No announcement yet.

Please help

This topic is closed.
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Please help

    My friend hasn’t been on in a really long time and they live in america so I can’t check up on them and they were suicidal please can you give me their email ateam so I can make sure he isn’t dead

  • #2
    Unfortunately we aren't able to help with this as it would be sharing the person's confidential information without their consent. We also cannot contact them ourselves as that sort of contact is not covered in the EULA/privacy policy that users agree to before playing the game.

    Do you know if he had an account here on the forums? If so we can try contacting him here, but that's about the extent of what we can do...

    Signature image courtesy ekichou.


  • #3
    I swear it isn’t I’m in love with him and I’m so worried but I cant find him on anything as I only know his first name


    • #4
      Originally posted by Ateam Admin View Post

      He may have one


      • #5
        gl getting a court to order Ateam to contact authorities and give them contact info (although perhaps there should be an easier way to do something similar in these cases), while you're in another country... If you don't know his forum account, that might not be much help either

        If you care about individuals you meet, you might want to get info like their phone number, residential address, social media accounts, contact info of their family/f2ffriends, etc once you're close enough. At the least, something like, their real name, some kind of contact info (instant messenger, email), what city they live in (so in a true emergency, you can call their cops). If you become very close, they can give you their health care provider's (doctor's/therapist's) contact info, and sign an information release consent form so their care providers are legally allowed to chat with you about their case, if all three of you want that. If there's enough trust, respect, and support in a relationship, there's no reason you can't be like family with someone who's physically far away.

        Edited to add: After reading your later posts, I find it hard to believe your relationship progressed to actual love without you learning much about him IRL, so I suspect that by "in love with," you mean the usual "have a crush on"/"infatuated with" and nothing more. Tip: Don't conflate actual love with limerence. Romantic love is more like the love for chocolate or the love for cocaine, than the love for a person for who they are. If you're not concerned about his wellbeing, and you're only concerned maybe you let this fish get away and you can't get him back if he's dead, then don't worry--online romances amongst young people are a dime a dozen. In another app, I met someone who'd get a new "love of their life, different from all the previous ones" routinely; it seemingly took about 20 seconds of someone's attention to make him believe that this person is The One. (Or go ahead and worry when you realize that using people like this is not healthy, that it can prevent real love from flourishing.)

        Obviously I can't give any specific instructions about what point in which relationship you should ask for what kind of info, or which individuals you should trust enough to give out your own email address, legal name, etc (perhaps you shouldn't ask for info at all and shouldn't give anyone yous, it depends). Nor can I tell you exactly when it's appropriate to call them when they go silent, appropriate to spam them and their friends until someone replies, appropriate to call their local law enforcement, etc, or when you'd just be a horrible, harassing, defamatory, panic-generating stalker who's wasting taxpayer money to ruin someone's life just because their phone died for a week Just, in life in general, think about your Plan B (and C etc) and what the chances are that Plan A won't work out, and don't be afraid to learn/ask if you don't know. What if someone gets suicidal in the future and you want to confirm they're alive--what can be done to check on this person and, if possible, help reduce suicidality (or at least not make things worse for them)? If you truly care about them, what if they don't improve in the near future--what can be done to help them live as healthy, happy, and fulfilling a life as is possible, and prevent them from getting suicidal in the first place*? What if someone loses their phone and their email account--how many backup contacts do you need? What if a new friend turns out to actually be a violent stalker--what can you do to minimize harm to yourself? What if you actually become a violent stalker when you feel rejected, and you've harmed ex-friends before--what can you do to protect your new friend in case you get upset at them someday?

        Think about the facts and possibilities, and try to figure out the best solutions, instead of just doing whatever you feel like in the moment and hoping for a magically good outcome (idle wishing is different from putting in real thought and effort). Telling the Universe, "Darn, I thought this would be fine and I didn't think of that and I never asked about xyz, but things turned out really badly. So, uh, you should step in and fix this for me!" won't necessarily get the results you want. And sometimes you just don't get the results you want in any case.

