Post #4074032

If someone is in a bad place mentally, and talking about it, you can: a) Provide emotional support. b) Provide lower-level support (hugs and some warm tea for example, but no talking about problems). c) Tell them you're not in a position to provide support (one on one) or just move on (public). Those are the only options that don't make you an asshole. Telling them to get better is not providing support. Lecturing about the long-term consequences of an unhealthy coping mechanism is not providing support. Spamming suicide hotline links is not providing support. (Also most of those are shitty and will call the cops on people) Telling someone to get therapy is not providing support. (If it was easy they'd already be doing it.) If you get overwhelmed because you never set boundaries on how much support you could provide, that is your fault, not theirs. Letting yourself get overwhelmed is bad for the person you were trying to support, too. It's the responsibility of people who are doing bad to ensure MH- posts are properly CW'd (or whatever is appropriate for the relevant platform), and to ask before going into things in DMs, but if they do that they are in no way at fault for others getting overwhelmed.