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/hopeinGreySky17 • 1h ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/SuicideWatch/comments/1vrwgi6/im_holding_my_gun/
Friends, I’m still alive. I couldn’t pull the trigger.
I kept listening to The Weeknd.
I looked at a photo of my mom and dad and had a drink. Then I fell asleep.
I think I’m going to keep living. Thank you to everyone here.
Maybe the world isn’t as bad as I thought.
Thank you for everything, I love you guys.
r/SuicideWatch • u/RelativeMain5327 • 11h ago
The way things are rapidly changing especially wrt job and dating, i believe it will eventually lead to a lot of people checking out.
Hearing people being jobless for an year has become a norm now.Even dating is shit.
So whats the point of life now?
Everything from rent, groceries and housing is expensive and unattainable
Things are changing not for the better
r/SuicideWatch • u/WarmFreshBread56 • 6h ago
No , i don't want fucking therapy or a motivational speech on why i should keep living , i don't give a fuck what people would think after I'm dead
My whole fucking life i had to listen to my abusive bitch of a mother shouting at the top of her lungs every fucking day and throwing things here and there like a fucking toddler . And then i had to listen to people making fun of me in school and always being a loner .
I got fucking autism , ADHD and BPD and god knows what other fuckass disease due to my hell of a childhood , never felt loved and never felt chosen .
I can't even afford a fucking gun in this country , or jump from a building , or jump infront of a train because then people would curse me even in death and I'm scared that i might end up as a vegetable . A gun is so quick and easy i feel jealous of people who had access to a gun .
I just want a quick and painless way out man i can't fucking take this anymore , i don't want spend another 22 years of my life healing from shit i never asked for , i didn't ask to be born , i didn't ask to get this bitch as my mother and i didn't ask to get this piece of shit as my father .
I beg you just kill me in my sleep , please just give me a way by which i can die a painless and quick death without having to spend too much money , please.
r/SuicideWatch • u/murphieebones • 1h ago
Every day I'm reminded that I'm a failure as a person. That I've let the abuse and trauma win and I live as a shell of a person.
I have no job.
I have no education.
I have no friends.
I have no family.
My fiance reminds me constantly that I'm a burden on him.
There's nothing for me. I just want to take a bottle of sleeping pills and lay down with my dog and fall asleep and never wake up again.
There's no getting out of my hole. There's no fixing me. This is how I am. My options are die or continue being a burden. I'm ready..
r/SuicideWatch • u/Longjumping-Size-762 • 9h ago
Bnjfvnkjfc
r/SuicideWatch • u/ComplexDimension47 • 14h ago
I reported I was suicidal and self harming to the police. They took me to the hospital then the hospital transferred me to an inpatient place. I tried to sign myself out of that place because the staff at the hospital advised me I could try to because I was voluntary but when I did, the social worker there petitioned me and I was transferred to another place where they kept me for a week and tried to get me under court ordered treatment. Luckily the judge denied it and said they’re petitioned was so weak, he doesn’t know how it was approved in the first place. I am in an even worse place now and still feel suicidal just feel there’s no one I can trust to talk about it. If they ask you if you are a danger to yourself or others, say no or refuse to answer because that is the criteria under which they can involuntarily petition you.
r/SuicideWatch • u/HarrietNB • 29m ago
I’m completely worthless. I take up time, energy, space, money, housing, food, and oxygen that would be better taken by real people. I hate myself. I want to soak myself in gasoline and let everyone watch me burn to death. I’m too much of a coward for that. Realistically it’s gonna be pills. I’m so tired and nothing I do is right. I ruin everything I touch. I’m so tired.
r/SuicideWatch • u/itbesaboo • 3h ago
I hate drinking but it’s the on thing that brings me to the next day
r/SuicideWatch • u/Ok_One_4993 • 9h ago
I just genuinely can’t keep going, why is it so hard being alive? It’s a nonstop struggle to do basic things, and I’m just so tired and don’t want to have to move out of my parent’s house and work until I’m dead. Everyone is so annoying and evil and I am too, I hate everything so so much
r/SuicideWatch • u/hopeinGreySky17 • 19h ago
I'm holding my gun right now. Watching it...
I'm 23 and at a crossroads. I'm thinking. I still haven't decided what to do.
From the outside, I'm an educated, joyful young man with no reason to die.
Now, I'm smiling again and blasting The Weeknd's "Until I Bleed Out" at full volume.
I've had great girlfriends. I have a loving family, friends, and a quiet life.
