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 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 • • Sep 10 '21

Please remember that NO ACTIVISM of any kind is ever allowed here. No matter what day it is.

717 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 • • 7h ago

Suicidal thoughts wouldn't be so hard if we were allowed to talk more openly about them.

45 Upvotes

Instead you gotta keep it a secret, which makes them worse!


r/SuicideWatch • • 9h ago

People are fucking awful

71 Upvotes

People in this age are so fucking awful and antisocial, you show any bit of friendliness or happiness and they want to take advantage of it.

I wish these people would just die off already YOU ARE PARASITES AND MAKE THIS WORLD WORSE FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE AND LET ME TRY AND BE HAPPY WITHOUT YOUR BITCHASS TRYING TO BE EDGY AND INDIVIDUALISTIC.


r/SuicideWatch • • 6h ago

I hate how suicide is "wrong"

32 Upvotes

Maybe a ridiculous post but I genuinely am starting to believe this.

The people who say that don't have life long issues that cost them happiness. They don't understand what it's like to truly be miserable no matter what, no matter how much time goes past, no matter what I do, no matter how I try to think positively, nothing works.

I hate how I look, I can barely look in the mirror. This isn't body dysmorphia, I truly look hideous. No one would want me, even I myself get physically ill at the sight of myself. (And what makes me ugly I can't get rid of, no matter what)

I have some medical issues as well so that's nice. Love having more shit to hate myself for.

My mental issues have been bad. I'm 17 and don't have a job, drivers license, or any friends. I never leave my house practically. I am no one. With how bad my OCD and anxiety have gotten I get panic attacks at the mere thought of having a job and being forced to talk to people and have people see me. Do you know how pathetic that is? I am in distress over something literally EVERYONE fucking does.

And then people try to convince me that "suicide isn't worth it"? I have been like this for years, even if I somehow get my anxiety a little under control I'll still be awful to look at. I'll still be insecure one way or another. And living for my family feels pointless as well, I think everyone would get over me in a month at the most, i mean I never even leave my room, they remind me of that constantly.

It feels like such an empty lie to be told I don't deserve to die, when I am objectively useless. I'm useless to not only others, but to myself.


r/SuicideWatch • • 3h ago

haha my life is actually going to end soon

10 Upvotes

lifes gone down hill every since that day. ive lost myself, my family, my girl, im in debt, i dropped out of school, out of work, i have chronic illness, scars all over my body, chemical burns on my face, im a virgin, no friends for over 5 years.

im 21, and will die soon. ive already made up my mind, i just want to say wow what an absoulte shit life i was given. lol


r/SuicideWatch • • 17h ago

There’s nothing for young people to live for

121 Upvotes

Every day I wake up and just immediately think about how I am never going to retire, how AI is the death of art and culture, and how even if these things were fixed climate change would still be a looming threat anyway. Caring about myself at all feels selfish because these systemic problems dominate every aspect of life and superficial “self-help” won’t do anything to negate them. Like, I‘m probably supposed to be trans but I’m just too apathetic with too much of an incurable male body to care anymore.

I hate work more than anything really. I’ve had several jobs but just spent the whole time at each one wanting to kill everyone and myself. I hate how I did not ask to be alive and now am expected to labor forever to survive, but choosing to opt out is frowned upon.

I fucking despise when old people bitch about young workers not being happy. Sorry that I’m faced with the reality of my situation and put in the bare minimum because there isn’t even the carrot on a stick of “retirement” to look forward to anymore like you had.

And what is there to even look forward to in the future? Unlimited AI slop having taken over every medium of art and culture? Every summer getting hotter until grass won’t bother to grow anymore? Endless ads for sports betting and defence contractors shoved down your throat? There is no good future to look forward to. As such I am of firm belief that taking one’s own life is the only true and rational choice one can make.


r/SuicideWatch • • 2h ago

Why the hell is it a sin

6 Upvotes

I just want this to be over and kill myself then people tell me suicide is a sin it’s so annoying this is half the reason I don’t believe in religion anymore because how come I’m so sad


r/SuicideWatch • • 11h ago

I want to be with someone during my last days

35 Upvotes

I sometimes fantasize about being with someone as messed up and depressed as I am. Going out to eat and walking around a scenic park before we take our lives. I've yet to find a person going through similar struggles like me in person, so I often feel isolated. It would be nice to have someone by my side during my last moments on earth.