        If they simply moved on in life (quit UL, uninstalled) and didn't realize you actually cared (figured you were just a short term chat buddy, maybe had low self esteem and didn't believe that anyone would be their true friend, or didn't like you as much as you like him), then you might just be left guessing. It happens. Or maybe they were trolling you, and they're laughing about how you fell for it. It happens. IDK if thinking about it this way will help, but in case you're afraid they're already dead: Whether or not you send a dead person an email doesn't change the fact that they're dead. Of course, if they got better, you'd like the relief of knowing so, and if they did die, maybe you'd like to know for closure, but that's just about managing your own emotional discomfort (and that can be done whether they talk to you or not).

        *Don't get me started on the difference between preventing the final act vs preventing the desire to commit suicide. Some (very narrowly selfish) people couldn't care less about their friend/family member, they just want to keep the person physically in existence, whether it's for their ego or for $ or whatever reason /sigh


        • #6
          I've been guilty of doing this. It's something I think everyone should try to acknowledge:
          If someone threatens suicide or self-harm during a pivot in a relationship (just friends also counts), then they are no longer the victim. They are the abuser.
          Your connections to others exist to supplement a person's well-being and pursuit of happiness, not to be the source of their well-being and pursuit of happiness.

          And I share Vegecat's notion that it's selfish for people to demand for people to stay alive. It's up to an individual to decide if their life is worth continuing living. No one else can decide that for them. If you can sway someone from ending their own life, that's great... but never think of yourself as a hero, because you likely haven't solved their problem that makes their life unbearable.

          This post isn't addressed to the OP, but to the readers. I just don't have enough information to trust what OP has to say nor think they're in a position to bend the rules of privacy.
          Last edited by Nemurerumori; 11-27-2018, 01:14 PM.
          Nemurerumori / Sword / Fujin
          Guild: COLOSSUS
          Game ID: 2017106838
          ----- ID: Slypheed
          Password: 123456


          • Vegecat
            Vegecat commented
            Editing a comment
            And ok, get me started, why not

            Forcing someone to suffer, forcing someone to die, and forcing someone to live, for narrowly selfish reasons (not for the person’s own wellbeing eg nonvoluntary true euthanasia, medical treatment for infants), are just different ways of using (abusing) others for one’s own gain*. If someone reasonably thinks that murder is wrong, I don’t know how they could possibly fail to see that the other two are also wrong.

            ...Although, the cultural brainwashing is strong, so I wouldn’t be surprised if plenty of people think, “Forcing someone to die is wrong because my religious leader said so, and they also said it’s right to force someone to live so that must be good!” or something with a similar level of rational thought -_- Same reason that the very idea of getting consent (or at least getting the person to relent) before adding someone to your family is met with reactions from confusion (“why bother?”) to horror. (Oh, except in the case of marriage, where nowadays forced arranged marriages are politically incorrect and you’re a terrible person if you advocate that. But it’s still perfectly normal for people to be tricked--by society and by individuals--into marriage, so long as it’s with partners they “chose.” *Informed* and rational consent? Why is that important?</sarcasm>)

            The worthwhileness of a life is a matter of degree. Some people temporarily dip into thinking their life isn’t worthwhile, might impulsively act on it if they aren’t stopped (especially if they’re acutely ill, young/inexperienced, intoxicated), and get over it by the next morning if they are stopped. I would say they still have issues despite the suicidality ending, and their life could use some help to become even more worthwhile, but that applies to most humans today /shrug. So good for them that they enjoy life again, but as you pointed out, many suicidal people aren't like that; they have long-term problems (including clinical depression) which won’t go away with one night of pep talks and supervision.

            (Tip: If a night of pep talks seem to work--inspiring hope, courage, desire to survive--then that moment is just a start; use it to build momentum toward creating a life worth living, because otherwise, chances are the happy emotions will drain away, reality will eventually reassert itself, and nothing will have changed except possibly feeling more discouraged. People should focus more on lasting solutions, but I guess feeling like a hero for one night is more satisfying if one only cares about one’s own feelings and doesn’t actually give a **** about the suicidal person’s wellbeing.)

            The problem is when people confuse the perceived trigger (eg job loss or divorce just before a suicide attempt) as being a deeper cause (when a bigger factor was something very different eg feeling incomplete as a person, living in an abusive situation, lacking a sense of meaning in life, inadequate coping skills, stress-induced brain damage that never healed); they might think that “the danger has passed” when the real problems are still there under the surface, waiting for the next trigger.

