Mental Health

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.

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.

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.

That seems… Counter productive since that’s part of some mental health issues/crises but okayyyyyy

sounds like they should get new mods