Why do people leave this forum? (I don't mean due to suicide)

[noname223]

Recently I read a post that said there is less traffic in this forum.
It made me think. Why do people leave this website? Except when they decide to commit suicide.

Here are my possible scenarios.

People try to recover. Recovery section is probably a good place to start the recovery jouney. But this place is also a suicide forum. So many people try to gain a bigger distance to the suicide related content. This is probably one reason. They want to focus on recovery.

Other people told me this forum was too repetitive. So many topics are discussed quite often. LIke in an always repeating cycle.

Maybe some people get sad when they see the people here suffering. I can understand that if you feel like this place affects you in a bad way you probably should search for another way to cope with your life. It is really sometimes ambivalent. In the right dosage posting here in this forum is like a valve for me. It helps to cope with my tormenting life. But when I spend too much time on it it can have a negative impact. Many people are truely suffering a lot. One can relate to these people and one feels less lonely. But this does not make the suffering disappear.

Some people have written everything they wanted. They don't know new stories to tell and this place is not as good as a place for distraction as before.

These are my thoughts on it. I tried to quit the forum after the newspaper articles because I was scared. Though without this forum I feel way more lonely and deeply sad. I have elaborated on that quite often this is why I won't repeat it now.

Personally I think either this forum gets taken down or I kill myself. These are the two ways I imagine how our paths would split. Though there is also the off-chance that I could get banned. Never had a warning but maybe I do shit when I am psychotic I don't know. I am quite paranoid sometimes.

 

[Ethereal Knight]

without this forum I feel way more lonely

me too. I have zero friends, zero girlfriends, zero social life, so chatting here with strangers feels better than nothing.

but why people leave?

here's an hypothesis already: they got some form of socialization in real life. maybe they now have friends, a girlfriend or are in a church group.

or maybe they noticed that the time they invest here doesn't pay back in the future like other hobbies do, like bodybuilding, courses, meditation, books, physical exercise, so they changed their goals to something more long-term oriented.

if the day has only 24 hours, it sounds like a good idea to focus on things that actually give you something long-term. be it health, knowledge, money etc.

not that this forum cannot be used to gain something like wisdom for example. it can, but I'd guess that not as much as some other hobbies.

I also think that what we pay attention to, "grows" in our lives, like the "law of attraction" says. if we're reading about suicide every day, we're more likely to have the word "suicide" in our mind. they say "beliefs turn into thoughts, thoughts turn into actions, and actions create the results you're getting". so almost everything starts in the mind - "all that we are is a result from what we think.", therefore it makes sense to select carefully what you pay attention to.

 

[FuneralCry]

But why would people stay on here for a long amount of time. It makes sense why people wouldn't stay long. There is nothing to be gained from this site and it's really a waste of time apart from finding out about method information which is basically the reason why people come on here in the first place rather than to socialise or whatever. Some people want to ctb as soon as possible while others want the method knowledge so they have a way to leave this world at a later date for when the time is right for them.

This forum is mostly used as a suicide method resource (like nearly all of the threads are about SN) and once people know about their method they have no reason to stay on here. I also think that writing about these topics can be pointless, it doesn't achieve anything and there is also the risk of someone getting their feelings invalidated if they write about how they feel (nowhere in this world is free from the cruelty of people after all) or they might just get ignored while others get lots of attention which may make that person feel more alienated. I know that some struggle on here with isolation and loneliness.

 

[Hirokami]

That's the nature of this site; a lot of people will leave one way or another. If they left this site without killing themselves, drama notwithstanding, they probably recovered (at least to a degree) and no longer have a need for a site like this. If one's on the path to recovery, it could be triggering to frequently hear about suicide and depressing thoughts overall. Could even be counterproductive if one wants to conquer, say, depression.

 

[KuriGohan&Kamehameha]

There are many people here who do recover, at least in some sense. Usually it seems to be people who have a central issue at the core of their suicidality, which ends up being resolved. For example, a demanding work/school/relationship situation that they manage to escape, fleeting/short-term depression that manifests in a context where the individual hasn't been contemplating the topic for very long, or a situation where the person has never sought any sort of assistance (or the wrong kind) , only to suddenly find something that does help- whether that be medications, support from family members, new environment, etc. That's just the pattern I've noticed.

While I am really glad for those people that they've found a semblance of peace and happiness in their lives, it does make me a bit crestfallen to only see specific demographics recovering while others don't- it feels like there's a very narrow window of what sort of hardship can successfully be overcome and what cannot. Not just extrapolating to my own situation, but there are quite a few people who have been suicidal for decades. How many of us in that demographic leave the site to recover, compared to those who have only recently flitted with ideation? I do know someone who has been trying to give life another shot since they quit the site, but it is an uphill, ongoing battle nonetheless, and the person still struggles with extesential dread.

There are also individuals who may still be suicidal, but no longer visit the forum due to bad memories and trauma associated with losing close friends made via this site. Some even get harassed by family members of the deceased who are looking to cast blame, which is scary and hard to grapple with when you've just lost someone you cared about.

This place can be a painful reminder that connections are fleeting and someone's presence in our life is never guaranteed. As a new day dawns, nothing is certain. Being exposed to memories of a lost connection while you're still grieving can be extraordinarily painful. I'm very close with a former user who left for this very reason.

 

[Someone123]

For some people they get what they need from the site and move on. For others being able to discuss things that they can't discuss with anyone else keeps them here. In a small percentage of cases possibly some people spontaneously combust or are abducted by aliens.

 

[chloramine]

I haven't left, but I've definitely been off for longer stretches. Sometimes I just don't have the energy. I imagine there are some people who just can't and then they fall out of the habit of it or something too.