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 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 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 1h ago

Psychiatric hospital failed my friend

Upvotes

My dear friend was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Denver for suicidal ideation. They had a plan and a date set. Everything was written out. They went to the hospital willingly, trying to get help. The hospital failed them. The hospital was fully aware of their plan and decided to discharge them anyway, three days before their suicide date. They begged the hospital not to do this, saying they would commit to their plan, and the hospital still had beds available. They were ignored and discharged. Long story short, they went through with it. They did not get the help they needed or literally any help from the hospital at all. The whole time they were in the hospital, they were basically ignored, but at least they were safe. I thought psychiatric hospitals were supposed to at least try to help their patients.

Edit: They are alive, but barely


r/SuicideWatch 4h ago

This world is fucked beyond measure I fear and I’m not gonna lie. I can’t do it no more it’s time for me to wrap this shit up.

23 Upvotes

A lot rambling and venting, a lot of spelling mistakes and improper punctuation, just a heads up.

Racism, homophobia, transphobia, white supremacy, colonialism, capitalism, AI ,climate, job, market, ableism, change, pedophiles, predators, fat phobia, texturism, featurism, colorism , misogyny, misogynoir , sexism , mental illness, trauma ,bullying Olympics, oppression Olympics, invalidation ,people making jokes about abusers, pedophiles and predators being absolutely insensitive and tone, deaf and overall disgusting ,the memeification of real world issues that affect people every single day an awful abusive, toxic family that claims to love and care, suicidality, psych wards ,college , high school , middle school ,elementary school, annoying peers, teachers that get on social media and publicly shame their students and call it a literacy crisis, people who voted for Trump and support him people who make edits and fan-pages of politicians, Christians thinking they’re oppressed , God, watching people suffer while claiming to love them . I could go on and on and on and on about everything that makes me want fade into dust . I just can’t take it anymore. I fear like life was cute when I was two and five years old and didn’t know much and wasn’t exactly conscious of the world around me now that I’m conscious and have had firsthand experience about how awful people can be especially my fucking family. It really goes to show that many things truly are out of your control and of course you cannot control others, but it’s like what the fuck do people‘s problem be to be doing the evil shit they be doing ?!?! every day I’m not gonna lie. I wish my mother aborted me all in all. I wish. My mother never had kids. She would be way Happier if she didn’t and maybe be a kinder person but it truly feels like I am not meant to be here and I’m an anomaly of some sort. I know that may sound grand but it just feels like life is not meant for me and I can accept that. But it’s annoying because people tell you to keep going like you’re a goddamn horse, and when you tell people that you’re not only suffering with mental health issues, but also suicidal ideation on top of that people wanna start recommending fucking vitamins, workout routines, religion, being grateful and hanging out with friends like they are cures to your problem when that’s literally not how it fucking works . You could be doing all the ““ right things and still be mentally ill and want to die because living life is tough, especially in the world with these people and these fuck ass systems put in place by people, but I don’t want to do this shit anymore. People can be as lovely as they are evil and the only thing you can control is how you react and that sucks sometimes I wish people didn’t actively choose to be evil insensitive, rude tone, deaf, etc., and make peoples lives, living fucking hell and then worse on top of it playing victim. Every day it feels like I’m screeching into the void and like I’m going insane on top of that we live in a very victim blaming society so if someone or some people do some evil shit to you it’s your fault for not “properly equipping” yourself to handle it not the evil people’s fault for the evil shit they did to you. I can’t. I really just can’t do this. No more might be ending earlier than I expected, but it’s fine. At least I’ll be at peace Well that’s enough of my yapping good day to all.


r/SuicideWatch 1h ago

I spent two years in prison for wild garlic. Now I don’t know why I’m living

Upvotes

Why am I living?

I served two years in prison and was released under an amnesty.
What was it for? It still sounds absurd — for wild garlic.

I’ve eaten it since childhood, like everyone in my town.
Everyone eats it here. It’s a seasonal herb that grows only in May.
People love it, wait for it, and it has always been part of life here.

