Every show with a suicide now has a disclaimer with a suicide hotline at the beginning. Is there any evidence that these warnings make a positive difference?

  • psion1369@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I struggle with suicidal ideation problems. They have been so severe in the past that I almost went through it. While not all suicidal scenes trigger me, there are a few. And I have found that having the warnings help me from shutting off the TV and running off in a crying fit. I know it’s coming and can prepare myself. And knowing that the hotline is there has been one of the most comforting things I know of. I may have never called, but it’s there for when I can’t deal on my own. So yes, the warnings make a positive difference for me.

    • Midnight Wolf@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I’ve said this elsewhere in the thread, but I have had suicidal ideation… ‘events’ as well, never called though. If you want someone to talk to (anyone else, too! yes, that means you, hi!), reach out and message me. I know this shit all too well and I don’t mind in the slightest, talking to someone who needs - or just wants - to communicate with someone who ‘gets it’.

      No pressure, I just want to help others like myself.

    • Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      It’s amazing how effectively just hearing this from someone who has firsthand insight can put it in perspective.

      • weststadtgesicht@discuss.tchncs.de
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        3 months ago

        And yet this thread is full of comments both confidently and cynically proclaiming that it’s totally useless and only there for the lawyers yada yada

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Suicides can be really easy to prevent.

    Like, the hotline itself is incredibly effective, and reminding people it exists would naturally help.

    People aren’t getting the number from the intro, but it reminds them it exists.

  • yessikg@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 months ago

    Warnings are great, sometimes I’m not in the right head space to watch those kind of scenes. I usually just don’t watch the episode until I feel it won’t affect me. This is also why doesthedogdie is a very useful resource for me

    • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I don’t doubt that someone might be thinking that, but I do doubt that any lawyer thinks it’s necessary. As far as I know nobody has ever brought suit against a TV show for a suicide case.

      But I’m not an attorney.

      • stoly@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Lawsuits of “my child died because they copied your TV show” have been going on for decades.

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      But do we have evidence they’re effective?

      It still takes effort/time/money to do this, and if it has no impact, then that effort/time/money could be used on things that are known to be effective.

      I have no idea how much effect they have. It’s possible they have a negative effect.

      Op’s question is do we have that information?

      • cm0002@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        How much effort/time/money do you think they put into that white text on black background that’s on screen for like 5 seconds?

        It’s negligible, I would be shocked if it wasn’t the same recycled card over and over again that they have some unpaid intern throw in at some point in the final editing stages

        It would probably cost more effort/time/money to do a study on its effectiveness than the pre roll does many times over lmao

        • Krono@lemmy.today
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          3 months ago

          It’s not about the production cost, its about the opportunity cost.

          A quick google search tells me a national ad costs $200k-$1m for a 30s slot. That means 5 seconds of screen time costs $30k-$150k.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    The national suicide prevention hotline is almost always too busy and callers often need to wait on hold. They’ve calibrated everything from the hold music, the script, and the recorded voice to keep callers on the line.

    This factoid splits people pretty evenly between those who find it horrifying and those who find it hilarious.

    I should say that according to the hotline, the changes made to the hold system has resulted in 100,000 fewer hang-ups per year.

  • dudinax@programming.dev
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    3 months ago

    Legend is the first suicide hotline was created after a girl killed herself because she had her first period.

    People kill themselves for lots of reasons, but some of those reasons are just ignorance. I feel certain any suicide hotline could have helped her out if she’d called one.

    • nightofmichelinstars@sopuli.xyz
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      3 months ago

      This makes sense to me. Suicidal ideation has been one of my PMS symptoms since I first started getting my period, and I’m not actually suicidal.

      • DillyDaily@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Yuuuup, I ended up getting a tattoo on my wrist that is essentially a personal period joke.

        At one stage it was crucial for my survival, it was a kind of grounding token to snap me out of hormonal suicidal insanity when my PMS was at its worst. Something I’d see that would bluntly remind me “it’s not you, it’s your hormones, you don’t actually want this”

        When I say the urge came and went zero to sixty back to zero in 30 seconds flat, sometimes that was an understatement. I really struggled because in addition to suicidal ideation during PMS, I had undiagnosed and untreated ADHD, which often gets worse with PMS thanks to the way oestrogen and progesterone play off each other.

        Guess who’s got major impulsively issues. Guess what two symptoms really shouldn’t be combined.

