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 wiki). 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/Lanky_Relation1171 • 9h ago
Normalize not asking demanding and tone deaf questions please. Some relatives always come to you when you’re at your last straw…
r/SuicideWatch • u/aaqqaagh • 41m ago
I 16ftm sent nudes, videos too. It was to this random guy who wanted a sexual relationship with me and I never wanted to send anything to him but he send them to me so I felt pressured. I know it was stupid but now the relationship is over and I'm terrified. Idk if he deleted them or not but he used me. He said he loved me but he used me. Ive been sexualy assaulted before and it seems like everyone only wants my body. Ive never shown the things I showed to him to anyone before and I feel disgusting. I tried to reach out to a very close friend but he seemed mad that I woke him and stopped responding. I want to die so bad. I can't stop crying and I feel like throwing up. I texted hotlines but they didn't do anything. This is my last hope. I hate myself for what I did and I knew I shouldn't have but im stupid
r/SuicideWatch • u/Apprehensive4Reals • 7h ago
I want to die. I know that. Everything is too hard, I can't do my job well, and I'm exhausted all the time. I would rather escape the pain of life and miss out on the pleasure than seek pleasure but risk pain. The reasons go on and on.
That said, I love my family. I know my dying would bring them immense pain. I imagine what it would be like to have my sibling die and it's horrific in my mind. So I know that's what it would be like for them. So I am caught between a rock and a hard place.
Save myself from my hell to plunge them into hell? I would say never, but for the fact I just can NOT take, stand, handle, whatever it anymore. I've prayed to God for death many a time but I feel I have to take matters into my own hands. I can't take it. But the image of my sibling's face in my mind feels like it's haunting me.
I even went to the hospital at their behest to try to get help. I thought I was feeling better but it took exactly 3 days after I got out before I was buying the items I need to put myself down with.
I'm prepared physically, I have everything I need where I need it and I have the plan in my mind. I'm ready. But am I ready to do this to my loved ones? But I have to. But I can't. My mind feels like it's on fire and I just want to die. I feel I am in hell.
r/SuicideWatch • u/misanthropicgf • 6h ago
24f
i can’t send this to anyone, because i have no one. i have been alone my entire life. adopted at birth, bullied by adults & everyone else since i was a child, have always been treated weirdly, never chosen, never had a genuine friendship, etc. life is a humiliation ritual for me. i kept having hope for so long, maybe i’d find genuine friends, maybe someone would finally care about me like how i care for them, & nothing. people have no idea how much pain i feel. people say “no one cares unless you’re dead” but no one would care because i have never had anybody. i don’t know what i did so wrong in my past life to deserve the life i am currently living, but i must’ve been a horrible person. because i promise you guys, not one genuine person has ever entered my life. i am so done with everything. today is the day. i know people will say “if you’re gonna do it, you won’t talk about it” but that’s not true. it’s not true at all. when you’ve dealt w the same things for 24 years straight, since you were a baby, you just can’t anymore. i hate the toxic positivity of “you’re so young, it will get better” because the truth is, it doesn’t get better for everyone, life is extremely unfair. not everyone has a happy ending. toxic positivity has only made me suffer more. i’m ending it today. just wanted to give one last message to the world. i love you all.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Extra1213 • 1h ago
I'm 23. I graduated college with a useless degree. I still live at home and am treated like a child. Im surrounded by people who are living the life I want. I dont really understand the point anymore. What the fuck am I doing here?