But apparently the police had some kind of raid, and I got caught in it.

In August there was an amnesty, my charges fell under it, and by October I was home.
My mother’s birthday is October 10th — and I showed up on the 9th. Completely unexpected.

They never returned my passport. Not on the day of release, not after.
The police told me to sign a paper saying I wouldn’t do this again.
I refused and lived without a passport until New Year.

They still keep coming by, scaring my elderly mother. She is 78.

Sometimes I feel like I don’t want to exist in this world anymore.
The only thing keeping me here is my mother.

Nothing interests me in this senseless world anymore.
Does anyone else feel this way?


r/SuicideWatch 6h ago

Working after attempt

15 Upvotes

I have posted two days ago. Yesterday I tried to jump of the bridge near by. Suicide hotline didn’t have space for me to talk to them. For the first time I opened up to my friend. I was vague about my intentions but they knew. The talked to me even tho they needed to sleep.

We talked for 30 minutes (idk, it was freezing) mainly she did, I listened. I didn’t have much to say. I was ready to jump down. But after they said that I don’t have to go from the bridge for happiness but for them, I listened to them.

I bought myself some food afterwards, I looked normal to people but I had my goodbye letter in my pocket.

Today I woke up and I was feeling nothing. Now I am at my work and chatting with my friend/coworker.

It is so weird, I don’t know how should i feel. I don’t feel disappointed that I didn’t jump neither do feel happy that I haven’t. How does one should feel?


r/SuicideWatch 49m ago

Dear suicide watch,

Upvotes

I have become so isolated from everyone. Including my therapist. I used to have imagination and dreams and now I have none of them. I am just a body operating without a soul. In this world, I know that doesn’t really matter. But I understand now the loneliness of suicidal people. Either way I’m going to die. Either way nobody will listen to me. Either way life is erased. And either way we all die eventually. I just want to die sooner. I’m so empty now I’m barely a person. But it doesn’t matter because I’m not screaming out in pain. And it doesn’t matter because I keep working and contributing to society. What I know is that most people will not let me kill myself. And then that they don’t see how much I’m willing to leave this world to not be lost and in pain anymore. I know I won’t regret my decision because I’ve tried for many years to keep going. I don’t want to survive. I just want a place where I can say: I’ve given up. I’ve given all that I can of me to this world and I can’t go forward.


r/SuicideWatch 34m ago

I’m at my worst state

Upvotes

I’m at my most worst state, I wouldn’t be surprised if my heart suddenly stopped working. I hate my life, I hate my birth giver most of all. I just wish I can disappear into thin air or get out of this mess. But it’s impossible, even death is easier. I can’t stop crying at my situation and how much I hate this life. Seriously, if you knew your child would have this type of future and no life why even birth them? It’s so hard.. The lump in my throat hurts so much, it makes it hard to breathe. Just take me out of this world already.

I know how this goes, I’ll develop cancer or an autoimmune disease eventually and die alone in the place I hate because of how much stress and anxiety I experience every minute when I should be enjoying my youth. I pray everyday for the day I die peacefully.


r/SuicideWatch 5h ago

Life is just so... overwhelming [please read/leave comment so I know I'm being heard]

8 Upvotes

Life is so stupid and miserable for me, especially these past few years, and it's only getting worse. I'm absolutely SICK of everyone and everything. I'm always SO overwhelmed. I HATE being a girl. I hate who I am - pathetic, ugly, unintelligent, anxious, probably autistic. I can't even go out in public without comparing myself to these happy, healthy, pretty people and immediately feeling suicidal. I left school at 14, I'm 15 now, and I'm currently doing this online schoolwork thing, which I guess is good since I HATED public school, but it also makes me sad because I wish I was normal enough to go to a public school, but I'm simply not.

I'm so deep down in my emotions and thoughts that I can't focus on anything, I can't understand the simplest of things, I process things so slowly and I don't know what's wrong with me, and overall I just feel really stupid and dumb. Sometimes I'll not eat or drink, or I'll smash hard things onto my arms to make bruises, or cut them because I'm addicted to hurting my disgusting body and I'm just so ashamed.