r/SuicideWatch • • 1h ago

As a man I given up

• Upvotes

I did all of my bucket list. I explored countries. I watched all the YouTube videos and video games I could. I got to make love to 4 beautiful women. Now life just feels empty. Im in second year of college in a cooked job market. I have a job though taking care of kids so they need me. But nobody needs me. I don’t need them. I’ve fulfilled my worldly desires. On the bright side I have nobody to care about or work for, nobody to watch over for when I’m gone. I’m free.


r/SuicideWatch • • 5h ago

I feel like I can't move

13 Upvotes

I was r@ped. I feel like I can't even function. Ive been in bed all day. Im somewhere between wanting to kill myself and not having the energy to even get up to do it. Im kinda a sexual person. I go to sex parties etc. I feel like nobody is going to believe me. I don't know why its making me feel so devastated when ive had sex before.


r/SuicideWatch • • 4h ago

quero morrer

9 Upvotes

nao aguento mais essa vida


r/SuicideWatch • • 1h ago

slowly fearing it less

• Upvotes

before i would be SO fearful about what would happen after i die, but nowadays the doors of death are looking much warmer. i used to be such an ironic mix of suicide ideation and death anxiety. i almost attempted this past weekend. it would’ve been my first try, from an overdose. it seemed too painful so i never went through with it. i’m thinking of maybe hanging myself instead. i honestly want to have someone shoot me, but that’s unrealistic. i’m truly just so pathetic. i was doomed from the very start. i have no one in my life who truly understands me. i have absolutely 0 friends. i tried to open up to my mom, but the way she tried to comfort me was shit. at some point she told me that i’m selfish. it pissed me off. i seriously want out of here. i’m only just one person out of over 8 billion people anyway, i’m not that special. i’m an ugly useless loser. i really am just so tired and desperate to leave. i truly know what it means now when people say they want to go home even if they’re already at home.


r/SuicideWatch • • 13h ago

People don't give a shit about your problems

50 Upvotes

If this is life why going on, it's just going to go worse anyway. I hate it.


r/SuicideWatch • • 36m ago

Is it weird to still plan everyday errands if your contemplating?

• Upvotes

Looks like December wont even get a glimpse of me after 41 years of existence in this earth.

Tried to better myself despite not being privileged in life but still end up making bad decisions that led me do a lot of downfalls in life.
Ive been sober from alcohol/drugs for at least 20 years and tried building a family but just doesn’t seem to work out well for me, im sad that i’ll never have to grow old watching both my boys grow but i’ve come to a point where i dont think my current mental state is even sufficient to be a father.

I really tried my best to be a responsible human, not cause any trouble to the society and even tried to motivate and cheer up people that needed it but deep inside i myself am broken.

I think sometimes my younger years which was full of abuse and neglect drove me to this point in life. Its just endless years of trying to better myself but the trauma just comes up and i end up on a spiral from time to time.

I really thought the start of this year for me was another chance but for some shitty situation i am at the verge of ending with multiple charges at the courts due to me being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Im broke af and dont even have the means for a lawyer and honestly would never engage in a conduct to be in this situation..

I know the justice system in the country where im at would never favor people like me and im just another fella to get over and done with.

Anyhow, it is what it is.


r/SuicideWatch • • 3h ago

I think everyone around me thinks I’m stupid

6 Upvotes

I just got off a job interview and the interview was quick and questions are literally simple only for me to bomb the last one. I’m starting to believe that I really am getting dumber every day and being satisfied by mediocrity. This feeling of stupidity makes me so cringe about myself, enough for me to keep on thinking I want to off myself. Just plain worthless, especially when I can see people’s micro expressions when I slip something stupid or stutter. My boss never even assigned me to trainings because she probably thinks that I’m too dumb for it. I really wish I could enjoy life but I don’t feel that I belong anywhere. Just a waste of oxygen.


r/SuicideWatch • • 3h ago

Save me or let me die

5 Upvotes

But please, please just listen to me and finally stop letting me hurt y'all

this is to my loved ones

dont worry im not gonna do it but i really should they dont deserve any of this


r/SuicideWatch • • 1h ago

This world/God doesn't give a fuck how I feel

• Upvotes

It doesn't.


r/SuicideWatch • • 4h ago

23 with a growing list of reasons to die

7 Upvotes

Had no childhood, homeschooled in an environment where I was mentally and emotionally abused. This environment was a doomsday cult that I escaped at 18, causing me to run away from home and to become estranged from my cultist family.