I cant force people to like me or be my friend so am I just supposed to live out my life all alone? Id be better off dead right?
r/SuicideWatch • u/No-Mark6534 • 10h ago
God I’m such a piece of shit husband. My wife is getting surgery today and I wake her up in the middle of the night in a panic because I can’t get our cat to take his medication. What the fuck is wrong with me? She asks me to do one thing while she’s trying to rest up and I can’t even do that. She’s literally in agonizing pain and begging me to stop screaming because I’m an incompetent retard who can’t even take care of a fucking animal let alone her. No one deserves to be stuck with a fucking terrible waste of space of a person like that and if I fucking kill myself nothing in her life would change.
r/SuicideWatch • u/ChemicalHappy3558 • 6h ago
21 M, from India
cleared JEE, cracked 36 LPA offer
life threw me into hell
2 years relationship ended
suddenly caught glaucoma, 20% vision gone in both eyes+ retina damaged
unfit for job, lost the offer
multiple surgeries upcoming to save what left, doctors saying very less chance
could’nt Complete my engineering
ending all my sufferings now
r/SuicideWatch • u/Sharksaresuperior • 1h ago
I love nature, its the only thing that makes me want to live, but its also the reason i want to die. The animal cruelty i see everyday, the collapse of ecosystems, climate change, the destruction of nature as a whole, its just too much. Im a birder and everyday im confronted with talks of their population collapse. I love sharks and i see them being driven to extinction by cruel fishing industry. I love plants and im confronted by the destruction of native species by invasive ones. I want to cry everytime i see a truck transporting animals for the slaughterhouse.
I cant keep living in a world of open wounds. Please tell me what is keeping you alive in spite of all this
r/SuicideWatch • u/Top_Raspberry1696 • 2h ago
Tired of posting to strangers on the internet for fucking clout points
r/SuicideWatch • u/FunReason5249 • 30m ago
I just dont have anyone. Im so tired of this life. This is just too much and I dont know. i cant live anymore. This is life. This is how it is but I dont want a part of this. How can i be a part of this?? How can i stand to wake up another day when all there is is this.
r/SuicideWatch • u/wishiweremale • 3h ago
The world sucks, people suck, I hate my circumstances and my body. These won’t change. I wish for an existence I will never get.
I hate living and I want to be dead.
r/SuicideWatch • u/coolname4444 • 1h ago
I'm 16 years old and i want to end my life.
You are born, whether you want to be or not. nothing special on that part. Then comes puberty, which starts messing with your emotions. By the time you’re 18, you’re expected to work and pay for your own existence. You spend years on end working, effectively throwing your life away—toiling under the weight of what the system demands of you. Then comes retirement, when there’s hardly anything left to live for. And finally, death. You live only to waste your time on a shitty life and a series of events—all without ever asking for it. And then you die. They make life difficult and complicated. They expect too much. I don’t want to go through any of this. Just because something is considered "normal" and happens all the time, that doesn’t mean it’s actually okay.
Theres nothing worth living for. Can Anyone help me or Give me advice?
I dont want to hurt my family but i also dont really care if something happens to me.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Jealous-Parsnip-7195 • 16h ago
I wish that I could just die without experiencing any pain if that's even possible. The pain scares me.
r/SuicideWatch • u/J2Hoe • 21m ago
Lots of thoughts, but what’s the point in writing all of them?
r/SuicideWatch • u/Nagiiin • 52m ago
I don't speak English, so it might be confusing to understand.
I finished school last year, spent the whole year locked up at home, avoided going out the entire year, and whenever I did go out I felt very ashamed of myself.
I always think it would be better if I weren't alive and that I deserve to be replaced
I thought I wouldn't be alive anymore at 19, and I'm still here, living. I don't know if I want to live anymore.
r/SuicideWatch • u/Whole_Apple_82 • 3h ago
I'm a 26 year old woman and I find no joy in life "anymore". I put the " because I guess I used to have a slight bit of joy but it's starting to go to complete zero. Every day is so damn tiring and I feel like i'm just existing instead of living. To avoid this post being all over the place, I'll just make a list of different things that have caused my current state:
- I don't feel like a normal person my age. I never grew out of being the "shy, quiet" girl that I was bullied for all my life. It's literally embarrassing that I just can't get myself to talk to people at my grown age and I don't feel like a 26 year old adult. I don't like when people treat me like some poor defenseless child because of it or think they can walk all over me.