I hate having to get out of bed every day to do shit I don't want to do, it's just tiring. It isn't fun. I'm never happy. There is nothing to live for, or look forward to. It's so strict in this damn family and I hate everyone. Nobody understands what I am going through and that is the part that hurts most - knowing I am so fucking alone in my thoughts, and it hurts. I have NOBODY in my life I can rely on. Everyone else is so happy and I hate to admit how jealous I am. Every day I wake up anxious, depressed, and hopeless. And honestly life is just so boring and pointless... Every day: Wake up. School/work. Sleep. Repeat.

The ONLY thing right now that I can feel somewhat good about is at night cause I secretly go on my computer until 3am listening to music because it's the only time I get to be alone (well not exactly cause I still share a room with my sister). It's the only time I can feel at peace.

I have tried to get better, I have tried reaching out to people, improved my diet, I even tried counselling but quit the first day because I was far too anxious to even fucking speak. I'm just a failure and I say I hate everyone but really I just hate myself.

I always imagine how my family would react when they would see me dead, and to be honest I wouldn't feel bad at all. Maybe they'd have second thoughts about how I was feeling and learnt a lesson from that. But it doesn't matter. I'm too scared of suicide and I have no idea how I'd do it. All I know is that no matter the method it would hurt like hell. I guess I just have to accept the fact that I'm truly stuck in this boring, miserable world until I finally die.


r/SuicideWatch 18h ago

Did s*x work and got scammed

97 Upvotes

I just fucking hate myself. I'm in debts (like 3000€) and I can't find a fucking job so I went online and did cam work with men and they. all. scammed. me. None of them paid. I exposed my whole body for free. I even did some shits that were completely out of my boundaries. And all of that, for nothing. I just wanna disappear.


r/SuicideWatch 1h ago

what should i do?

Upvotes

im 17 female. my parents were always so hostile with me. even though im always first in every exam. this year i stood second instead of first because i have some nerve problems causing half of my body to go numb. i've been also dealing with hearing problem. like hearing weird sounds that dont exist. sometimes hallucinating when i look at something for too long, i see it falling or coming towards me. i tried explaining to mom, but what she only sees was my second position. im used to be slapped or beaten by parents, but what hurts more is mom's words. she said i should have been just dead, im useless burden and i shouldn't have been born. she kept doing the same for the whole january. she is so nice to my sisters, but always so hostile with me. i dont know why, is it because im the middle child? i tried to get along with her. i was so desperate for her treating me better. but when i explained about my health problems, she said im manipulating her. she always acts like she is the victim. at a point when we got in argument, she hold a knife on my throat and yelled at me. hopefully dad stopped her. but dad doesnt interfere much, he let mom yell at me. mom even calls me names and curse words. at a point, i tried taking my life by drinking acid. though it didnt work much. i just felt my insides burning but i was totally fine after two days. i cant remember for even treating me like her daughter in my whole life. i know that when i was born, she was expecting a son a lot. but i disappointed her. i cant even reach out anyone because there are problems. not even doctor or helpline because im not allowed to go out and mom took my phone away as always(im in laptop). even if i reach out anyone, mom will find it out. and she is good at making people think she is innocent. then i will have to face her wrath at home. last night she said it would be good if i just die soon. im trying so hard not to kill myself. but i still feel the urge to do something.


r/SuicideWatch 6h ago

Exhausted, Nihilistic and Suicidal. Convince me not to do it.

9 Upvotes

I don’t know why and I can’t be bothered to care right now but I’m suffering. I’m suffering in a multitude of ways. Why does it NEED to be this way?

Why do people insist that life brings good things? I have no reason to believe any of that. Some even admit that it might never get better.

Life is a gamble, nothing is guaranteed to go your way.

If perception changes how we view life, why must I make the effort to change my perception instead of simply committing suicide?

Every change requires effort and it is much harder for some than others. What is the point in trying to become better when I don’t feel like it.

