Has anyone else ever NOT been encouraged to commit suicide on here

[Tintypographer]

I read over and over again that the people on this website encourage the vulnerable to commit suicide. I've been suicidal for years and have posted many times about my desire to take my own life. But not one single person has ever, on this website forum, one single time encouraged me, reached out to sell me something or bullied me.

By comparison my closest friends not on this website have said "if you were serious you would have made a plan and taken your own life"

I'd like to hear and try to count those individuals who have posted on here and have NOT been encouraged to take their own life.

Notice there is a DIFFERENCE between encouraging or manipulating someone into suicide and commiserating with someone who has shared that they hope to die.

Has anyone posted on here that they were despondent and wanted to take their own life and were then treated with respect but NOT MANIPULATED OR encouraged to take their own life.

I'd like to hear your stories and hear how many have posted here and shared their depression and sadness but were NOT encouraged to commit suicide.
And I'd love to see if Kelli on fix the 26 posts any of these stories in her narrative.

 

[Nightmare Painting]

I'm over 30 years old, nobody can manipulate me into taking my own life.

When people take their life, the ones left behind try to find a scapegoat to point their finger at to try to absolve themselves of responsibility for their actions or inaction. Society as a whole is what truly provides encouragement for people to kill themselves by being indifferent to the suffering of the disadvantaged or bullying & ostracizing them.

 

[empty]

I've never been even remotely encouraged to commit suicide on here. Providing information on suicide ≠ telling someone to kill themselves

 

[little helpers]

actually you'd see quite a bit of "it's okay if you changed your mind" and "think through this, it shouldn't be an impulsive act" here. I encounter these type of comments a lot.

imo SS has pretty much functioned as an open planning group at one point, when method-talk was permitted. so here's the info, take it or leave it. it's all about getting informed, the decision remains theirs.

visibility isn't always a good thing imho. I think SS used to be more hardcore, with people who already know what they want. in that situation it's literally impossible to "encourage" no one, you know. I kinda prefer these things having an intimidating image of some sort. say, almost everyone stays the hell away from heroin until they're at *such* a point of desperation. then with OxyContin they made it seem like it's all child's play, this I'm talking 'bout Purdue Pharma's motherfucking "campaign", and you get parents all teary saying "they killed my daughter" etc. sometimes I think being frowned upon isn't a bad thing. Idk that's my two cents.

 

[Pure]

SS is the only platform I've used where I haven't or haven't seen anyone receive explicit encouragement to kill myself/themselves.

In fact, I've had users discourage me from it and try therapy again.

 

[Bleak]

Never on here. On ASH it only happened one time from this guy:

William Francis Melchert-Dinkel - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[whywhywhy]

Havent seen anyone. In fact in this forum people have way more empathy than most people IRL. Because IRL most people have never experienced what feels to have lost your motivation to live. If they actually did society wouldnt make suicide as taboo as it is.

The problem with todays society is that people have developed a hero complex. They jump into social media write some anti-X evil thing and then they pat themselves in the back. Its so dumb how taboo being pro choice is that governments are trying to close these forums or limiting people access to information (like google removing it from google searches)
But yeah lets keep the public uninformed so instead of peaceful suicides people find the good all traditional painful methods like jumping of a window and failing so they have to spent their already sad existence in a wheelchair without being able to move. But hey euthanasia is also illegal so fuck you still have 40 years left until you die. Its so dumb is hilarious that people dont realize what they are really promoting is human torture when they attack pro choice.

 

[miserableforever]

Not once. I would've left the community otherwise.

 

[Onthe29th]

I heard that to before I joined but I didn't believe it. People aren't that easily manipulated. I'm almost 30 and I already had a plan before joining. I even read the pph before joining so no one can blame this site for my choices if I decide to ctb. Only thing this site did for me was improve the quality of my method and my final days on this earth but I had everything ready to go for the most part and every day, I choose not to it seems.

 

[waitingforrest]

I have never been encouraged. The thing is that we are pro-choice, not pro-suicide. The difference is being allowed to make our own choices, whether death or not.

I agree, most of the times I have been encouraged were by my own loved ones. I don't hate them for it, but there's a vast disconnect between understanding. Empathy can only go so far.

I think the fact that so many of us are on the fourm instead of on crisis lines says a lot. There is anonymity and people who will definitely understand. It allows everyone to be completely honest. If I were to say what I say on here to a hotline, they will send cops right away.

