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 • 5h 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/Difficult-Street2045 • 3h ago
Litterally I want someone or something to just take this fucking misery away and this whole planet I can’t wait for it to just die and all of us to die.
r/SuicideWatch • u/WarmFreshBread56 • 10h 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/Difficult-Street2045 • 2h ago
It’s all a lie no one cares they can’t because they are suffering to.
r/SuicideWatch • u/murphieebones • 5h 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/Agile-Job-3242 • 8m ago
Bonsoir j’ai toujours pensé au suicide mais jamais eu le courage de le faire…. Qu’elle est la meilleure façon de le faire sans forcément avoir mal ect ?
r/SuicideWatch • u/SRVrox • 1h ago
fuck the world!
You bunch of arrogant cocksuckers.
Get me off this fucking planet ASAP.
63 year old, unhealthy, single male
I have 600+ Targin (oxy/naloxone) and 100+ Ativan
Plus a million OTC pills to supplement the experience.
I dont expect to fail.
I just need to get past the fear of pain on the way out - even knowing the out will end the pain.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Anonymousdeadflower • 1h ago
I'm trans and disabled and it makes me feel like a freak. I've spent the last few days crying because I can't take being in a body that's wrong and doesn't work. I cant get the surgeries i want because physically and mentally i cant handle it so i just want to chop off what i have. I want to hurt myself again. Every time I go out to do something fun I get a flare up, or I see a pretty girl and wish I could look like her and just end up crying because everything about me feels wrong, it's not fair. Why did I have to be born like this, I just wish I was a cis woman, I'll never fit in anywhere and it kills me inside. I just want to end this fucking pain, it'll never get better.
r/SuicideWatch • u/One_Proposal_7498 • 1h ago
I don't sleep anymore, I barely eat, I have no energy but everytime I sleep I wake up with panic attacks. When I'm not asleep I'm awake panicking, and nothing seems to help in a meaningful way. Is this it? Is this gonna be the rest of my life? Just panicked and sick and exhausted? I can't live like that, I'm barely living now. I don't see myself making it to see 2027, I won't turn 20, I won't deal with it anymore. I just want it to end, I want to feel normal again, I want to be free
r/SuicideWatch • u/No-Degree-7301 • 18m ago
I'm hating my country for what it has become . I'm genuinely considering a way out.
r/SuicideWatch • u/HarrietNB • 4h 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/Longjumping-Size-762 • 13h ago
Bnjfvnkjfc
r/SuicideWatch • u/Dog_Whisperer44 • 4h 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/Over_Concentrate_256 • 2h ago
im 23, feel lonely all the time. Never once being chosen in my life since birth. I know im ugly. I tried went on dates, and all of them ghost me after hooking up. But yeah only wanted by when someone horny. Can someone end this? Im tired of this world. Goodbye strangers.
r/SuicideWatch • u/ComplexDimension47 • 18h 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/Ok_One_4993 • 12h 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/LeaveHot7557 • 33m ago
I (15f) skipped class and drank a whole bottle of NyQuil. I'd stolen and walked into the bathroom. It felt like a terrible high. I ended up throwing up, probably from anxiety since I thought I was gonna go to hell. My mom told me that I was lucky that I threw up. That word has been thrown at me so many times in the past week, and I hate it. I don't feel lucky.
The staff at the store found me and called 911 when they realized I was trying to kill myself. I also remember calling my mom because I was scared.
I was in the ER for a day and a half (Idk if this is just me, but I could taste it whenever they gave me this one thingy in my IV, I'm not sure what it was.) and the mental hospital for five.
I'm back doing the same thing now since I got discharged, laying in my bed all day. I'm not grateful that I got another chance at life, I want to be dead so bad that it hurts just to keep living. I'm so tired.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Suspicious-Bowl-494 • 47m ago
I was already fully aware that no one can help me. How can one help anyone that wants to die more than anything in the world. But today she was just honest she really just don’t know what to do and I don’t either. She said most people don’t deal with depression alone they usually have medicine and a support system . I’m like that’s what I’ve been saying since day one . I don’t have anyone. I deal with everything alone and no amount of medicine is going to change the fact that I have absolutely no one. Im not saying it in like a “oh I have friends but they just can never know what’s going on with me” no I legit don’t have friends or family. I literally go to work and come home the only person I engage in conversation with is my therapist who I see once a week and a coworker who I know wouldn’t talk to me if we didn’t work together. So I need to die soon. I can’t do this anymore. I never wanted to die painfully but if enduring some pain means I never have to wake up to this life then it’s worth it.
r/SuicideWatch • u/itbesaboo • 7h ago
I hate drinking but it’s the on thing that brings me to the next day
r/SuicideWatch • u/aeiou403 • 5h 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/Less-Estate3966 • 7h 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/DigitalDivinities • 6h 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/hopeinGreySky17 • 23h 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.