>>4430

Man, I can say with years of work experience I'm acute psych, you really have no idea what you're talking about and are only succeeding in spreading damaging misinformation to some of the more vulnerable people reading this thread.

As far as "attention whores" go, they don't really exist. You are projecting a naive perspective onto people that are struggling with thoughts and feelings you aren't taking any steps to understand. Maybe you're imagining this platonic ideal of a suburban, emotional teenager that cuts on their Webcam and then you're invalidating their experience because you don't think they have a good enough "reason".

Fuck that, all sorts of people cut and self harm, and it isn't necessarily suicidal or non suicidal. There's an endorphin rush, it can become an addictive and maladaptive way to cope with stress, the disfigurement isn't necessarily some grand plan to shorten life expectancy. Self harm and suicidal ideation are two independent and distinct facets of mental illness that have a unique relationship to each person suffering from them. You can't just generalize an incredibly simple worldview and project it on to individuals suffering from their individual experience. It's just irresponsible.

As far as human beings being willing to do anything it takes to survive, no, not really. Someone planning suicide can anticipate their hesitance and construct a plan that they can't back out of. And some people can be so depressed or psychotic that they'd rather slowly burn to death in a house fire than walk out the door. And yes, a lot of people do want hope and support. They want to escape their depression and suicidality and feel loved and accepted by their families and peers, but some people lose even that. They give up. They really, really believe that their life is better over.

Anyway, like that other person said, just be a good person. The shit on this board is really fucked up. It's shameful and terrifying, but at least I make every attempt to help the vulnerable and spread kindness and contain my loathsome vices to an interior fantasy world. I think the key is to maintain boundaries with your fantasies, never let it bleed into the real world, and never let your sadist or masochist fantasies become real (in the sense that you actually believe that you or other people deserve to be hurt).

It's okay, you know? Life is really not well understood, and society doesn't understand our kinks. Just, for the love of God, don't come out to your vanilla world. It's just a recipe for ostracism and shame.