Leaving home, I went into the big wide world... and caught covid several times whilst starting my lovely new job at amazon. Having barely just entered the real world, I began experiencing the notorious and awful cognitive effects of long covid. I used to be so quick and articulate. I now feel like a shell of my former self.

Despite having no education growing up, I fought my way into a top university through other means. Now begins the best years of your life! Or does it? I can barely process social interactions and keep friends due to the nonexistent healthy socialisation I had growing up. My long covid makes it almost impossible to process the amounts of information needed to actually work at my degree. I have been for many years now very depressed, but since covid I'm now essentially anhedonic. I have no adrenaline response and I am dead inside emulating most emotions so that I don't make other people uncomfortable.

On top of all that, I'm hypermobile with painful inflammation all over my body. I'm fucking sick of it all. I've done my best with an exceedingly and statistically improbably shitty hand at this point


r/SuicideWatch • • 2h ago

Life doesn't even get better

5 Upvotes

whenever u tell someone ur sick of being alive, they'd always say that it would get better somehow and someday but that thing never even comes. its been five years since i last posted / interacted in this sub cs i thought that it did. i thought i was finally heading towards somewhere and had found myself...

all for it to come crashing down because of things that I can't even manage. my family sucks they'd all throw a party if i died. im at a point where i think id be better off gone. o wouldn't have to worry about a lot of things if i died why should i care about that homework that's due by tonight? im tired. school is tiring and my final exams start next week. fuck this university. maintaining relationships seem like a bother now too especially if I'll js always end up thinking that i dont deserve to be that happy around anyone. im as unlucky as i can rver get and it is frustrating. after years of thinking that i got better and my life was getting better it js fucking went downhill. im not even religious anymore but life makes me want to believe god is real just so i can blame someone. just let me blame someone that isn't myself for once


r/SuicideWatch • • 10h ago

48M, autistic traits, homeless, may lose my cat. I want to die and I’m lonely. Can someone talk to me?

19 Upvotes

I’m 48 and divorced. For 17 years my wife took care of me, and since she left I’ve been in and out of shelters, motels, and my car. I have a lot of autistic/neurodivergent traits: sensory overload, executive function problems, social anxiety, trouble reading social cues. All my life I’ve struggled to keep homes, jobs, and stability.

I’m a domestic person. I like chores, routine, and partnership, and I thrived when I had that. I posted online offering to share my income in exchange for companionship and security, and nobody wanted it. Now I’ll probably have to surrender my cat.

I’m exhausted and it’s too hard. Right now I just want to die. I’m not looking for a lecture. I’d just like someone to talk to me, especially if you’ve been through something similar.


r/SuicideWatch • • 5h ago

I want to die for a long time now, now even more.

5 Upvotes

I lost my mother to cancer, my dad made me homeless and said my type make him physically sick (gay), to top it off I suffer from Autism, GAD and I'm deaf. I've always felt ugly all my life and I've always felt like I wanted to waste this body since I was 11 and it only got worse. I was raped at a young age and I haven't really recovered from that.

I attempted a few times my last one I was bleeding out and could see the inside. It's not that I want to die it's that my brain is telling me that I should die. That I deserved to die and I wasn't supposed to live.

I can't stop thinking about ending it even though I want to live. I think I'm broken inside and my brain just got so overworked from the constant anxiety that i feel like I just want to sleep peacefully without the noise in my head.

Any advice what to do to help, I just want to be happy.


r/SuicideWatch • • 1h ago

Bipolar

• Upvotes

I feel it creeping back up and I feel like I’m at my breaking point. I don’t even know what’s wrong, aside from my literal brain chemistry. I have a life I normally mostly love and people I definitely love

I just feel like the only answer is suicide. I don’t know what to do