Even if the forum is shut down or methods are restricted, there will still be people who ctb. They will try more dangerous methods or go to more extremes. You can't stop people from doing what they want. Just look at most illegal stuff, I don't condone it, but people are still going to do it. Outcasting and treating groups of people because they don't fit with society's moral standards does more harm than good most of the time.

I have said this many times, but I think there is a right to die such as a right to live. It's just suicide has been engraved as immoral for so long. Psychology has gone a long way, but hasn't really progressed on the rights of patients. Any person with a terminal, physical illness can deny treatment even if they know they will die. Same cannot be said for mental illness. I open to discussions.

If Kelli really wants to help suicidal people, I'd advise her to stop virtue signaling and acting like some savior for a noble cause. Instead of mindlessly posting harassment, why not volunteer at a hotline? I'm sure all the money she is getting could be put to better use elsewhere, rather than funding a harassment campaign.

 

[ARW3N]

The funny thing is that you're absolutely right when I come to think about it. I've never been encouraged to commit suicide nor have I encouraged anyone else on the forum to commit suicide to the best of my knowledge. In fact, the forced resignation of Marquis from the forum has made me feel more suicidal rather than less because he was someone that you could relate to and had the same problems as us unlike a paid psychiatrist or therapist. I've been away from the forum for a while and one of my first acts upon returning was to search for a female member who had lost her husband and was suicidal. I'm relieved she's still around while respecting her quite understandable desire to end her life.

 

[Life sucks]

Never. It didn't happen at all, 0 times.

 

[whywhywhy]

If Kelli really wants to help suicidal people, I'd advise her to stop virtue signaling and acting like some savior for a noble cause. Instead of mindlessly posting harassment, why not volunteer at a hotline? I'm sure all the money she is getting could be put to better use elsewhere, rather than funding a harassment campaign.

Tbh I think you require a minimum amount of empathy to work in a hotline. Talking to that egocentric woman would probably give you even more reasons to CTB.

On a side note the admins here are nothing sort of heroes,they could have easily just dumped the site but they are actually risking their lives to leave people a place to discuss

 

[GentleJerk]

Everyday I see emotional and moral support being given to people here who are contemplating suicide. The first thing I always see is compassion and concern displayed for others, with suggestions and advice being given about every possible therapy, treatment and help imaginable.

And importantly, the support received here continues beyond the point where support from conventional sources stops/gives up.

 

[avoid_slow_death]

Not that I can recall and I have been here almost 2 years. What you DO see a lot of is empathy, emotional support and solace in other people by knowing that you are not alone or bad for having such inclinations. As many have already stated, this place is actually a huge comfort zone for people too alone or afraid to express these thoughts without fear of reprisal. Hell, I have seen people leave the forum thanking people here for helping them to get their minds right and onto the road to recovery. So, I honestly don't see how any of this is encouraging suicide. If anything this place exists to help people make a choice, not force them into one.

 

[montana007]

Nope. Never been encouraged. And never seen it happen. But then it's only the past few days that I've been active around these parts since joining up here.

Opinion: I noticed something yesterday in a post and that got me to thinking. To the extent that I contemplated reporting the post but did'nt feel it my right or place to do so. Because I'm at this point I know only too well that the member meant well but the choice of words and the way these lunatics that want this site shut down COULD interpret those very same words? Shaky ground.

And what these lunatics really don't get and I've seen this mentioned more than once in these offensive articles: the deceased person became obsessed with this site and spent most of their last days around here. Well duh? Newsflash: once at this point it's the most lonely place to be ever. So my take on this would be that these people spent a lot of time here as a proxy for company and emotional support (which isn't the same thing as looking for encouragement). It doesn't mean that those last few days were spent looking for encoouragement or hoping to get egged on. I guess I could be really nasty (why not): fucking crying shame that somebody that has hit rock bottom and in their last days has to spend their last time communicating with total strangers somewhere around the world for a bit of emotional support and maybe some friendship and understanding. So in real life: where the fuck were these lunatics and why were they so unapproachable (making an assumption here but based on my current and personal situation).

And if nothing else: I don't think these lunatics have considered worse possible outcomes e.g. failed attempts due to a lack of knowledge and information. Seems to me they'd be only to happy to still have the person around no matter how mentally and physically fucked they may have ended up as a result of a botched attempt. That's real fucking love and compassion yes? I mean to say: it's obvious that these attempts all went off without a hitch otherwise this site wouldn't be in the headlights or spotlights.

