Thank you for your interest in submitting a comment to a post on the site Speaking of Suicide. Please be aware of the site’s comments policy:
COMMENTS ARE NOT MONITORED ALL THE TIME. I am the only person who runs the website, and the delay between your submitting a comment and my reading it can be hours or, occasionally, days.
I do not provide counseling or crisis intervention through this site.
If you need immediate help, please call 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or 911 in the U.S., or the emergency services in your area if you live elsewhere. You can also check out the Resources page for a list of other places where you can receive help by phone, text, email, or online chat.
Though this happens only rarely, I will notify the authorities (or parents or schools, in the case of minors) if you provide sufficient identifying information in your comment and you express an imminent threat to kill yourself or another person, or if you disclose the abuse or neglect of a child, elderly person, or disabled person. Similarly, if any of these conditions exist, I may share the IP address with the authorities (including a school or school district), in an effort to get assistance to you.
Comments are moderated, and there will be a delay in publishing them. I recommend copying and pasting your comment in another application before hitting “Submit,” in case somehow your comments gets lost in submission. I use an anti-spam filter that very rarely captures genuine comments, preventing me from ever seeing them. If your comment doesn’t appear within a day and it doesn’t violate the Comments Policy, please contact me using the form below.
I’m sorry, I am not able to reply to all comments. Although I do respond to some comments, the Comments section is intended as a place where readers can engage in discussion with each other.
You are not required to provide your name in the comment form, but if you do, please provide your name as you wish for it to appear online. If you leave the name blank, you will be identified as Anonymous.
Submission of a comment does not guarantee its publication. Your comment will be edited, and might not be published altogether, if it does any of the following:
- Encourages people in general, or someone in particular, to attempt suicide or to die by suicide
- Advocates simplistically for suicide as a positive action or expounds on its benefits
- Asks for or provides advice on suicide methods
- Seeks a partner for suicide
- Contains a suicide note
- Announces an unequivocal plan or intention to die by suicide
- Describes in detail a suicide method or lists different methods for how to kill oneself
- Discourages people in general, or someone in particular, from seeking help for suicidal ideation or related challenges
- Blames someone identifiable for the suicide of a loved one
- Contains verbal abuse or slander, or otherwise personally attacks an individual or group. (This includes personal attacks against me. While I welcome and publish constructive criticism, personal attacks against me are treated the same as personal attacks against anyone else; they aren’t published.)
- Promotes racism, white supremacy, anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia or other forms of bigotry
- Advocates violence
- Advocates for an organization or website that promotes suicide
- Provides incorrect information
- Is off-topic (especially spam!)
- Contains excessive or predominant religious or political content
- Advertises a product or a person’s services
- Asks for money or a job
- Uses excessive or gratuitous profanity
- Contains writing errors that make it hard or impossible to comprehend
- Repeats a previously submitted comment by the same person
- Plagiarizes other writing
Additionally, I reserve the right to reject publishing a comment for reasons not listed above. In very rare circumstances, I may choose to stop publishing comments from a reader if the person’s comments are excessive, abusive, and/or redundant.
Although I am a psychotherapist and social work professor, comments are not a way to receive help or advice from me. I provide this website as a public service solely to share information and education, not to provide crisis intervention, counseling, or other treatment. I offer counseling only by appointment in my Denver, CO office, and by phone or online to Colorado residents. If you live in Colorado and would like to become a psychotherapy client, please see my website www.StaceyFreedenthal.com.
OK, those are all the rules. More may come, depending on what situations present themselves. Thank you for your engagement with SpeakingOfSuicide.com!
Sincerely,
Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW
Updated 2/22/24