A FRIEND of mine sadly lost a colleague to suicide recently and has since found herself mentally replaying their final conversations and scrolling his social media accounts to hunt for hints that he may have made.
Social media is the first click for most people who have lost somebody to suicide, as in our increasingly open culture there’s a good chance the victim would have implied they weren’t doing well.
Like most people, I’ve read some pretty dark status updates about loneliness and isolation or feeling fed up. But differentiating between a bad day and someone at risk can be difficult, and if it’s not a close real-life friend, knowing how to respond is tricky.
If it’s from a good mate, I’d be drafting a DM as quick as my fingers could keep up, but when it’s somebody I hardly know, I tend to assume it’s not my place to get involved and uncomfortably scroll on, hoping their friends and family will step in. After all, I’ve got my own real-life friends and family to worry about.
But the guilt for saying nothing lingers and when I admitted this to my friend, she was quick to point out that it’s not that hard to say something. I’d hate to remain mum and find out that somebody I knew, even if it was just an online acquaintance, had hurt themselves.
Research shows that eight out of 10 people considering suicide will give some sign of their intentions, and people who have talked about it or called a crisis centre are 30 times more likely to suicide.
“It’s often a complex issue when one moment a contact is posting dancing cat videos and the next is confessing to feeling down, depressed or even suicidal,” says Dr Lauren Rosewarne, a University of Melbourne social media expert.
“In social media there’s often a struggle about how serious to take such claims, particularly if the declarations are made by people who are only acquaintances rather than close friends.”
Dr Stephen Carbone, beyondblue’s policy, research and evaluation leader, says you have no obligation to get involved or say anything but it can do a lot of good, even if you’re reaching out to somebody you don’t know very well.
“Anybody who writes about it is writing it because they are not in a good place,” he says.
“It’s definitely not attention-seeking. When people dismiss it or trivialise it or don’t give it enough attention, things can escalate, which could have been prevented.”
Dr Carbone says you don’t have to assume the role of a psychologist or counsellor and if it’s somebody you don’t know very well, he suggests simply acknowledging their post and perhaps suggesting they seek professional help.
“We don’t want to put pressure on people to feel like they’ve got to be monitoring everyone’s Facebook posts, but if you see it and it touches you and causes concern, I think it’s appropriate and reasonable to say, ‘Hey, hang in there’ or ‘That sounds bad but I can see that you’re working on it’,” Dr Carbone suggests.
“No one’s going to criticise you for offering support and that way you might then not regret not having offered that support.”
If you’ve checked in a few times and your distant acquaintance continues posting glum updates, then you can accept you’ve tried.
“You don’t need to feel like you have to monitor things on a daily or weekly basis,” Dr Carbone says. “Just do what you can.”
If their posts are distressing you, Dr Carbone suggests hiding the content from your feed rather than de-friending them.
“De-friending can be interpreted as a rejection and it might be perceived by the person who feels bad about themselves as further evidence they are ‘no good’,” he explains.
If you’re particularly concerned about the content of somebody’s posts, Dr Carbone suggests messaging them with a link to a service like beyondblue.
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