Guidelines for Gallery Stories
Help us keep the Lifeline Gallery a fun, safe and positive place. You have the chance to raise awareness,
reduce stigma and promote help-seeking behavior regarding suicide. Doing so requires knowing what makes
some messages safer and more beneficial than others.
Please check out these guidelines to ensure the Lifeline Gallery maintains an atmosphere of hope, healing and support.
The monitoring team reviews all avatars and accepts or rejects based on these guidelines.
Crafting Your Story
What to Leave Out
Terms & Conditions
Crafting Your Story
You may fall into one (or possibly more) of the three Gallery Categories:
- Turning Points.
For those of us who have had thoughts about suicide or have survived a suicide attempt. Helpful hints:
- Consider discussing the thoughts and feelings that made you feel suicidal. How long did they last?
- Maybe mention the turning points in your story; what helped you decide to live? Was there a person, situation, or idea that made the difference?
- Loss.
For those who have lost someone they know to suicide, also known as suicide survivors. Things to talk about:
- Consider discussing how your loved one's suicide affected you, your family, or your community.
- Maybe mention how you are coping with the loss, and the things that have been most helpful to you in coming to terms with the suicide.
- Helpers.
For anyone involved in the nationwide effort to prevent suicide; you might be a crisis worker, a mental health
advocate, school counselor, or someone who is just learning about suicide prevention. Consider the following:
- Talking about why you got involved and what you're doing to help - each one of us is making a valuable and unique contribution. What's yours?
- Helping people understand what resources are available in your area or through your organization.
In all categories, you are always welcome to remind others that suicide is preventable and that help is available.
What to Leave Out
You are asked to create your message without including any of the items in this list. Your avatar's story will
be rejected if any of the following are mentioned. If you are not approved, we apologize but please take it as
a learning experience; we definitely invite you to re-think your message and try again.
Try to avoid:
- Descriptions of the means of suicide or suicide attempts - including specific location
- Encouraging suicidal behavior
- Making fun of or bullying someone; use of profane, sexist, racist, or homophobic language
- Idealizing the act or after effects of suicide by suggesting, for example, that your loved one (who died by suicide) is now at peace, in a better place or no longer in pain.
- Linking to or advocating a for-profit agency or organization
- Seeking funding from other users in the group for individual profit
- Last names within the story
- Naming a specific medication or behavioral health service/provider; advertising a service
- Naming a school or workplace
- Others at the discretion of the Lifeline Gallery administrators.
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