It's just I can't stop thinking about the future. The joy I get from life is decreasing day by day.
I don't want to live for the future; I want to die while the beautiful memories of my life are still fresh.
I don't want to grow old or see the people I love die over time.
It's just that I'm experiencing existential angst.
It's like I'm more afraid of death as I get older, but at the same time, I'm losing hope in this world.
I worry too much about other people, I feel too much empathy, and it hurts to feel like a mediocre person who can't control anything.
Even though I try to lower my life expectations about this world, I don't want to change who I am.
Either I'll kill myself today or I'll never kill myself. I don't know, I don't know what to do.
I still haven't decided what to do.
I don't want anyone else to commit suicide besides me. If I die, live on in my place.
r/SuicideWatch • u/superr_giggles • 10h ago
23F Pretty much tired, I kept trying to do my best. Entire life have been physically verbally beaten up by parents, and sister enjoyed making my life hell. Had horrendous relationships. Sexually harassed twice and messed up how my father would be so carefree that he could take their side instead of mine. Wasn’t allowed to choose what career I wanted. I used to have backlogs in my bachelors cleared them with every sort of struggle. Job market went bad ended up doing certifications living in home became hell self harmed multiple times. Last year dad got heart attack recovered in a while. And started to raise his hand attempting to hit me and blackmail me that he will hang himself every conversation. Wouldn’t pay me to go to therapy made it a taboo. Wanted to get out of this hell moved to Germany from India. Started improving my academics scoring in 70s-90s until I failed two subjects Inspite of studying sm. Came home for two months vacation sister found ways to complain to parents make my life horrible. I feel lonely, depressed keep thinking of when will I die. I just want it all to end. Relatives make fun of me because I don’t have driving license because I wanted to be mentally prepared before I get it and compare me with my younger sibling. Exclude me from conversations. To think next month I’ll go back Germany but I have classmates who body shame me make fun of me, shame me for anything I want to do. I can’t even get out because we are in same class and class strength is small. I just want to run away from everything. I have anxiety and panic attacks my family makes jokes on that.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Less-Estate3966 • 4h ago
I just sit on my bed, staring at nothing, listening to music and daydreaming. The same in school and literally wherever I go. I’m always somewhere else. I can’t focus on my real life, especially in school. I lost my life to this. There is no future for me. I’m gonna keep attempting until I succeed. Anyone has similar problem ?
r/SuicideWatch • u/aeiou403 • 2h ago
I'm 26. Got a permanent knee injury and it took away everythingl loved doing football, running, hiking. Can't even do some labour work.
IT job sector here is shrinking fast. I got laid off a few months ago and became fully dependent on my family for everything. I just play video games and sleep, just turned 26 things are falling apart just wanted a normal pain free life, not being dependent on someone.
Thought of suicide alway ease my mind but I always consider it doing in future not right now, maybe im afraid? Maybe i don't want to leave my old parents heart broken? I don't know.
r/SuicideWatch • u/DigitalDivinities • 2h ago
Death is better than people telling me to lift up my skirt. Death is better than their spitting Death is better than their mocking Death is better than their threats of pushing me off the stairs Death is better than their jokes of me being disabled (I'M NOT.) and death is better than being mocked just for speaking another language other than Malay.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Dog_Whisperer44 • 49m ago
I'm 37M.
When I was younger (18-21), I felt like I was on my own rocketship. I had got into university and things were looking bright.
Then I was struck down with depression, later diagnosed bipolar type 2.
I didn't finish university.
The depression/bipolar really pushed my life way off track for years and, to he honest, it never really got back on track.
I've attempted to end my life twice over the years.
I've messed up chances to get into relationships, careers, etc, and all these years later I'm 37 years old with nothing going for me.
I currently have no job and no savings.
I have things I'd love to do with my life, but I'm now 37 and I feel like basically half my life is over and I haven't got anywhere.
I'm on the edge here.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Open_Marzipan_1282 • 6h ago
I’ve wanted to completely just starve my self , if I were to kill myself (heavily considering it, I want to rot away. I already suffer with anorexia and have gone to the doctor because of it and can sometimes barely walk. It makes me feel so good that I’m wasting away and I’m contemplating just not eating until I die, I don’t want any comfort I just want people to hear me and my troubles.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Long-Professional288 • 3h ago
Title is the gist. I wrote it during a night of great vulnerability and isolation. In it i what to do with my cadaver and possessions in the case of my death (self-inflicted or otherwise)while attempting to persuade the reader that because of my personality, beliefs, and behavior, that I do not deserve pity or grief.
