| TW: Life attempts, Mental health, etc. | Please do not read further if you think this might be detrimental to your mental state. However, this may help you if the TWs above are relevant to yourself. SU = replacement for Self-Unaliving. We have a huge problem. We've been observing an increasing pattern of people expressing their thoughts to commit SU. I understand there's a ton of pressure. You want to share. You're human, and you want support in your darkest moments. It's in our nature. Humans value interactions greatly. It stimulates us. And this isn't something you should be ashamed of. I feel this too, sometimes. You search for that shoulder to lean on. But doing so online isn't the best choice. Online websites are generally built to suck your attention. They want you to stay hooked. It's rigged so that you get momentary pleasures from it, and you can become dependent on it. Which is why online platforms are not the most reliable when it comes to this. When you post comments, projects, and such, we, the online audience isn't trained or prepared to help. We may express our hopes to assist, but in reality, we are quite useless. We start panicking when we don't know how to help. Some words may also become lost in translation. Scratch isn't private, especially not from younger kids. And again, when you try using online platforms in search of momentary relief, it makes the recovery even harder, as you're relying on an unpredictable audience (tweens, teens, etc.) instead of actual professionals who are trained with experience to help. Your posts can also domino effect other peers who are also struggling. Your disclosure can emotionally overload them, especially if they're already struggling (which as I have observed, many of us here are.) I'm not saying that we should pretend everything is ok, but we should look to professional help if it's something that's better off left to people who know better than us. Many S-poppers have expressed a pressure from feeling responsible to take care of someone else's safety. They'll see the posts and feel helpless. This causes the community to become saturated with distress, which normalized these anxieties and suffering, instead of trying to heal. I also have some healthy alternatives, so you don't need to stress about finding some. You can talk to any trusted adult, counselor, or a professional in this area. You could also share lighter reflections or just your general feelings online, just not the graphic details and all, that may trigger some. Reach out to the people you trust, in private, instead of posting publicly. Vulnerability is allowed and is natural. But it's our responsibility to make sure there are boundaries to keep YOU and OTHERS safe. It's best for all of us. But if in the case you really do need help in the moment, you can call emergency services, SU call hotlines, or crisis chat/text lines. These should be always available to you. This matters a TON to me, because you matter. You deserve real help. You deserve real support. You deserve real privacy. Your struggles matter, and they deserve a space where they you can be heard safely. My Takeaways: You matter. We all matter. As much as your peers may try to help, we are still all young and inexperienced. There are always people available to help. I hope we can use this as a learning and growth opportunity as a community. Explaining the solutions to a problem plaguing our minds, as of the recent: Reporter Esperanza. Let's bring hope and exploration of this world. Thank you. That's me, Esperanza, signing out. Rules for this account, and interacting and making contact with me: Little storage notes that aren't useful to you: Reporter Esperanza's Third News Drop: Preventing Future Disasters in the Making - It Comes Down to You. Please support by providing constructive feedback. You're always welcome to disagree.
