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Hello... my name is Anonymous

© Caroline Baker

The Internet has opened the door to allowing many people to seek help in a "safe" environment. The anonymous nature allows one a freedom of expression that may not necessarily exist in the real world.

But still, there are many who fear coming online and those who do not know where to go. Furthermore, there is always the danger of giving and receiving bad advise.

Several years ago, I frequented several on-line "chat" areas. In those days, they were more commonly referred to by their program base, "MUCKs", "IRC", "write", etc.

Within those worlds, you assumed an alias and talked with people, interacted on a level very different, but no less real, than that of the world around you. You assumed characters or personas. You could laugh or act irresponsible without fear of consequences.

Or could you?

I was approached one of the many nights I had stayed online by someone who had become "Net-close" to me. We had talked many hours about various topics. But there was no way I was prepared for what he was about to tell me this night.

Him: Hello. Busy tonight?

His friendly approach gave me no warning of something wrong.

Me: For you? Of course not, what's up?
Him: I want to die.

It was a joke? It had to be a joke! But somehow, I feared it wasn't. I had lost another close friend only a year or so before to suicide and I wasn't about to let another one follow that same path.

In this instance, I stayed up all night typing away at this person, trying to convince him with my digital messages that he was important, too important to just leave the world like that. I don't know if I succeeded, if it was a lie, or if I failed. I saw him again some nights later... so I at least know he was alive. But the next? And the next after that? And the point of time when I can no longer be on the Internet?

I do know, now, some years wiser and older, that if it were real, I did him a disservice.

I'm no doctor. Nor am I trained in any suicide prevention techniques. Nor am I equipped to handle the situation should it prove that I had failed.

But there are (and even then were) people available to have helped him out. And the correct thing for me to have done was point him in that direction.

I advise anyone who has a friend they are concerned about on the Internet that before you champion their cause, consider seeking some help and advise for what to do. There is a plethora of information out there, only some of which I've been able to capture below.