Matter or fact I was absolutely incensed by a comment made in yet another BBC article. Something along the lines that were it not for this site the victim would still be around and probably until the age of 90 and then went so far at to say that said victim by that stage, and given her mental health issues, would probably, at age 90, still be complaining and wanting to end her life. And that's alright ie it? So you, no matter who you are and what your issues are, live for the next 50 or so years with the overwhelming mental pain and anguish that never goes away just as long as you stick around and don't put me through the pain of loss? I was going to copy and paste the comment and a link to the article but figured it'd be rather upsetting to the mother and I ain't here to upset anybody nor make enemies or start a shit show on the side. And actually I've a feeling that said parent is still a lurker around these parts so I was thinking of the potential fallout and could imagine going one on one with one of these people. Sorry. I don't have the strength nor the energy to go one round like that with someone. And what do I stand to gain by attacking somebody who has already suffered a devastating loss and digging up an old wound?

In closing (phew):

I just looked up the thread and posts to which I was referring above. Essentially telling somebody that they're brave for having made an attempt is probably Gold for these lunatics. I get it (why somebody would say that another member is brave for having made an attempt but then I'm suicidal hence I get it). Because I know what is meant by statements such as those. It's not encouraging anybody to attempt again nor is it giving them brownie points for trying nor is it making them feel food for at least making an attempt (which many here, myself included, struggle with). But my point is that comments like that, no matter how well intentioned, could be perceived by the loons as something that they're not and used to suit their agenda and support their narrative. Note: I'm not pointing fingers at anybody here nor am I suggesting to members what's appropriate to post and what's not. That's not my right. Sucks that you have to think like them before posting anything though.

 

[deathismymeaning]

I think there's a difference between encouragement and simply being able to validate and listen to someone without really giving them major advice. I'd say that a lot of the times people on here help each other not go through with things that will cause them greater suffering than what they've already endured, I've never seen a single person here encouraging another to take their own life; on the other hand on popular social media platforms or in social situations you will hear people tell others to kill themselves starting even as early as middle schoolers who have no understanding of the power of those words. SS isn't a platform for encouragement it's for those of us who need a place to discuss their thoughts and feelings with others who feel similarly to them without being push to either extreme side of killing themeselves or just being told to suck it up and deal with it.

 

[ShttyChicken]

Not once. I would've left the community otherwise.

Same. It's safe space for me, maybe even the safest place on the internet (still - for me)

 

[montana007]

Same. It's safe space for me, maybe even the safest place on the internet (still - for me)

Yep. Here's a thought.

What about the harm that is caused on FB and on Twitter and which in some cases has resulted in suicides of young vulnerable individuals? Try shut them down using the same logic and see how far you get? This site is being conveniently scapegoated and is a soft target. Amusingly the proposed amendments to Section 230 are not only going to affect this site. FB and Twitter are not immune either although I'm figuring they'll find a way. Let's see how smooth this all goes down.

Or what about the entertainment industry? It's becoming increasingly difficult to find a new movie or series that doesn't contain gratuitous and graphic violence and suicide. I'd love to see the ensuing shit storm should one of these groups start advocating for old fashioned censorship. That PG rating shit hasn't worked for decades if ever. There would be an outcry bar none under the guise of the protection of freedom of speech and expression. Funny that wouldn't fly with this site with anybody I'm sure. And not to mention the gaming industry. All of this stuff is merely desensitising these vulnerable individuals that everybody bangs on about if not depicting methods albeit that they're misguided and technically lacking and/or invalid.

 

[_Minsk]

Can't remember any suicide encouragement posts here, but the rules are strict and the mods are doing all they can. On the other hand I've definitely seen therapy encouragements here or posts that talk one person out of suicide or methods that would leave one with permanent damage.

 

[needed_]

I read over and over again that the people on this website encourage the vulnerable to commit suicide. I've been suicidal for years and have posted many times about my desire to take my own life. But not one single person has ever, on this website forum, one single time encouraged me, reached out to sell me something or bullied me.

By comparison my closest friends not on this website have said "if you were serious you would have made a plan and taken your own life"

I'd like to hear and try to count those individuals who have posted on here and have NOT been encouraged to take their own life.