        I have zero desire to kill myself.

        But my hormones seemed desperate to try and make me do it every month, especially as a teen.

        It didn’t help that I had endometriosis and at 17 developed a uterine prolapse, on top of a rectal prolapse I’d had since I was 12. I was in agony when I was on my period, so sometimes the desire to make the pain stop overlapped with the suicidal ideation. That sucked. Hard to reason your way out of physical pain.

        I’ve had a hysterectomy (from 17-24 my uterus just kept trying to make its own escape anyway despite attempts to sew it in place) and no longer suffer menstrual dysphoria because it turns out that was gender dysphoria not true PMDD. But I still get suicidal ideation as part of PMS, fortunately my ADHD is much better managed so now my tattoo is less a suicide detterant and just a reminder that I still have ovaries (sometimes I genuinely forget, and it takes me a few days to work out why I’m bloated and irritable and why I’m anxious about my sore boobs)

          • DillyDaily@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            My mum and I had a shared period calendar when I was a young teen and still getting used to tracking my cycle, she hung the calendar and pen in the bathroom to model how I could track my cycle in a diary as I got older.

            We invented a key/symbol system so the calendar wasn’t intrusive for my brother and father to see, and one of the symbols we used for the luteal phase was a sort of hourglass ⏳, it was originally my mums poor doodle/sketch of a panty liner to indicate “you might spot a bit this week” but it looked like an hourglass so I joked that symbol meant I’m “just waiting for the storm to arrive”.

            It was the perfect symbol for me, because when people ask about the tattoo, and I don’t want to go into the real reason I say “it’s a visual reminder” and if they ask more I can say “it’s an hourglass, because there’s only a little time LEFT, it’s on my left hand - I get my lefts and rights mixed up. Plus it reminds me to put my watch back on after I get dressed, so it helps remind me of a lot of different things”

            • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              That’s a nice thing your mom did, and your tattoo is a great reminder that however bad we’re feeling in the moment, that “this too, shall pass.”

  • benfell@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I think, at best, it can only help with certain types of potential suicides. Some suicides occur due to apparently hopeless life situations. For instance, I haven’t been able to get a real job in 23 years despite, in that time, finishing a B.A., an M.A., and a Ph.D. Nothing that everybody says to do works for me and I’m frankly tired of hearing it. I’m stuck DoorDashing (Uber was way too abusive) and that I’m stuck doing that is intensely depressing.

    Psychology can’t help with this. The only thing that can help is a real job. And that’s what a lot of the babble about suicide prevention seems to miss.

    • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.worldOP
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      3 months ago

      I’m so sorry to hear it.

      One of the doormen in my building is kind of in a similar situation. He got his doctorate this year, beautiful flute player. Can’t find a job in his field.

  • FireTower@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I remember my college had a suicide awareness day where among other things they told people to tell their suicidal friends to call the hotline if they felt suicidal.

    Now imagine you are that person and you reach out to a friend for help only to have them tell you to call someone else in a canned speech you were told to tell others.

    • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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      3 months ago

      Feeling suicidal usually isn’t something that talking to a friend can resolve.

      Getting a suicidal person to access the right kind of help is the right move.

      That doesn’t mean you refuse to talk to a suicidal person, it means that part of supporting them as a friend is helping them get help.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Also as someone who spent a lot of time when I was younger as an untrained suicide counselor, it’s rough on you. Suicidal people should reach out to friends, but understand that if your friends aren’t able to help or keep boundaries there it’s not you, it’s not you being a burden, they may love you very much, but they need to engage in self preservation and the experts have better coping mechanisms, are in therapy, and have professional distance. Being an untrained suicide counselor was both a form of self harm and working through my trauma. I did real good for others and I don’t really regret it, but if you’re feeling the urge to do it, either get trained or get therapy, ideally both. I did later get trained in a form of counseling relevant to my traumas and I’m still comfortable doing that, but suicide counseling is rough at the best of times like being an emotional emt. And like emts they want to get to you in time to help, so if you need them use them, but the untrained are more like first aid, they can keep you around until an emt can get you to a doctor.

        • horse@feddit.org
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          3 months ago

          Serious question: How do you tell someone suicidal that opens up to you, that you can’t handle the topic without making them feel worse?

