Fucking Facebook suicide awareness week posts

[ThroughTheLongNight]

I've seen several cut and paste statuses about suicide awareness week and it's making me feel quite irrationally angry. The 'friends' that have posted this have no experience of suicide. There's one part in particular about just letting someone know you care, as if that's all it takes to save someone from taking their own life.

I know I'm being irrational, which is why I have managed to hold off posting angry comments on these statuses. I still feel so raw, and it's been 2 years now. Just needed to vent.

I totally agree with you on the "just let soneone know you care" post-it totally minimises the seriousness of mental health issues and as someone who lost a friend this way I can understand how that makes you feel upset.

I haven't seen any of the posts on my Facebook feed yet. If there were links to mental health charities to donate to, or people's experiences of what it is like to feel suicidal and how they recovered, or even people who have lost a loved one talking about how hard it is then that might be helpful but usually these awareness weeks involve pictures of minions saying "share if you hate (insert illness here)". They usually just make the sharers feel good without actually being useful in any way.

Sorry for your loss .

Facebook trivialises everything. Yes I hate cancer. Yes I love my children. Yes depression is a real illness.

It all comes from some kind of well-meaning place, but it's soulless, isn't it? At no other time in history would you get up in a room full of people, read out a paragraph written by someone else, and expect people to think you were caring and deep.

When something has personally affected you or your loved ones, only then can you truly understand it. It's a terrible illness, it can be terminal, and putting up a status about it will do as much as wearing a pink t-shirt to ward off cancer.

Can you step away from FB for this week?

Hope you're ok

Sympathies. But how do you know they have no experience of suicide? Not many people know I lost a friend to suicide in my teens. Only two friends (not even my family) know how suicidal I was last summer and how at risk I was and how much I am fighting those feelings even now

My little brother lost a friend to suicide and no one even knew he was struggling at all. No one.

(I didn't post a status by the way. But when seeing other people post I knew I could t assume that they didn't have experience of suicidal thoughts or losing someone to suicide)

Thank you for your replies. Soulless is a good word to describe how it makes me feel.

I see your point throwingpebbles. I guess I just feel like these things are thrown out on Facebook and then their life moves on. I have taken it too personally.

I don't copy and paste them, and I have attempted suicide 4 times, and recently had to be restrained and taken to hospital to prevent me from doing it.

They don't bother me as much as you, but what hurts is when people who have deserted me when I've been in that place post them, and you know they don't actually give a fuck.

I do understand how you feel. I never ever 'like' or share all those crap posts - like if you love your son/daughter/grandma or the 'share if you wish cancer/mental illness/whatever didn't exist'. (And actually, most of them aren't real, just click posts) but actually, having lost a son to suicide, I'm happy that people are bringing some kind of awareness to mental health and suicide, especially during suicide prevention day/week/month. I know that friends of mine that have shared this have done so because they're thinking of me and my son and any kind of awareness is a huge plus. Sometimes, someone somewhere may actually look at that cut and pasted post and think that someone did actually make the effort to do that and it might actually make someone sit up and think that they don't want to kill themselves that night. Sorry that you feel hurt by it though and wishing you all the best.

I agree, that to those affected it might seem trite and careless - but if it normalises and takes away the 'shame' of attempting suicide, and bring mh to to the front of peoples minds, surely it can also be a good thing

for me - it makes me think, oh i must ping/ring/msg my friend who i know is/was struggling, and just say hi

(i dont share those i love my son, hate cancer, hate cruelty to animals shit, i like to think those people on my friends list know this already)

To me some of the posts are useful but not the trivialized ones. My grandfather and a family friend killed themselves so if I can post a positive post that may help others then I will. I'm sorry you feel hurt op

Thank you everyone

I do agree that there needs to be more awareness about MH issues, however the FB sharing thing just seems lazy and some how lacking.

It's easy to feel that I could have done more, and need to remind myself that I tried so hard to hold on to the person I lost, She just didn't want to live any more.

It's shockingly horrible, some of the attitudes around suicide. My beautiful little hubby killed himself 2 months ago. My mother told me she wouldn't tell anyone he committed suicide, so I "wouldn't be embarrassed". The only thing I'm embarrassed and ashamed of is my mother's disgusting attitude.

You have no way of knowing what their experience with suicide is. I know a lot of 14 year old kids now sharing those posts on fb - a friend of theirs died by suicide last week.

Some of the posts have been heartrending. If it helps lessen the stigma and just one kid reading that reaches out to someone, I'm all for it.