Notice there is a DIFFERENCE between encouraging or manipulating someone into suicide and commiserating with someone who has shared that they hope to die.

Has anyone posted on here that they were despondent and wanted to take their own life and were then treated with respect but NOT MANIPULATED OR encouraged to take their own life.

I'd like to hear your stories and hear how many have posted here and shared their depression and sadness but were NOT encouraged to commit suicide.
And I'd love to see if Kelli on fix the 26 posts any of these stories in her narrative.

yes definitely, not me personally but I've seen some threads where the OP seemed to hesitate or be unsure and other members then said hey you seem unsure, don't do it if you're not sure.
edit: someone then even said hey NYT do you see this? no-one is encouraging this young lady

 

[wait.what]

I've never been encouraged to ctb by people here. I've never seen anyone be encouraged. Even the quotes the NYT used as "proof" of the average SS user's malevolence looked pretty laughably mild, particularly when viewed in the context of anonymous internet posts. If they think this place encourages people to kill themselves, wait until they find out about YouTube comments!

 

[Noctis]

Years ago on Reddit, I made a post about how one of my best friends killed herself and I was sad. I got two PMs; one said she was in hell, and the other said I should join her.

My first day on this site, I made a post about how much my life sucks. I never explicitly said I was going to kill myself, but I still got a PM with advice on how to be happy and encouragement to stay alive.

 

[Marktheghost]

I'm always NOT being encouraged to commit suicide on here; literally every day.

I've never been encouraged to.

 

[willitpass]

i have never been encouraged. i have been told many times that i didn't sound like i was ready and shouldn't do anything until i was 100% sure, which to me is sound advice. when i took SN and started to panic people told me it was not too late to call for help. the people on this site do not support impulsive attempts because we know the finality of our decision and that it will leave a negative impact. nobody on this site *wants* people to die. they believe we should all have the choice to do so, because at the end of the day, we are the ones experiencing our pain and should be able to choose if we can handle it any longer. but we grieve eachother when someone does ctb, we tell people to wait if they don't sure, we don't want people to choose a method that will cause them to be in pain in their last moments. pro choice doesn't mean wanting people to die, it means understanding that sometimes people make their own decision to leave and that they have the right to make that decision. i have even heard people discourage suicide in people who seem to be making the decision on an easily fixable problem because they have the chance to fix things and make a better life for themselves. no one wants to see eachother go, after all we find friends here, we build bonds with one another, it hurts when someone decides to catch their bus

 

[montana007]

i have never been encouraged. i have been told many times that i didn't sound like i was ready and shouldn't do anything until i was 100% sure, which to me is sound advice. when i took SN and started to panic people told me it was not too late to call for help. the people on this site do not support impulsive attempts because we know the finality of our decision and that it will leave a negative impact. nobody on this site *wants* people to die. they believe we should all have the choice to do so, because at the end of the day, we are the ones experiencing our pain and should be able to choose if we can handle it any longer. but we grieve eachother when someone does ctb, we tell people to wait if they don't sure, we don't want people to choose a method that will cause them to be in pain in their last moments. pro choice doesn't mean wanting people to die, it means understanding that sometimes people make their own decision to leave and that they have the right to make that decision. i have even heard people discourage suicide in people who seem to be making the decision on an easily fixable problem because they have the chance to fix things and make a better life for themselves. no one wants to see eachother go, after all we find friends here, we build bonds with one another, it hurts when someone decides to catch their bus

Lovely post.

Yeah. I was thinking about this all yesterday oddly enough as I'm having some great interactions with people here but it's a bit of a mind fuck in knowing that we're mostly here with a common goal in mind. Here I think particularly of @LADY077 who comes across as a great person and with whom I was interacting wth on another thread yesterday. It sort of struck me last night i.e. here we're making small talk and joking around a bit but the elephant in the room is ever present. Like making small talk while Rome burns.

 

[Tintypographer]

So right now Kelli has picked a single thread from here, made an accusation that someone is a fake account and said that the secret forum is full of encouragement.

This is such a playbook of controlling a narrative without reviewing any data.

Her conjecture is that "most of the posts on this site encourage suicide, recruit people who are at risk and this is a death cult".

I request that people share whether or not they have been encouraged as an open conversation in a public forum here. Her response is to ignore all of these posts, claim that the details and data are made up and shout a strawman narrative without any reference to the count of posts here, their content or the comparison between the data.

