Is is inappropriate to have thread titles talking about suicide?

[seeyounexttuesday]

There have been a few over my time on MN, and whilst I understand these people are quite clearly in a desperate situation, I do not think they are appropriate.

Feeling low/depressed etc no problem but active talk of thinking of suicide IMO is wrong.

Am I a minority?

I know i could press the hide button, but those are the threads where other vulnerable people may get too involved.

'WRT what happens if it all goes wrong, well that comes back to personal responsibility really, if someone posts on a suicide thread then they shoudl be aware of the options for how it will turn out and, hopefully, they should be able to say "ok, it went wrong but I gave it my best shot, what a shame it was not enough this time". If they cannot do that the they should not be posting on it really, as adults posters who choose to involve can make decisions for themsleves about what they can/cannot handle!'

Very true; I have in the past elarned that policy with all MN; never post more than you feel able to give. you need to be able to say to yourself 'I gave it a go'- which for me would matter becuase 'I saw it but didn't respond, and now I read X in the local rag....' would be far, far worse. If you feel vulnerable then you should not post- but whilst MN doesn't and rightly so recognise training opr experience, those of us who know we have counselling training Psych experience or whatever can still pop our eads over the parapet if needed. It's self regualtion.

What seeker said much earlier.

This is an internet forum. It is incredibly useful for people who can't or won't talk to people in real life; maybe they don't have anyone who gives a damn.

Yes, there is always a risk that someone gives 'inappropriate' advice or some attention seeking loon gets encouraged but I say that is more than balanced out by the chance that someone who is feeling sad, lonely and desparate gets just a small glimmer of hope that life is not just a bloody awful grind but that somebody out there does care, even if you have never met them and never will.

If the thought of suicide or discussing it makes you uneasy, hide the thread and/or don't engage.

Agree that also posting links to professional help and support is useful but why a blanket ban on any kind of less formal support and help?

I do suspect some people are just scared because its not 'nice'. Well, there are many other sites for you.

people are starting to rely too much on the help and support of internet strangers to sort out their massive emotional problems...that is wrong, (and impossible...)

yep, ok to get advice on cooking/parenting, and of course the support on the M/C threads is brilliant...but when a poster is on here talking about suicide.....different level.

Surely, if this is your line of work then you must understand the huge relevance of someone posting about this. As has already been explained it is normally their way of asking for help/wanting to offload as for whatever reason they do not feel they can do it in RL.

Surely it is better that they post and someone offers comfort and support that they would not otherwise be receiving.

Would you rather they kept it to themselves when surely this would exacerbate the risk of them harming themselves?

mumsnet is not the samaritans

well said daftpunk. Totally agree.

OK daftpunk so what do you do? You have moved to a new area, your partner has sodded off, you've got no money and no support.

Go along to a toddler playgroup and hope to make some friends who might come and chat about it this afternoon?

Get real.

seeyounext - if this is your line of work, then why on earth do you think you have a right to tell people where they should and shouldn't seek support? Who the hell do you think you are? If you really are working alongside people who are suicidal you should know better. You sound incredibly insensitive and completely lacking in understanding of suicidal people. I am starting to think that you are the one who is being inappropriate, not the threads you're questioning.

The Psych we saw about ds3 this morning said something about how we are operating in a void,and that much as we are getting it right, without feedback at any stage you start to self doubt and get into all sorts of stressfulmiondsets.

I know that summed up exactly how it is for me dealing with a difficult situation and no support bar DH; I imagine if you are depressed and alone it is much the same.MN isn't a void, and to a large extent when I am really low a response- any response- about the boys is enopugh; I assume its the same with depression as well

"people are starting to rely too much on the help and support of internet strangers"

qualify 'too much' for me please i have lost my copy of 'legalities and sensibilities of internet useage'

Its not a choice between mumsnet and the Samaritans ffs.

Its one of many options for people just to have a chance to talk about things. What on earth is wrong with that?

AH DP I feel we've chatted (for which read disagreed) about how much people should rely on internet fora before.

Poeple who have ionterested family and peers are lucky, not everyone does,and after a while even the closest of spoouss orfriends needs a break or gets bored. Mn is exactly right for that; there's no one peson who ahs to open every post and respond, but becuase of the huge net of users there is almost always someoen there ready whom ahsn't ben exhausted by your problems.