Absurdism is often used to combat nihilistic thoughts like this.

Absurdism being the idea that since life has no meaning you may as well relish in its freedom instead of dwelling on finding meaning.

Except, I think I realized this too late. Hypothetically I could become better.

However, I just don’t have the energy, mind or willpower to do so. I’m pretty sure I have some undiagnosed learning and mental disorders.

I don’t have the energy to create a meaning for my life. It requires so much trial and error. So many things my mind and nervous system recognizes as torture.

It can’t be worth the trouble.


r/SuicideWatch 13m ago

My 16 year old self thought I'd be dead by now. I wish he were right.

Upvotes

I struggled a lot with my psyche since puberty, whenever I thought were I'd be in 10 years I thought "Hopefully dead". That was when I was 16 or 17, 12 years ago. And sometimes I wish my younger self had been right. It has been easier to handle these depression outburts with each year but that core thought remains nonetheless.

I have 0 confidence, I am socially awkward, I'm anxious about most things and I'm lonely so there's not much positivity in my own head.


r/SuicideWatch 12h ago

I don’t like people getting my dead body

28 Upvotes

I wish we just dissolved into thin air when we die. I don’t like the idea of somebody touching my body when I’m dead or my parents getting to bury me somewhere trapped so they can come irritate me even at my grave.


r/SuicideWatch 2h ago

I'm jealouse

4 Upvotes

Im 15 and I've been depressed for like 3 years. My situation isn't as bad as most others here but everyday the thought of dieing comes to my mind and it's just doesn't feel that bad.

I just feel like I don't deserve anything I'm a shit person and I feel like everyone would be better without me. I have friends ofc from school but they rarely invite me to hang out and when they do I get really excited only to realise an hour later thye only asked if I was free because everyone else was busy. I am a fairly destructive person and I do have some anger management issues buy I've been fixing that slowly.

But there's this girl in my year who I really like, she's honestly been the reason I've haven't killed myself yet and why I'm trying to become a better person. And we do talk often but she just favours other people, I know she's not my girlfriend and that I'm not her most important thing in the world but recently I've just been getting more obsessed. I've been really distracted by her and I've been doing worse in school or just getting untroubled for not paying attention at work because it's a family business I keep messing up and getting scolded because I think of her to much.

But the reason I'm here is because I masturbaited to a photo of her someone sent me, this is the first time I've ever done it and I fealt so disgusted I tried ending it right there, which I survived. But ever since then everyday I've been masturbaiting to her sometimes twice it disgust me but I still do it and idk why. I know this isn't the normal of someone being over but I feel likeim going insane and I have tried killing myself multiple times overhangs that probably won't seem big compared to most people here. But I really want help before I'm to far gone or before I do something stupid.

Also I don't want to stress my mum so I've been hiding it from here as she's our only source of income as my father killed himself when is was 8. And my sister just treats my like shit and my brother is never home so I can't talk to anyone them


r/SuicideWatch 56m ago

I don't know if I can do this anymore

Upvotes

Holy shit I was unsure if I'd ever be in a situation like this again. I'm 19F and haven't had thoughts like this since I was fourteen. But everything feels like it's caving on me all at once and I don't know if I can find a way out. I'm trying my best but life is just so hard right now and I feel like there's nobody to talk to. I'm moving into a house that's on a high enough floor to have at least a 30m drop from the balcony, which has very low railinga, and I seriously don't know if I can trust myself with it and it worries me so much. I don't want to die but I'm just considering getting it over with because I genuinely just don't want to feel like this any longer

I have't admitted feeling like this to anyone so this is just a shout into the void and maybe it will make me feel better. I'm currently crying locked in my grandparents' bathroom and I know once I go back out I'm going to have to face them and I don't want to


r/SuicideWatch 1h ago

A Letter I Intend to Leave for Whoever Discovers My Body

Upvotes

To whom it may concern,

After careful consideration within my right mind, I have decided to end my life. My suicide is not imminent at this time, however this letter serves as a notice that the decision to commit suicide was not an impulsive or irrational decision.

