herbivore21
Well-Known Member
Ok, so I often read through AVB to have a chuckle at some of the threads that never quite get their jumpstart. Threads like 'how many 6 year olds could you fight' (wtfbbq? hahaha) etc.
However, I woke up this morning and started trawling through and found a thread where a member intimated that they were going to commit suicide. I got a chill. I have dealt with chronic depression since childhood. I am not here to question mod's decisions, but as a university academic/researcher in psychology, I wanted to drop this member (someone I've shot the shit with over FC here and there) a PM and check in on them. For some reason I can't message them.
Mods, I am not here to question your moving of this thread to AVB or even discuss it, but I really hope someone got in contact with the member and tried to point them in the direction of some help. I would hate to think that anyone here might resort to hurting themselves or worse.
Many of us know that there are plenty of members here who are living with mental illness. I imagine that we might have something like this happen from time to time. If mods are ok with this, could we use this thread to discuss (preferably with as much input as possible from members with these kinds mental conditions) and develop a formal FC approach to help members who intimate a plan to self-harm get to help? This doesn't have to be anything super technical. Just something that lets us all rest assured knowing that we do the best we can to take care of our community when members find themselves in very vulnerable times.
This is a very sophisticated message board. We have the collective know-how to get all kinds of great things done here. Let's try use that sophistication to be able to better take care of our peers around these parts!
The first step I think we could take is that wherever possible, we (or a mod perhaps?) check in on a member who has shared such feelings, let them know we appreciate that they are obviously coping with some real shit and to let them know of services such as suicide hotlines and psychological services in their area.
As someone well and truly familiar with Australian avenues for this kind of situation, I will happily volunteer to be a PM away from any Aussie members who I can assist in getting to appropriate local mental healthcare.
I am aware that there are a small handful of other FC members who are psychologists or researchers in this field. Please guys, come out of the woodwork too, as the best way to be able to do this is if we can let people know which services in which countries are best to point people to.
Perhaps we could pool together any knowledge of suicide prevention organisations and hotlines? Here are a bunch of good Australian ones:
Lifeline: 13 11 14
crisis support chat
Suicide Call Back Service:1300 659 467
Online counselling
Men’s Line: 1300 78 99 78
Online counselling
Veterans Line: 1800 011 046
Qlife: 1800 184 527
Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800
Visit the website for online counselling
BeyondBlue: http://www.beyondblue.org.au/
Finally, I think it would be worth offering members the chance to have old posts removed where they have intimated such information, as this could serve as a future trigger to remind them of how they were feeling or that they might feel ashamed for having shared this here.
I'll wait and see what others think we can do here, but in the meantime and always, please stay safe guys!
However, I woke up this morning and started trawling through and found a thread where a member intimated that they were going to commit suicide. I got a chill. I have dealt with chronic depression since childhood. I am not here to question mod's decisions, but as a university academic/researcher in psychology, I wanted to drop this member (someone I've shot the shit with over FC here and there) a PM and check in on them. For some reason I can't message them.
Mods, I am not here to question your moving of this thread to AVB or even discuss it, but I really hope someone got in contact with the member and tried to point them in the direction of some help. I would hate to think that anyone here might resort to hurting themselves or worse.
Many of us know that there are plenty of members here who are living with mental illness. I imagine that we might have something like this happen from time to time. If mods are ok with this, could we use this thread to discuss (preferably with as much input as possible from members with these kinds mental conditions) and develop a formal FC approach to help members who intimate a plan to self-harm get to help? This doesn't have to be anything super technical. Just something that lets us all rest assured knowing that we do the best we can to take care of our community when members find themselves in very vulnerable times.
This is a very sophisticated message board. We have the collective know-how to get all kinds of great things done here. Let's try use that sophistication to be able to better take care of our peers around these parts!
The first step I think we could take is that wherever possible, we (or a mod perhaps?) check in on a member who has shared such feelings, let them know we appreciate that they are obviously coping with some real shit and to let them know of services such as suicide hotlines and psychological services in their area.
As someone well and truly familiar with Australian avenues for this kind of situation, I will happily volunteer to be a PM away from any Aussie members who I can assist in getting to appropriate local mental healthcare.
I am aware that there are a small handful of other FC members who are psychologists or researchers in this field. Please guys, come out of the woodwork too, as the best way to be able to do this is if we can let people know which services in which countries are best to point people to.
Perhaps we could pool together any knowledge of suicide prevention organisations and hotlines? Here are a bunch of good Australian ones:
Lifeline: 13 11 14
crisis support chat
Suicide Call Back Service:1300 659 467
Online counselling
Men’s Line: 1300 78 99 78
Online counselling
Veterans Line: 1800 011 046
Qlife: 1800 184 527
Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800
Visit the website for online counselling
BeyondBlue: http://www.beyondblue.org.au/
Finally, I think it would be worth offering members the chance to have old posts removed where they have intimated such information, as this could serve as a future trigger to remind them of how they were feeling or that they might feel ashamed for having shared this here.
I'll wait and see what others think we can do here, but in the meantime and always, please stay safe guys!
