suicide ///
for no particular reason at all i want to talk about what fake suicide attempts look like and why it’s a problem lol.
fake suicide attempts are abusive and a wholly separate thing from expressing suicidal ideation. “im thinking about overdosing” is NOT the same as -

saying “i overdosed I’m dying right now”. this distinction is really important because if you’re faking a suicide attempt, that’s not ideation, that’s just.. convincing people that love you that you’re dying, for fun. anyways

a fake suicide attempt will often have someone live tweeting the experience. in the live tweeting their typing will generally degrade (think “crytyping”) but they won’t stop posting, they just typo more. they often write suicide notes that also show this kind of degradation -

within them (like, the note starts coherent and ends as gibberish) and will often end with a comment about being in pain. if someone is taking the time to mirror suicidal posts to multiple accounts, that’s all the more reason to question it. a lot of times they also -

will go into a period of silence where they’re implied to be dead and return later claiming to have done something to undo the negative effects of their method. also a strong sign is when a supposed third party makes a post from the account of the would-be suicide victim. -

especially if they say things like “we’ve got it under control, stop calling the cops.” so these are just a few signs but the third party is generally the one that seals it for me. but anyway. so what should you do with this information?

it IS dangerous to ignore suicidal thoughts and actions. it’s also equally dangerous to allow fake suicide attempts to spread and go unquestioned. people faking attempts put genuinely suicidal people - who often have much less of a support system - at risk.

the good news is there’s a way to discourage this behavior without ignoring a potentially genuine threat! if someone says that they’ve ingested a lethal substance or otherwise hurt themself in a fatal way, call emergency services. don’t spread the attempt, just call.

if the person is genuinely suicidal and has attempted, they’ll get the care they need. if they aren’t, they usually won’t repeat it after a run-in like this. anyway that’s all