Deleted post about self harm

[RustyPaperclips]

Hi MNHQ, a poster who was clearly in distress posted this evening about feeling an overwhelming need to self harm following a crisis. A few people (including myself) posted advice but the thread was deleted as you say that threads like that particular one are not allowed.

There was one post which was justifiably deleted as it was advising how to self harm, but I do not understand the need to delete a whole thread posted in Mental Health from someone who is clearly struggling and looking for support to prevent self harm.

I appreciate pointing them to help e.g. Samaritan’s, but isn’t the point of a forum like this to help and support?

I appreciate that this will probably be deleted for being a TAAT

[Herja]

Under several names, I've had several threads deleted that way. I can understand why it's done, but they had been very helpful threads to me and I felt so very much more useless and worthless after. Couldn't even post on the Internet right...

[RustyPaperclips]

I can understand the viewpoint of not wanting to encourage tips such as the post that was understandably deleted. But to delete a post in the Mental Health topic that is related to Mental Health shouldn’t be deleted because MNHQ say that this type of thread isn’t allowed. What type of mental health related posts are allowed?

I’m very sorry to hear that @Herja

[Herja]

I've actually struggled to work it out. The first time, I thought I understood why it was deleted, the other time I'd tried to avoid what I'd done the first time. Still deleted. I'm not sure hat self harm related theads are allowed, other hand the "my DD is self harming, what do I do?" type.

[AmyGMumsnet]

Hello everyone, thanks for raising these points.

Mumsnet has its own internal policy regarding threads like these, which came about following discussions with the Mumsnet community and which was developed following consultation with MIND and the Samaritans. We found that a lot of posters found these threads very upsetting and in some cases came away with a sense of responsibility towards the OP.

As with all posts, we can never be sure if the poster is real and in danger, real but crying out for help or a troll – what we do know is that we can't be responsible for them coming to harm, and that they need to seek RL help and support (we provide links to various places where they can find this, if we do remove a thread).

We also can't allow others to potentially be upset by these threads or for a thread on Mumsnet to perhaps be considered as 'advice' on this subject.

We hope this explains our position wrt threads like this; if you have any more questions you're welcome to post again on here or to mail us on [email protected]

[FlossNightingale]

Whilst I appreciate all of that, Amy, it leaves posters in a difficult position if there is no RL support.

[RustyPaperclips]

Thank you @AmyGMumsnet for clarifying the matter and I do understand MNHQ’s decision, and I also appreciate that of course no one can ever know if the OP is being truthful or not. Also I am very much against any posts that seem to encourage self harm, but echoing @FlossNightingale how do people ask for help if they have no RL support?

I completely agree with advising people who are self harming to contact the relevant support organizations, but a blanket deletion policy on self harm posts concerns me

[TheMaddHugger]

(((((soft Hugs))))) @Herja

I dont know of any online chat type groups that allow these types of posts. And It makes me sad, My own [now adult] DD was a cutter