What steps to take when an SL friend hints at harming himself?

I know what to do in RL if a friend needs help.

My SL friend has RL issues. He IM'd me while I was online. He hinted that he was going to take an overdose of a common medication. He then logged off.

I did contact live support:

S****: Thank you for contacting us. Your Linden helper is probably talking to multiple people at the same time, so please describe your issue in detail while you wait for them to become available.
Lilliput_Little: Had a chat with a fellow resident a few moments ago. He made a thinly veiled hint at overdosing on a medication. I am not sure what to do.
S****: Hi Lilliput, all you can really do it try and talk to them... try to get them to call one of their family members or official support line to guidence and help.
Lilliput_Little: He logged off.
Lilliput_Little: You have his RL contact info. I don't.
S****: We can't use that to make any attempts to contact him under these circumstances I'm afraid.


I sent S**** a copy of the short log that I had with my friend. I didn't get any feedback. I'm not sure what other actions I could have taken.

I've been on SL for awhile and this truly was a first for me. I was lost.

Does anyone know of any steps other residents should take when such things occur?

Please! I don't need sandbox advice about why the person made threats about self-harm. I just want to know what actions a person should take if she perceives that another SL resident is planning on harming himself in RL.

Do you know where they live or any RL information? If you do, contact the authorities. If not, beyond talking to them in world, there is nothing you can do unfortunately.

I think Linden Labs standing policy is to not get involved.

Sadly fake internet suicides are fairly common, at least anecdotally more common than real suicide attempts telegraphed over the net.

Still if you have no RL contact information for the person the most you can do is to Call Linden Labs - or Email Support and tell them your fears.

If your friend does make it back online be supportive ask them to get help and perhaps try to get a minimal RL contact information for them.


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What you should not do is blame yourself. Under no circumstances is any of this your fault. Just try to be there for your friend if he will let you.

I am sorry you have run into this situation, having experienced it myself once, but even if the person is serious, there is truly nothing you can do to help. Do both yourself and the other person a favor, remove them from your friends list, and put them on ignore, breaking off all contact.

Also

I really hope your friend is okay.

Nothing you can do? Well, not really, but you might do well to do nothing.

I remember a story that happened well over ten years ago to a friend of mine. Back then, he was one of the few Russians on the net, and a mailing list member, an active one... He also was a teenager, and a highly insecure one at that, and people on the mailing list were his best friends.

So he wrote a message that implied an overdose and signed off, without any intention to seriously follow through with it, but yes, in the darkest mood. He was woken up by men in uniforms showing him a printout of his message some three hours later.

Turned out that another mailing list reader - an American - contacted Interpol, of all places, knowing nothing about our hero except name and nationality. And Interpol traced the chain back to his actual location and alerted the necessary authorities. His father, a ranking FSB official (think FBI, not KGB) was very much not amused and had career problems, which, thankfully, weren't permanent.

There are people out there who's job is to follow up on a call for help like that and have the pull and authority to make Lindens cough up the data -- not sure who they are in your particular location, but I'm pretty sure there are. But letting them know might not be a wise thing to do. If someone really wants to die, you won't be able to stop them. If they just say they want to die, what they really want is support. And if they treat it as a means of extorting that support you're not willing to provide otherwise, disengaging is the best you can do.

Thank you all for your kind responses.

Brenda, Colette, Jesse and Rika--I really am grateful for your responses.

yes Lilliput, if you have a network of contacts who all know this person, get ahold of each one. perhaps one of them as a nugget of RL info and can take it from there. good luck.

This sad event comes up a few times per year in these forums (and the forums represent a tiny percentage of SL's population). LL has been very consistent in not getting involved.

All you can do is send your friend messages of calm and caring concern. If they have taken advice from you in the past, perhaps you may be able to guide them through contacting RL help in their area.

There are inworld therapists; there is a RL depression clinic that uses SL as part of its practice for some patients; I believe there is a therapy island hosting group sessions. I'm not going to chase down references for you, because I believe that your friend's primary issues are in RL, and should be treated there, by local people/professionals who can build up a RL trust with him.

There is a (natural) tendency in virtual environments for folks with deep emotional needs to convert simple friendships intoa codependencies or therapeutic relationships. If you find yourself spending large amounts of time counseling this person, that may be what's happening. You may have to set limits for your friend, and yourself. Even so, I would not unfriend anyone demonstrating such fragility unless they had previously, and repeatedly, extorted attention from me by threats of self-harm.

Good luck!
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There are some links in the knowledge base regarding this issue it may be worth a read

https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417

Remind them that it's "down the road, not across the street".

Seriously though, the more someone talks about harming themselves the less likely they are to do it. People who actually harm themselves generally just do it quietly without causing a fuss.