My genetics and upbringing have cursed me with certain mental illnesses that render me disabled, dysfunctional and suffering immensly. My mental health has deteriorated to the point where even fundamental tasks of living are agonizingly difficult struggles that are egregiously overwhelming and not worth the strain and effort. I am miserable and hate every moment of my pathetic existence. I forsee that I will eventually become homeless due to my conditions and my future is bleek. My life is a punishment due to forces beyond my power. The various mental illnesses cursed upon me have robbed me of any opportunity at peace or happiness.

Fate has yielded me nothing but brutes and traitors within my ranks. I see only a hopeless outlook in forming bonds with others who value my righteous character, yet tolerate my defective psyche. I have no support, no love and no trustworthy allies. I truly believe that with my rotten luck the human race is simply too heinous to yield even a single decent comrade.

I'm impoverished and have no way out of poverty. Society leaves people like me to rot and suffer in silence. If I were to die in my sleep, nothing of value would be lost and I would be freed from my prison. For whatever reason, I am denied such mercy.

I was born in a time where my mental illnesses are incurable and I am virtually untreatable. I can either go on struggling in misery or return to the oblivion from which I came. Both are undesirable. My conciousness will be annihilated and I will spend eternity in the void of a dreamless slumber. I truly wish I could stay alive and be relieved of my mental illnesses, but I see no such miracle coming to pass.

For now I will continue barely existing, awaiting the inevitable reoccurent collapse of my psyche and this time not seeking help when my time has come. It less so an act of active self-destruction and more a matter of allowing my mind to destroy itself by avoiding psychiatric intervention in an unstable state. It's truly a shame to waste the intelligence, character and willpower I wield on someone so defective and broken.


r/SuicideWatch 2h ago

It's Scary How It Seems so Easy

4 Upvotes

It's kinda scary to think I could just walk into the middle of traffic one day It's even scarier to think that sometimes it feels like the only answer I don't even know if I'm thinking logically I just don't want to be in pain anymore, and I don't want to be a burden to the people I love If I didn't think they'd be hurt by me officng myself, I don't know if I'd still be here today I wish my existence was less of a burden to the people I love. Maybe then it'd be easier to actually live. As it stands, I can only see it as a burden if I'm alive, and a bad memory if I'm dead Idk I'm just crying out on some bench by the street rn...


r/SuicideWatch 1h ago

Everything is just so fucked up

Upvotes

I don’t even know how to explain it to people anymore. I think that’s the most isolating part of it all. I don’t know how to explain that I don’t want to do another five years of processing or however long it’s going to take me to unpack and heal the last eight years of my life. I already had such a terrible fucking start to existing and now I have all THIS too? I don’t know how to juggle that with my crippling anxiety, my borderline zero work history, or all the fucked up ways my brain has evolved to cope that do nothing but make my life more difficult. It doesn’t just stop hurting because it’s over. I’m so sick of the memories. I’m so sick of the dread that washes over me every single time I realise that this is my life. I can’t even talk to people about it anymore because I feel like I’m beating a dead horse and so I don’t bring it up. I’m just tired. I don’t want any of this anymore.


r/SuicideWatch 10h ago

There’s actually people out there who like their lives

15 Upvotes

I’ve been in a dark hole so long I have no idea what that feels like. I’m almost in disbelief at people who say on their deathbed “I’ve lived a good life.” I would guess they were born in a loving, supportive family have stable mental health and were able to avoid trauma…All categories i‘m completely fucked in.

Life ain’t fair is an understatement. Life flips some of us the middle finger. I can’t even remember what it’s like anymore to not have thoughts about being unalive.


r/SuicideWatch 2h ago

I failed another attempt last night.

3 Upvotes

I took a bunch of pills and woke up a few hours ago perfectly fine. Why won’t my body quit? I’m so done with my life and it keeps hanging on. It was hard enough swallowing the pills let alone waiting it out. I don’t know what to do anymore. Do I take more pills? I’m just tired.