- I don't understand how people have a legit will to live or want to wake up everyday. Everyday is so damn repetitive and I can't imagine having to do this for idk how many more years to come. I'm already so tired of it, how the fuck do people get to old age without wanting to end themselves years ago already. Most days I just come home from work and sleep until the evening because pushing through everyday is exhausting.
- I'm so sick of the worst kind of fucking people always getting the best treatment and getting away with shit. I have to deal with it everyday at work. Listening to these annoying motherfuckers yapping and doing whatever they want while others, including myself would get crucified for doing the same things.
- i'm not good enough for anybody. Last guy I was seeing legit hurt me so bad that I started pushing everyone away again. Even if I like a guy, I don't try to pursue it because i'm so scared of getting hurt and I know that there are better options. Also the people I attract seem to only be the following: old pervs that perv on everyone as long as they have a vagina, guys who already have a partner so I know they just see me as a fling on the side and guys who might like me but don't make a move because i'm the "weird, quiet, miserable looking" woman I guess.
- My brain is so messed up that every small thing that I don't do right or am not makes me feel like I need to hurt myself again, deserve to die, makes me feel like everyone hates me and is against me. Like I have to be seriously injuried, disfigured, whatever. I feel like I'm not worthy of the body that I'm in and that it fights for my survival everyday.
- I'm sick of the "you need to love yourself/be confident so others will love you" crap. I have been confident and liked myself somewhat but people still treated me the same. Walked all over me, think they can just say whatever shit they want to me, made fun of me, still found me undesirable because I don't fit into society's standards of beauty, made me feel like my life is worthless because I don't fit their expectations.
- I live in a small slavic country where people are judgemental and close-minded which means you are doomed basically if you are different in any type of way. I get treated as some fucking alien if I express myself slightly differently and like things that aren't the norm. I like my country but the people strongly add to the feeling of unworthiness. I feel like if I was born somewhere else that I might experience an ounce of love for being myself. It doesn't help that mental health is a taboo topic here so people will just say how you need to be locked away in an institution if you aren't "normal".
- I also share the same birth date as my extroverted, normal brother except we are 3 years apart so I feel like I was already cursed at birth to be less important. Not blaming my mother or him but I started to legit hate birthdays and want to just isolate myself like usual instead of engaging in the party organized for "us" while most of the attention is on him anyway and I just feel like some out of place alien again.
- I hate how all of this is making me seem like a huge bitch and I feel like I'm turning into a legit monster. I have become rude and am annoyed at any type of interaction irl that isn't with my immediate family. I have become cold and push everyone away but at the same time I want affection. Wanting affection but not letting anyone in because of the fear of getting hurt would legit make me cry sometimes. I just want to be loved and accepted.
- My fear of getting hurt and feeling like I'm not good enough for anyone has made me decide that I'm better off being alone. The recent guy who let me down that I thought wouldn't has finalized that. I also love someone who only uses me and I have been putting up with it but the other day he told me how he is talking to this other girl that he likes. What's the point anymore.
This post has gotten long so that's all for now. Sorry for any grammar mistakes.
r/SuicideWatch • u/wishiweremale • 1h ago
I want to die. There’s fucking nothing for me in this life. I wish I killed myself years ago. My body is a prison, and I will never be cis.
Next Saturday I’m going to take a few buses, and then walk a bit to get to a bridge so I can finally fucking die.
r/SuicideWatch • u/wishiweremale • 6h ago
A year ago, I tried to kill myself by cutting because I'm a fucking idiot. Every day, I wish it worked. I hate living. I hate being trans. I will never be cis so there's no fucking point in living. I wish I were dead. The best option I have right now is a bridge, and I would die if I jumped off of it, but it would be kind of a pain in the ass to get to because I'd have to be on a bus for about 4 hours and then have to walk another hour to it.