            *Gain isn’t necessarily financial. Some people want unhappy friends/family members to stay alive so they can keep shopping with their paychecks (or want happy family members to die so they can start shopping with life insurance $), sure. Others want the emotional payoff, eg feeling better about themselves because “I really am a hero for not allowing them to die”; avoiding feeling bad about themselves because “I didn’t stop them from dying, and society says I should’ve and it’s my fault they died”; avoiding grief because “I miss my friend” or avoiding loneliness because “They were my only friend and now I have no friends boohoo”; or whatever. It’s perfectly normal to want money, to want to think of oneself as a good person, to want to avoid unhappy feelings, etc; it’s just that when people want others to stay alive for these narrowly selfish reasons, they’re being dishonest if they say their concern is because they “care about” or “love” the suicidal person. Like, yeah, you love their cash or their ego boosting properties or their utility in alleviating your loneliness...but if you think that’s the only way one person can love another, you’re so wrong.
            Last edited by Vegecat; 11-27-2018, 06:04 PM.

          • Nemurerumori
            Nemurerumori commented
            Editing a comment
            I was concise about the specific situation. If your relationship is pivoting between staying against your will or them committing suicide, then that is a cage that signifies an abusive relationship where you have no fair choice and no freedom. The what-ifs, ands, ors, buts, are complications that lead up to these scenarios are unique to every pairing, but this ultimatum is where the final end point where abuse is in full control.

            And I'm glad you understand what I meant when I said, ''you likely haven't solved their problem that makes their life unbearable.'' The root problem is usually deeper under the surface or really just how their brain is wired... and you can't really undo the harm of most things that have already happened.

          • Vegecat
            Vegecat commented
            Editing a comment
            Ah, I misunderstood then. I thought you were talking about points of change in general, not necessarily a total breakup vs staying together. Emotional blackmail can be used to coerce all sorts of behavior, not necessarily just staying in a relationship (“I’ll die and say it’s your fault unless you do x” is the same formula, whether “do x” is “stay with me” or “give me all your money” or “lie to everyone for me” or...), and sometimes both parties are using the same threat to try to get different things (everyone feeling trapped by the other, everyone desperate to get the other to do what they want, nobody seeing what’s actually going on).

            Of course, people often give into blackmail when there are other options. Enabling the mentally ill by giving into their demands isn’t even good for them--it might temporarily reduce their panic and let their pain go back to baseline levels, but it reinforces the idea of their own weakness and need (they’re not strong enough to ever live freely and independently, they always need to be in that relationship), agrees that they should get what they think they need (even if they’re wrong about what they need, even if it costs someone else their life literally or figuratively), etc which decreases their long-term functioning and pushes them deeper into their unhealthy mindset. People who still care about their manipulative, blackmailing ex-friend or ex-partner (especially the self-sacrificing, chronic vampire food, doormat, martyr types) can help themselves stay strong by reminding themselves that giving in now isn’t helping anyone.

            While options and resources vary, in many areas around the world, letting a hospital take over (even if it’s involuntary) can have better outcomes than either leaving someone in pain to die alone or staying and hoping that one can nurse the ex back to health (which is a bit of a delusion of grandeur in some cases, when people think “I can single-handedly do better than getting this person to a psychiatrist, other medical doctors as needed, talk therapists, exercise programs, peer groups, and an entire support network! Yup, I’m superior to all of those combined! I’ll totally save this person who needs actual help!“). In some areas, their horrible excuses for medical treatment can actually be more dangerous than the problem itself, but that’s a whole ’nother topic.

            Of course, for people on the outside, it’s easier to see that saying “You’re mistaken, and I believe in you, that you can get better. I’m not a panacea pill for you to swallow, you don’t need *me*, you need the right tools to feel happy in your own skin and I can’t give them to you like this no matter how long we try. Let’s get you to a better place in life, where you realize you can live well” is kinder than agreeing, “Yup, you’re a weak pathetic infant who’ll never grow up, you’ll always need me forever and ever, you’ll shrivel up and die if I live my own life, so ok you can have me and own me and make me your slave, and that’s how the universe should work,” but for people who grew up with the latter script, change can be really hard.

        • #7
          The comments on this forum thread contain sensitive issues. Ateam Admin has already replied to the user who started the thread, and majority of the follow-up comments are no longer related to the game; thus, we have decided to close the topic to end any further discussions. If the user has more concerns, please don't hesitate to message Ateam Admin.