Hopwfully after enough of that you might get ideas about where to turn but even if not, its up to people where they get their support, and anyone who has an issue can surely read a different post instead

I can't help wondering if the people who advise only 'professional help' have a rather idealised view of how easy it is to access and what it entails.
In practice there is often a wait of several weeks or even more to get any kind of counselling at all - or even up to a week just to see a GP to try to get referred (or longer if you don't feel up to fighting the receptionist for an emergency appointment). And that's even assuming the quality of the help is up to scratch once you get it, and frankly there are some bad counsellors out there as well as some wonderful ones.
It can also take a good few weeks of weekly appointments before you feel any better; sometimes you even feel worse to start with.
Anti-depressants - well, sometimes the danger time is the few weeks after you've been on them when you have the motivation and energy to act on your suicidal feelings where previously you've been too lethargic.
The Samaritans are great but sometimes it is easier to talk to MNers who at least don't feel like complete strangers. And sometimes advice and empathy from people who've been there is more use than people with 'training', no matter how good the training and how lovely they are.

Plus, MNers can give great advice about how to access professional help and what it entails. A lot of people are scared stiff of, or cynical about, anti-depressants/therapy, and can be helped greatly by MNers who are able to share their own experiences.

I have not come on here to discuss my profession. I started this thread in response to several suicide threads which cropped up over time, and raised my concern about how it should be dealt with. I am certainly not insensitive to these peoples needs, quite the opposite, but hey ho, you are entitled to your opinions.

I shall be changing my name and leaving this thread, as I regret stating that I am in this profession. I have never mentioned it on here before, but responded to hobbs post without thinking.

Kathy has a valid point; Dh never saw anyone above GP level becuase it was all accessed though Psych referral and the Psych was off on long term sick ()

Its not unusual for statutory systems- SSD being a currently famous one- to collpase and leave people without somewhere to go.

don't worry nobody here is going to sack you for temporary empathy loss

Seeyounext - your last post actually makes you sound bloody insensitive and completely unwilling to give proper consideration to other people's opinions. 'Hey ho you are entitled to your opinions ' - very nicely put, when writing to people whose family and friends have committed suicide. Not self-absorbed in the slightest. I do hope you're not a counsellor; if you took that attitude with your clients I wouldn't expect particularly positive results.

I don't think the threads should be deleted.

Nor do I think other posters who don't like them should start a thread about them....particularly when one is ongoing.

I don't post on them, because I don't consider myself qualified (or indeed empathetic) enough to take part. I have nothing but admiration for the MNers who do sit there and talk to these posters.

So, basically, also what Seeker said, pages back.

I agree with daftpunk. Not only that, I think that there are a lot of people on here who se themselves as somehow being able to help people in ways that might previously not have been possible. Have lost count of the number of posts saying things like "the person may not have anywhere else to go." I think there is a real risk here that we give this site more credit than it really deserves.

I think the internet is a great place to get advice in some circs, to find other like-minded people for eg in cases of sn/miscarriage to name just two examples.

But suicide is IMO not the sort of thing that can be helped online. A because we are not qualified to help, and B because there is no control over who posts what, and although posts can be deleted, this tends not to happen in the dead of night, so by the time the posts are deleted saying "don't be such an attention seeker/why not just go and kill yourself then/", it's too late and the op might have seen them, and more importantly, the thread will have taken of on another tangent where everyone has forgotten about the op and is berating the person who dared to comment...

at the OP!

I agree about the tangents wannabe

But the advice- all it needs to be is 'that sounds really togh, are you alone right now?'

IME in the time it takes someone toread and respond then they are moving their mindset on and then far more likely to speak to the real people about actual advice etc.

It's bridging it.

As I have said before. A Mner's life was saved by such a thread.

If you don't agree with them or can't help, click hide.

not sure how i feel about this, but from a practical point of view, if any thread mentioning suicide was deleted, then they'd be replaced with threads titled "I'm feeling very very low", "Nothing can help now..." and everyone would be trying to figure out if that's what the OP's referring to.
Can't see that being a good thing.

wannaBe - yes, there will always be possible problems, in fact you can find problems with any source of support if you look hard enough. That doesn't mean those sources of support should be closed down.

Exactly a dragon.

I can't help atm,toomuch stuff going on in my own life, so I avoid the threads and trust to goodness (and MN) that soemone else will find the time.

I am never bothered by the trollers tbh- I offerd support the Queen Troll and I was more than happy to find she wasn't really on the edge;what sort of parson would I be to be annoyted by that? 'Damn you being a pisstaker, I wanted you suicidal and desperate ion a Hellish situation'

Er.....