The Linden rules on privacy may seem draconian and unfeeling, but they have to be that way. Considering the level of drama we usually see in SL, they would be perpetually giving out private information on scant evidence.

But that doesn't make your situation easier. I will say that it is entirely possible, I would even say probable, that your friend would NOT have opened up to you if he thought there was any way you could find out where he lives, or even who he is. Sometimes anonymity allows truth.

So, what can you do? Until he logs on again, nothing. That sounds awful, and it is. But imagine that you knew him in RL and he called you. You probably wouldn't be able to stop him if he was going to kill himself, not over the phone. If you lived near him, possibly.

But if he comes on again, you have a powerful tool called friendship. Sometimes, just listening is good. And that awful anonymity can let him talk to you in a way he won't talk to someone he'll ever meet. That can help a lot.

Not true. Not true at all.

From CrisisLink (crisislink.org):




http://www.crisislink.org/resources/suicide/suicide_myths_adult.html

What would they know? They're an anti-suicide charity, so they're totally biased.

Conan, I know you like to be silly, but there is a time and place for that.

It's always the right time for silliness.

A bit of suicide will do the lad some good. Let him get it out of his system; it builds character.

Sadly enough.... I once dated a girl who, online, confessed to me on IM and through Email that she was gonna commit suicide.

I called several times, emailed several times, went to her house too, all to try to make sure she was alive & ok.

Know what I got for my troubles??

Arrested for "stalking & harassment". Knocked down to "disorderly conduct" 5 days of county jail waiting for the bail money to come thru, along with about $1000 in court & legal fees. Thank god I saved the emails & IMs!!!

My 2 cents: If they wanna kill themselves, let them. If they're full of shit & show up later, they're just looking for the next idiot to buy into their attention getting bullshit. I now have *ZERO* patience & tolerance with assholes like this.

Course on the other hand ..

Someone I dated in my early days in SL did kill herself last year.

So it definitely does happen.

Exactly.

For the most part people who are really going to do something don't go around announcing it, they just do it. The rest are just attention seekers.

Well, fair much every single suicide prevention counselor out there would disagree with you, as do the statistics about it. But it's a comfortable thing to believe.

We want to believe that everyone who talks about suicide is "just trying to get attention". Many times, they are. And depressive people are no fun to be around. More than sometimes, they're down right annoying. In Todd's case, his girlfriend was completely mad and vindictive. Was she really thinking of killing herself? Who can tell? Personally, I think what he did demonstrates the strength of his own character. At the same time, I think his anger and feeling of "next time, hang yourself you stupid girl" is completely understandable.

But don't think for one minute that if they're talking about it that there is no danger. You will have to decide for yourself if you wish to intervene and spend time talking with that person. It isn't risk free. But then again, you might help someone turn away from the edge.

Ask if you can have your friends L$ and if that doesn't work ask if you can have any transferable items in their inventory. If they live through the night and ask for their stuff back tell them your dog ate it.

I wish some people would show more respect.

The Original Poster's Friend may be dead.

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What a heartless society we have become.

haha Conan.

just do what one of the orignal replies said, remove them from friends list and put them on ignore...

now if the emo crowd would do what they said perhaps we'd have less lag in sl...ah well

Well no, we are not a heartless society. But you do need to look at it from another perspective. Unfortunately as in the case someone else mentioned here or in the incident I was involved in, there was never any intent to commit suicide. Believe it or not there are people in SL who setup situations to get an emotional response from others. They FEED on people worrying or feeling sorry for them. I guess it is not unlike people who are trolls in the forum(not calling anyone a troll in this thread), they feed in some sick, twisted way on people getting mad at them.

In the case I was in, the "friend" hinted for a few days they were feeling depressed. There was an outpouring of sympathy from me and our other friends. The act culminated in her going to another friends house, saying goodbye and just leaving her av in the friends living room. We were frantic and worried sick for a couple of days until we found out it was just a game. She had done this multiple times with other people.

There is a chance, no matter how large or small that the OP's friend is telling the truth. But you know what? It doesn't matter, life is hard enough and there is no one that needs to put up with this crap from a supposed friend anyways. Tell the truth, if someone came here and said instead that their boyfriend in RL was threatening to commit suicide because they were breaking up, would everyone still be giving this same advise? Hell no, everyone would be saying what I said in the beginning, run like hell the other way and stay away.

There are so many people in SL with many being wonderful, fun creative people. But there are others who are sick, twisted, depressed, manipulative, thieving, monstrous and every other name you can think of. Mute this person and go find other people to talk to.

While I understand that people *do* play stunts like this...

Lumping in depressed people with thieving, manipulative, monstrous "every other name you can think of" people really is callous in the extreme.

Depression is a medical condition.