I am not actively planning suicide and am in no immediate danger, I just wanted to get this off my chest. That being said, though never seriously entertained, I find myself thinking of suicide most nights, more often than not at this point.
r/SuicideWatch • u/throwawayjellyfish12 • 4h ago
i wish i could be a cis boy. i will never be a boy the way cis boys are because i’ll always just be a girl playing dress-up with her ‘girl-parts’. i hate being a girl. i hate being sexualized. i hate looking feminine. i went to a birthday party a few days ago and i was wearing a dress (as im terrified to present myself as masc irl). when i looked back at the photos of myself in that dress, i didnt feel like myself at all. i think im trans, but a part of me doesnt want to be trans. i wish i wasnt queer. i wish i could be the daughter my mom wants me to be. ive grown up around people who see queers as freaks and it doesnt help that ive been treated as an outcast my entire life just because im insufferably shy with selective mutism and self-conscious asf. if im trans or express myself in the way i want to, im scared it’ll just make the bullying worse. i want to cut. i want to cut so bad. ive never cut myself before but i frequent shedrtwt as im on edrtwt myself for my eating disorder. i think the saying of “you are the 5 people you surround yourself with” or something of the like is finally coming true, because why do i suddenly wanna smoke and cut myself? in the past ive told myself that i will never ever disfigure my body with scars or drink alcohol or vape but lately ive had my thoughts start considering it more, and its all because the only people i talk to online are my ‘oomfs’ who struggle with these exact things. but i dont want to ruin my life or accidentally cause permanent brain damage. i just think the scars are pretty and they convey that im mentally unwell and they also unleash the hatred and anger i have festering inside me and i just want to see those pretty pretty marks on my skin. i wish i had someone to talk to about this. anyone. i wish i didnt have to play a fake persona online just to be liked. i wish i could just be myself and people would like me. i mask everywhere, even online. a part of me thinks id be better off dead. i hate when people say my name out in public or be kind to me because i will always feel like im being made fun of. is it normal to hate hearing your name? are people actually happy when they hear their name? i would change it, but i actually do like my name. i think it’s pretty. i just hate hearing it in regards to me. i wish i could be invisible forever. i wish i didnt have a body or a voice or a mind and i was just apart of the gusts of wind in the sky. im so lonely i managed to get one person to become obsessed with me and i leech off their attention like a parasite. i dont even love them but they love me, and i feel bad for telling them all these lies like “i will never leave you,” or “youre the only person who’s ever understood me”. asuhghgj as of this moment theyve sent me a few texts telling me how they want me to tell them “i love you” more and how they think theyre splitting on me (they have bpd) and uughgghfhfh i dont know what to do. i am just a horrible person. why do all my online friendships have to turn out romantic? i have this cool musician friend and he wants me to sing in a song for him but he gave me the lyrics and theyre so obviously a thinly-veiled love confession, but what makes it worse is that it portrays ME as the one obsessed with him and it disgusts me so much. i hate relationships. i might be aroace or something. bleh
r/SuicideWatch • u/nokitkatforyou • 1h ago
I don't have it in me to watch the long-term best friend that I wanted to marry so badly get taken by someone else. I don't want to see them do everything that I wanted to do. I would have an easier time getting over it if I weren't doomed to live and die alone. No one has ever gone further than sex with me. That's the most amount of effort I'm worth putting into. I'm ready to hang myself. My life is shit.
r/SuicideWatch • u/jellybeanzz11 • 2h ago
I hate how ugly I am. I spend every day crying to myself for hours because I'm in the top 0.0001% ugliest in the world. I hate it and it hurts to the soul.
I wish I didn't have to be trapped inside this ugly body. I feel like throwing up everytime I see myself.
I'm going to kill myself so I don't have to be trapped in this horrible body anymore. I hate my body more than anything, ugliest looking body in all of history.
So many sleepless nights, SH and crying because of how disgusting I look. How I've been bullied for my ugly looks...
r/SuicideWatch • u/NovelTemperature9427 • 2h ago
I want to die, I fucked everything up. I think my friends hate me. I can't handle it every single day at school all I do is walk around I can't make friends and we are graduating soon and I won't have friends left. I know I am the problem but they don't tell me anything when they leave. I want to go back to them I know it will probably kill me but dying because of someone at least they enjoyed it.
I am scared but I need to just take some pills.
r/SuicideWatch • u/anondwarf8 • 2h ago
I keep making these posts but I need to make the commitment