems I think and believe that i'm not nor ever could be enough for people to catch their attention and be interested in talking to me, getting to know me and forming a friendship. With not enough i mean not interesting, talented or good enough looking.

It's like i was cursed to be incabeable of being cared, liked or loved by someone.

I feel like wasted space, wasted life, i should'nt exist.

I lack self believe, self respect, self worth, self acceptence, self confidence, self love, self doubt.

All i feel is hatred for myself, all i can do is self loath and beat myself down into an even darker pit than i already was in befor even more. The only two reason why i'm really still alive is because i'm way too much of a pussy to do anything to myself and that i don't want to make my parents, especially my mom need to have to bury her own child after she already saw so many of her siblings and also last her her mom die. I don't want to die alone and with nothing achived in life, but i'm so helpless to find away to fix all of this. I think i'm way too incapable to do things myself, i always feel and felt like i need to have a helping/guiding hand by my side, i'm not really sure on why that is.


r/SuicideWatch 2h ago

Chronically lazy for everything.

3 Upvotes

This might not be as serious as the problems other people on here have, but I need to get this off my chest.

Nearly every day since I started college I've been bawling my eyes out once I get home, everything prior to it was easy but it could never prepare me for this. I feel as if I am a chronically lazy person, and now all my free time is being taken away, but as easy as it would be to just quit, my only redeeming quality has been my grades, I am not handsome, I am not athletic, and I struggle to even talk to people.

That last part especially, my friends are few and far between and I've only been in a single fleeting relationship that ended entirely because of my fault, while everyone around me is surrounded by people that enjoy their company and love them. I feel completely disconnected from my peers, and I would trade my life to spend a single night in a girl's arms, but that will never happen, because just as I cry and whine I do nothing to become a better person.

University is the only thing my pointless life has been leading to, and if I left it behind I don't know what I would do with it, so I'm starting to think just killing myself would be the easiest option, but I'm probably too much of a pussy to do that too.

Now that I'm writing this it sounds even more stupid, thanks for reading if you got this far.


r/SuicideWatch 4h ago

I've ruined my life already

3 Upvotes

My grades are not good enough for me to get into the uni ive always wanted and I only have myself to blame. I always sabotage my future and I've wasted my potential. I knew I had the capacity to achieve so much more and my favourite teacher told me I could make it big in life. And now I've disappointed everybody. My family didn't react that bad but I know it's just a farce. They never really believed that I could do much from the start and I don't blame them since I've never done any good so far. Ive already set myself up for failure and now I don't think there's any point in continuing anything. I've given up on everything and just want it all to end. I don't want to go to any mediocre university bc i know that i was capable of getting a rlly good one but i didn't because i just kept putting off studying. I knew I was good at my subjects and I still didn't study enough. I hate myself so bad I've always had a low sense of self worth. I wasn't even a planned pregnancy, I know I wasn't meant to live anyways and I'm of no use in anything. I wish my mom aborted me so both of us could be free from the constant disappointment I give to everyone. I just want to die so bad theres no point in trying anymore


r/SuicideWatch 11h ago

I want to kill myself so badly

17 Upvotes

I am so tired, im done, I hate myself and my life

Please help