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            “I care deeply for you and that’s why I’ll acknowledge I can’t give the help you need. You need an expert not just a friend, and I can’t hurt myself helping you”

  • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.org
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    3 months ago

    Based on what I’ve heard about the US’s 988, it may rather be negative.

    Oh, you’re thinking of killing yourself, let us reinforce that by being absolutely rude, or better yet, time to get taken away by cops into a psych ward.

    Let’s see what’s out there with some example (Reddit)
    Summary: Person called 988, police showed up 90 minutes later, got taken for mandatory psychological evaluation, forced to stay 2 days in ER, ended up getting billed $6,470.

    • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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      3 months ago

      I think this kind of anecdotal horror story exists in every country, but of course it’s not the usual outcome.

      There’s a whole chain of people involved in a process like this, and I have a hard time believing that everyone in that chain routinely locks up healthy people just to give themselves more work to do.

      I think it’s far more likely that there are many people who genuinely should spend a few days in a psych ward but are unable to due to a lack of resources.

      • stoly@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        This isn’t anecdotal. It’s really quite a common response that only further traumatizes the victims and leaves them with a financial burden.

        • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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          3 months ago

          This is really reductive and doesn’t really consider how complex these situations can be.

          What should police or first responders do when someone is at risk of harming themselves or others?

          Whatever your answer, consider that the person is already having a bad day, and there are no on the spot cures for what ails them.

          Hospitals in general are not nice places to be, as a patient. If you’re there for a physical illness it’s still traumatic.

          You don’t go there to have a nice time, you go there to avoid the worst outcomes, like death.

          I am certain that there are very, very few instances where people end up in a psych ward when there’s better places for them.

          • stoly@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            People are there because their lives suck. Traumatizing them and putting them in debt just makes the suffering worse. Putting them through this process DOES NOT help them.

            • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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              3 months ago

              Sorry mate, this is just plain wrong.

              People are there because they have complex medical conditions which require specialist personnel and facilities.

              Yes it can be scary and expensive, but it’s the best way to manage a shit situation.

              • stoly@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                If you are experiencing psychosis, then this will absolutely help you. If you are suicidal, it will not.

                • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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                  3 months ago

                  That’s not really true.

                  For a lot of people who are suicidal, a psych ward is precisely the right place for them. There are appropriately trained people to develop a treatment plan, and appropriate facilities to prevent a suicidal person from harming themselves.

                  I absolutely acknowledge that being taken to a psych ward against your will is going to be traumatic for anyone. I also acknowledge that in some cases the patient might end up feeling worse than they did before they went.

                  However, I’m certain that you can acknowledge that taking someone to a psych ward against their will is often the only way to prevent them harming themselves.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Well that last part is a US specific issue and people have the right to refuse treatment

      • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        not if you live in certain US states and you make a threat that your are going to harm yourself or someone else. depends on the state but they can hold you for a psych eval for a few days, maybe a week

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        You lose the ability to refuse treatments in any scenario the emergency responders / doctors deem you unfit to make a decision in the best interest of your/someone else health. It’s why “baker acting” in Florida is so controversial. Taking someone against their will and locking them in a facility for a minimum time without any real need of evidence.

        Someone calling and telling them you said you were going to kill yourself is often all the evidence they need to start the process, whether you really said that is up to the emergency responders. For my friend that was 9 cop cars in the middle of the night. They dragged him out of bed at 4am because his partner at the time said he hadn’t been responding to her texts and she told them he was depressed so he might kill himself.

        Once he got out he told me about it all and I’m fairly certain he won’t ever sleep with his phone on silent/vibrate again. (He broke up with them immediately after, but that has nothing to do with consent)

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Good question, but I expect as far as whether it should be there or not, it doesn’t really matter. There is no harm in it being there, after all. And in the end, if it helps one single person not kill themself, I’d say that’s a win.

  • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    When I was suicidal the thing that helped me most was lostallhope dot com.

    "55% success chance, 15 minutes and 80-something agony for something as drastic as slicing one’s neck? Fucking hell there’s no getting away from it is there. " - I thought.

    Think it got taken down a long time ago, last I checked it didn’t load anyway, prolly cuz of the shady shit happening on SS

    These helplines ain’t shit, I’m not even suicidal and it makes me want to an hero seeing that patronising cringe shit. There better be some solid proof it works on the masses, I can’t imagine how much actual mental health service funding in the UK could’ve been done from the budget of all that social advertising.