I think they are generally counterproductive.

Saying stuff like "you are not alone" while referring people to an unspecified "professional" is completely empty. It feels like a slap in the face. It belittles very real problems that people actively try to shut suicidal people up about.

I'm dirt poor. I have been for years. People here aren't comfortable hearing that. They seem to fear I'm asking for a handout.

I appear to be the highest ranked woman here. I had hoped to use HN to network. That hasn't been very effective. Pretty much every time I comment on that and suggest that my gender is a barrier to me resolving my financial problems, someone jumps up to inform me that I am wrong and stupid and HN simply isn't a good means to network and my gender is not an issue and sexism is not an issue and, also, I'm just a loser, basically, among other things.

Men routinely tell each other here "You must be very competent because you have so much karma on HN." No one says that about me. When I point out I appear to be the only woman to have ever spent time on the leaderboard, I'm dismissed, belittled, accused of being obsessed with ridiculous, empty and meaningless internet points etc ad nauseum ad infinity.

I have a diagnosis of atypical cystic fibrosis. Talking about that at all is typically drama. I have spent more than 17 years getting myself well. No, no one is writing articles about that. Instead, I get attacked for trying to say anything about health topics. I basically get called a liar, deluded and a teller of tall tales who can't possibly know anything whatsoever useful about medical anything.

If I say anything about my accomplishments in life, I'm accused of making stuff up, exaggerating and generally being full of crap.

Absolutely the only thing anyone is willing to believe is that I spent years homeless. That's basically it. And longstanding and intractable poverty is absolutely not a reason for anyone here to hire me, promote my work, help me figure out how to make money, etc. No, it's apparently just evidence that I must not have any valuable skills or knowledge that is worth any money whatsoever and fuck me, not their problem.

I've been here over nine years. The negative treatment I get on HN is one of the things that makes me suicidal. The blatantly obvious sexism involved in my intractable poverty that everyone routinely denies is one of the things that makes me suicidal. The fact that I have to walk on eggshells and not state that too frequently or too bluntly also contributes to me being suicidal. And most of the time I don't want to poke too much at that in part because being banned from HN would make my life even worse, and in part because a large part of the psychological anguish there is due to a short list of awful people who specifically crapped all over me in specific. So it isn't really fair to hold all members equally accountable for the incredibly bad behavior of a few people. On the other hand, there are any number of other people who could have helped me and thereby completely wiped out the importance of those negative experiences to my life. So it also doesn't really make sense to say it's just that short list of awful people and not "everyone."

And I carry that psychological load every single day and every time I log in here and I get zero credit from anyone, much less the short list of awful people in question, for not turning that into public drama on HN during an incredibly difficult time in my life that has lasted for years.

So listening to some paragraph long PSA referring me to some nebulous "professional" knowing the nine years of nonsense I've endured just makes me see red. Because I'm absolutely sure you wouldn't do anything at all to redress any of those wrongs right here on HN, much less cure my medical condition or give me the cash to buy a house (or do a fund raiser if you aren't that rich), not because you couldn't try to find ways to help redress some of my problems to some degree, but because you honestly don't actually care. It's not your problem and you aren't actually going to help.

So I find it monstrously uncompassionate akin to flipping me a bird for being poor, stupidly having been born female and making the egregious mistake of having a genetic disorder.

And that description is going to generally be true for most people who are suicidal. They are generally going to have one or more serious personal problems that the world at large neither wants to help with nor wants to hear too much about because it makes them uncomfortable. The specifics will vary, but, in a nutshell, suicidal people have big problems and they routinely get met with an attitude that they aren't really supposed to talk about them and they can't expect real help for any of that.

I just want my life to work. That's it. That's all I want. And I've literally spent years working miracles to try to get there and I still can't get there largely due to social BS.

I see PSAs of this sort to be more of that pattern of social BS where the entire world wishes me well and hopes my problems get better... Just don't expect them to help and "take your issues elsewhere, honey. Not my problem. You can be not alone with someone else, not me."