Posted by noa on June 11, 2003, at 17:12:13
In reply to Re: Expectations of the board with suicidal ideation, posted by zenhussy on June 11, 2003, at 13:00:41
Zenny, I totally agree about not responding with anger--that is not helpful for anyone, imho. I hope you didn't read my words as meaning that I would condone replying in anger to a suicidal poster.
For myself, I might just not reply. Especially if I see others who are replying supportively. I just bow myself out of it because that might be what I need to do. But I agree, it would not, imho, be appropriate to reply angrily, even if this is how I felt. I have seen people, a couple of times, however, once the crisis seemed over, post frankly, but supportively, with people about the frustration of wanting to help but feeling like they are both asking for help and pushing it away, and that other people weren't sure what to do about that. But that is different than reacting angrily to posts.
There was one time when a few of us were up late at night and one of the members of the board posted a suicide message. As it happened, one of the other members had had direct contact with that person, so, if my memory is holding up here, she tried to contact him, and ended up calling the police. It was scary and a couple of people ended up leaving PB because it was traumatic for them. Especially since afterwards, it felt like the person who had posted the suicide message had ended up rejecting the help offered him, both here and locally. I recall that it was kind of a pattern. It was very upsetting. I myself believed this person to be very at risk, but it felt like there was very little we could do to be helpful.
poster:noa
thread:232914
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030604/msgs/233241.html