This is akin to saying "cancer treatments don't work because many people who take them die"

Then shout that same line over and over. And if someone states "I had cancer and survived" Kelli could then state "well my relative had cancer, took the treatment and still died". Then the narrative is to take this space where people discuss treatment of a deadly disease away because of a desired narrative

This list of posts is not about a narrative. Kelli, how many posts are here where people state that they have never been encouraged.

Let's create a metric. We will take the number of people here who have never been encouraged and take the number of posts each of them have made.

So if I have made 770 posts and I am one person who has never been encouraged on here to commit suicide that is an average of 770 posts without being encouraged to commit suicide.

I'll go ahead and do the math for you. I'll count each person here, their number is posts and we can see the average number of posts per person without encouragement of suicide

I'll also do some general scans of the site and see what encouragement of suicide looks like a see the number of posts that average with a suicidal encouragement

Then we can share the data and the statistics and even a general derived confidence interval.

 

[Wisdom3_1-9]

I've never been encouraged. I've had people wish me peace and try to comfort me when I was at my lowest and convinced that I was in my final days.

I have also never seen a member encourage another member to commit suicide, at least not to my definition of "encourage". We have all seen goodbye threads where members respond with messages like "I wish you peace" or wishing them a successful event. To me, these are messages of love and comfort, sent to someone who has already made up their mind. To the anti-choice individual, they are most likely viewed as messages of encouragement. To them, the only response would be to tell the person to stop, or to try to convince them otherwise. I've had friends threaten to call the police on me before because he thought I was talking too seriously about it. This is the reality of our society.

Anyone who reads the goodbye threads will know that there are *also* messages of discouragement - members pleading with the OP not to go through with things. Sometimes these are explicit pleas, but the vast majority of the time, they are actually just subtle affirmations to the OP that they're valued in the community and that they don't have to follow through. These messages are almost always phrased in a way to express respect for the OP's position and right to choose their own fate. We'll say things like, "You don't have to do if you're not fully ready." I also view these as messages of love and comfort, but to the anti-choice individual, they are not enough. To them, only absolutely rejection of suicide is acceptable.

That's because it boils down to a difference in philosophy. Our community's philosophy is that an individual has the right to choose whether they live or die. We differ in our restrictions on where that right begins and ends (age, degree of illness, duration of suffering, etc), but we essentially all believe that an individual has the right to choose to die. We have this little community in the corner of the web because we *know* that we are a minority - and a very small minority at that. We can't even express our views to the people who are charged with helping us, because they will put restrictions on our life and keep us alive against our will.

I get mad at the FT26 and Stop SS crowd, and the articles in the NYT and Vice upset me, but there's no point in arguing any points with them. There is a fundamental philosophical difference, and those who are so deeply indoctrinated to believe one thing will never change their minds or even accept other people's right to have a differing opinion. No one in the anti-choice crowd has any idea how many hundreds (thousands?) of lives SS has saved. We do, because we have members share their stories about that every day. No one in the anti-choice crowd has any idea how many people were able to end their lives peacefully because of SS, rather than attempt methods that could have left them paralyzed or created more difficult challenges in life. They couldn't possibly care about something like that.

I believe I'm read to die and I've acquired everything I need in order to so as peacefully as possible, in the way that I've chosen. No one from SS has ever encouraged me to kill myself. Yes, I did learn about how to do it here. I also learned how the ways I might have done it otherwise could have harmed me significantly and created irreversible and insurmountable life challenges. SS stopped me from doing any of that. One of the things that's kept me alive so much further beyond the date I originally wanted to kill myself was because of the information and support the SS community provided me. I still expect to go someday soon, but who knows... maybe I won't. I know there are a lot of members who ended up never taking their own life because of this community.

We'll never convince the anti-choicers of that. It's okay. We don't need to. We know.

 

[Callie Arcale]

There is a fundamental philosophical difference, and those who are so deeply indoctrinated to believe one thing will never change their minds or even accept other people's right to have a differing opinion.

These people have the listening skills of a stone. It's pointless to try and reason with them.

 

[ItsMe-Hecked]

and you get parents all teary saying "they killed my daughter" etc. sometimes I think being frowned upon isn't a bad thing. Idk that's my two cents.

They can cry me a river. It's likely that they contributed significantly to the suffering of their daughter. I know that my parents did. It's all post-mortem virtue signalling.