cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/1360444
For context: One of the rules in that community is that you aren’t allowed to post anything related to suicide. In a mental health community.
The mod team and I have been working hard at making this a space where everyone feels heard and supported. It’s difficult to make sure we are allowing people to talk freely about whatever they need to talk about, but not ending up with a time-sensitive crisis that we as volunteers don’t have the tools to manage properly. We will definitely rethink that rule and ways to re-word it. We are always open to talking about the rules and what needs to change to make people feel comfortable posting here.
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Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We have updated rule 4. Posts that mention suicide are now allowed with proper flags and warnings so people who may feel triggered can avoid them.
They’re not trying to be a crisis intervention space, but more of a maintenance space for people that aren’t that bad off yet.
You have to pick one as a small community, you can’t be both. Because the internet-community-available tools (listening empathetically to the problem, mainly) to help at one phase can potentially hurt at another, and there isn’t just one set of tools that always helps all people suffering different stages of difficulty, that can just be universally employed. Particularly at this young-community scale, where there just aren’t that many participants yet.
It’s regrettable, and I think this should probably be explained in the rules so they don’t come off as arbitrary, but it is the way it is.
If this was a private therapy space, where “patient conversations” were private, we would not have this problem.
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Yeah, I agree. I think suicide specifically needs its own community. Severe problems and mild problems just need different approaches.
Severe problems ideally need people who have been there themselves, who can speak from experience. Or people who have training.
Mild problems and health maintenance are more accessible to everyone.
A suicide-focused community with dedicated professional mods would be so nice. We would be able to direct anyone who is in crisis there. Lemmy is still young and I’m not aware of a space like that to refer anyone to, though.
Fully agreed. The importance of a specific community cannot be understated. It would be good to have it be for people who had been there as peers in the community, but the mods would have to be properly trained and vetted above all else.
Rewording is probably needed. Instead of “YOUR POST ABOUT SUICIDE IS NOT ALLOWED AND YOU’RE CAUSING PROBLEMS IF YOU DO” (not what it literally says, but how it feels to read)
I think you can hit your same goals with:
- ‘Downer’ posts, especially those about suicide, will be kindly redirected to somewhere designed for support. Here are some great resources if that’s what you’re looking for [links]
It makes the intent clear, doesn’t stonewall vulnerable people, and leaves room for positives posts such as a story of how someone overcame suicide (which, based on your comment sounds like they should be allowed, but the current wording make it sound like positive posts will be blocked too)
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We will work on rewording it today.
If the reason is triggering, you are ill-informed. Discussing suicide does not trigger suicidal ideation, having open discussion about it can in fact push people to reach out. Now that is not to say that random strangers on the internet should be handling suicidal people, but refusing them an outlet to reach out is arguably more harmful as long as actually suicidal people are referred to the proper channels if they post.
I disagree, chain suicides do exist and we need to carefully evaluate if our actions could be causing more of those than the people we’re helping.
Well what were you expecting when you choose “mentalhealth” as the community’s name? People who are that bad will show up.
Very likely. I’m not sure if there is another space to redirect them to yet, though. Lemmy doesn’t have everything yet.
I briefly tried creating a comm specifically for this that I titled “Void Screaming” so that you could go let it out and keep it out of the other subs and ideally not even follow that sub. Kind of like a specialized mental health grease trap. People were worried it was unhealthy but tbh ime working in mental health you gotta let it out, it’s just about making sure you do it in the appropriate places and appropriate ways then go back to the positivity once the ick is out. But I get that that’s a pretty complex topic for laypeople.
It does seem bad, but there are reasons why that rule is there. Anyone who is acutely suicidal needs urgent guidance and help, but places like Lemmy/FV or Reddit are not that kind of help. We are all inherently “randoms on the internet” with no (or no easily provable) credentials.
People running and participating in these kinds of communities are volunteers and not trained in mental health. As such, they are not equipped to handle anyone acutely suicidal, and should definitely not try to - for whomever’s sake and their own. Pointing people towards any qualified help is about the best one can do. Any other advice is unqualified, and either offering, accepting or enabling any would be irresponsible.
I suppose in a vulnerable state of mind, that itself can seem grim or dismissive, but it really isn’t. It’s a matter of protecting vulnerable people from potentially shitty advice which could endanger them. Mental health is serious, you wouldn’t go to Reddit or whatever with an acute heart attack, so don’t do it with an acute psychological crisis either.
What the fuck kind of rule is that?
I get why they do this, suicide prevention is no joke and should be handled by people that trained for it, some commenter trying to help could cause a lot of harm without meaning to do so and someone that’s not in a good mental space could become triggered and/ or spiral into suicidal thoughts themselves after reading these kinds of subjects.
That said, perhaps the mods could link suicide prevention hotlines from all over the world (as you already do for different resources on -TherapyNeurodegenerative Disease Support, ADHD, Autism, Fibromyalgia, etc.). If I were me, Id put those as front and center as posible, and as easy to find as posible by those who need it (say, quote it after the rule about suicide, include it in the resources given, maybe highlight it).
Suicide.org has some great guidelines on how to mention suicide in the media (not the same thing as a mental health forum, I know, but I personally find them very useful regardless when it comes to discussing anything suicide-related on the internet, where you never know who is reading your content).
And remember, if you or someone you know is feeling suicidal, there’s help out there! there’s people willing to work with you to get through this, please reach out to them.
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That seems… Counter productive since that’s part of some mental health issues/crises but okayyyyyy
You can see the rationale for maintaining different communities with different purposes though.
If someone goes there feeling depressed or whatever, being greeted by a wall of posts by people contemplating suicide might be somewhat counterproductive.
sounds like they should get new mods
