We will NEVER call the police on you.

• we don’t ask for your contact details

• we don’t take notes on anything that is said during group

Many of us, when talking about being suicidal, have been invalidated, rejected, or had our personal control taken away. Some of us have been hospitalised against our will, spent the night in a jail cell or faced other isolating and traumatic consequences after expressing the desire to die. These experiences caused us to become very cautious about telling anyone if we were suicidal, and if we did mention it, we would hide how bad it really is.

Our groups are a direct response to the lack of places any of us had to really talk about what it’s like to think about killing ourselves. We understand that calling the police will result in trauma and will cause people to stop talking about their suicidal experiences - this is why we will never call the police on anyone at one of our groups.

We know it might be a bit hard to believe that we really won’t call the police as this response is deeply ingrained in the medical model and is considered the standard response in our mental health system. To make this feel more real - we make it extra clear that we don’t collect people’s contact information and we never take notes on anything that is said in group.

This doesn’t mean that we don’t care about you or that we wouldn’t care if you died.

We are deeply caring humans and believe that all life is precious. If we notice you are having a really hard time, we might find an opportunity to check in with you and give you the option to chat with us afterwards. Often other attendees may also want to hang back and check in or provide a shoulder to lean on.