#SuicidePosts: Understanding Reports and Taking Action
First of all, I want to express my gratitude for all the reports on the numerous suicide posts that have been circulating recently. It’s been overwhelming to see so many “Someone is considering suicide or serious self-harm” reports in the past few days/week.
### What Happens When I Receive These Reports?
When I receive these reports, I must admit that I ignore them by pressing the Ignore button. Why do I do this? There are two main reasons. Firstly, this group has always been a safe space for individuals to share their struggles and seek help in finding a path. Secondly, I am not a therapist or a superhero who can magically solve everyone’s mental health issues.
However, if a post clearly indicates that the person is announcing their suicidal intentions without seeking any help or guidance, I take action by reporting their name to Reddit. This is because Reddit has a new partnership with the Crisis Hotline to assist individuals in crisis situations.
### Our Role in Supporting Those in Need
As a community, our goal is to provide support, guidance, and actionable advice to help individuals navigate their pain and find a way out of their struggles. We are not therapists or miracle workers, but we can offer valuable insights and resources to those who reach out for help. Sometimes, people are in such a dark place that they require professional therapy, and our role is to point them in the right direction towards the help they need.
### Handling Depressing Posts and Ensuring Community Support
I understand that dealing with these posts can be emotionally taxing, and I can only engage in a few helping or actionable comments per day after going through the feed. The easy solution would be to set up Automoderator to filter out posts containing certain keywords related to suicide. However, this could potentially deter individuals from seeking help and make them feel unwelcome in the community.
### Balancing Mental Health and Community Support
It’s crucial to prioritize your mental health when engaging in this group. If you feel overwhelmed or burnt out, it’s completely okay to take a break and recharge. As we continue to refine our group and plan for more effective support mechanisms, your feedback and ideas are highly valued.
### Seeking Input on Community Resources
I’m open to suggestions on how we can effectively position select, lesser-known resources within the group to provide better support. Whether it’s through a Group Wiki or a new Rule that directs users to helpful links, I welcome your input on how we can enhance our support system.
### In Conclusion
In summary, while reports on extreme cases of suicidal intent are necessary for intervention, for milder cases, let’s focus on offering ideas and pathways to help individuals find their way out of their struggles. Your thoughts and opinions on this matter are crucial for shaping the future of our community support. Remember to prioritize your mental well-being and contribute within your capacity each day.
Let’s continue to build a supportive and empathetic community that offers hope and guidance to those in need. Thank you for being a part of this journey. 👩👩👦👦🌈 #MentalHealthMatters #SupportCommunity #FindingHope
I too was alarmed and really started kind of collecting them to see what the commonality was.
Really, and this is horrible, it’s just trendy. That’s tough, I know. And it delegitimizes true cries for mental health help.
I think “I’ll kill myself” is thrown around so much it means nothing. In that vein I agree with the course of action you have adopted.
The truth is generations lately are overwhelmed with online “success perception” and when they realize they won’t attain that hopelessness sets in.
It’s like it’s all they know success to be.
Man, there are so many variations on success and very few of them truly have to do with money or careers.
Maybe someone can build on this idea. From personal experience the only thing that helped me was finding something to focus on… Maybe the links and redirects could be to a compiled list of things to get involved in that can help someone to feel like they matter, like they’re needed and they’re making a difference… I believe there’s an opportunity to set a new standard for the way we approach mental health… If there was a way to set aside certain jobs when they arise for this, instead of sending out the opening to our friends like we normally do simply pass the info on to a email repository (is that how it works? ) or something like that to make it easy, and that email data could be governed by ai, it would just categorize the info accordingly, it could be anything , “help wanted” “tutor roles” it could be a wide range of things, simply just opportunities that have the potential to build self worth, all in one place… , like we come up with a criteria and pin the rules for what qualifies as one of these self help roles, then just have a forum that keep the opportunitys on a list with different categories etc etc. it would likely need to be an invite only type forum cause I’m sure It would start off slow..
I was winging my way through most of this….but i think it could really be a great idea, it needs a lot of work, as far as hammering out the details… But… I think this could be something…
Thoughts?
(Edit: added a couple afterthoughts and new typos)
Couldn’t agree more, dude. Same. I always report those too. So inappropriate. Even though I’m a mental health professional, posting this suicide bs on social media is🚩🚩🚩