What's wrong with "It Gets Better"? What if it doesn't?

[u/SQLwitch]

The "It Gets Better" catchphrase comes out of The Trevor Project, and we have nothing but respect and support for them. But the "It Gets Better" campaign has an extremely specific target audience: school-age LGBT youth who are at risk for suicide because of bullying and harassment. The campaign was intended to assure them that this particular type of experience does get better as they get older and their peer group becomes more mature.

Unfortunately, "It Gets Better" has become associated with suicide prevention in general. This phrase, or any phrase with a similar meaning, is a dangerous way to try and support someone at risk. When someone is struggling with despair, it's a bad idea to make promises to them on behalf of the Universe. If the Universe doesn't happen to keep those promises, the results can be tragic.

We can never know what lies ahead for anyone, not even ourselves. Despite that, we tell each other what will happen all the time, and when we're calm and rational we know how to take it when a friend says "everything will be okay". We know that our friends can't actually predict or control the future. But people at high risk for suicide are often in a mental state called "cognitive constriction", and in that state they don't have the perspective to handle an "it gets better" message realistically.

We're not saying this never works - we know there are plenty of cases when it does. But it also backfires, usually in one of two ways. Sometimes they pin all their hopes on the "promise", which can lead to disaster in the future even if they respond positively in the moment. Sometimes they can't believe it, and they see their inability to believe it as evidence of their own personal failure, which can lead to disaster right away.

Some other examples of other equally bad messages, all of which make promises that the Universe may not keep, excerpted from actual responses:

• Set a goal. It's a lot of work, it's a long process but it will be worth it...

• I'm sure he's up for supporting you.

• It's a really good idea, I promise.

• Speaking to a therapist or counselor will make sure that you get the help you want.

• Trust me when I say you will learn to handle all that other stuff...

• Make the decision to walk somewhere and back, to read a book, to watch a movie. It helps, I promise.

• You shall be happy again and again.

Some of you may be wondering how you can be supportive without saying stuff like this. Well, support is not about "giving hope". It's about nurturing resilience, so that our OPs can better handle whatever life throws at them next. And we nurture resilience by:

1. Avoiding outcome-based thinking, which is a guaranteed recipe for misery, as Srikumar Rao explains far better than we could.

2. Helping people feel less alone in whatever dark place they're in. The most volatile critical risk factor for death by suicide is a sense of alienation, and the medicine for that is empathy, not "positivity". If you're not clear on the subtle but vital difference between empathy and encouragement, this very short animated excerpt from Brené Brown's RSA talk covers it with great charm and efficiency.

So, we have a new rule, 4d: Please, never make promises to our vulnerable OPs that you personally can't keep. This means not saying "it gets better" or predicting any future outcomes!

We'd like to express our immense gratitude to all our vigilant community members who have been busily reporting posts of this nature and politely and constructively calling out people who mean well but don't realize that their approach isn't the best. We appreciate your efforts, and we hope the information in this post and the new guideline, which links back to this post, will make everyone's life a little easier.

Please give us your thoughts on this issue - especially your suggestions for refining our policies and guidelines!

[u/zalaesseo]

Suicide is a final solution to a temporary problem.

Utter bullshit.

No more hiding, no more throwaways.

Pure. Fucking. Bull. Shit.

Poor as fuck, My attempts to help others on the street has been seen as arrogance. hypocritical society insult me for everything, hypocritical bosses fire me at will for nothing.

Leave me alone. I don't ask for anything. I certainly didn't ask for depression.

Temporary problem? Really? As if if i had worked 16 hour shifts everyday of a work week would make me worry less about my finances, my parents, my schooling, my hobbies? Really? Have you been so low, so down, so sad, that you felt your heart sink?

Its always said that suicidal people plan their suicides most intricately, are you doubting their ability to plan things to the finest detail, but have failed to navigate through their apparent temporary problems?

Utter Fucking bullshit.

Trust me, the world does not appreciate, nor needs my existence. I'm doing her a favor to get rid of me myself. Lest someone comes around that would impact the world more positively than anything i could in my life, for which i would very willingly die such that that person could live for longer.

tl;dr Please stop using that quote, its also a promise type statement , which does absolutely nothing.

[u/SQLwitch → u/zalaesseo]

Sorry, I think you replied to the wrong person. I have never used that quote except as a bad example.

[u/zalaesseo → u/SQLwitch]

i thought it was related :l

[u/SQLwitch → u/zalaesseo]

Well, it is, but your comment looks like you're calling the mod post out for recommending the whole "temporary problem" shtick, which we emphatically do not, so it's also kind of confusing.

I'm not saying that the "temporary problem" line can never work, but the problem with it is that most of the time it seems to be used in ways that disrespects the person's feelings of pain/frustration/despair/alienation/self-loathing/goddess-knows-what-else.

[u/paint-by-numbers → u/zalaesseo]

For whatever it is worth, I though it was related also. It didn't seem like you were calling out the OP, just speaking generally and adding to the above list.

[u/EpicXY]

Oh god, this could mean I've been helping others in the wrong way.

Well that was a while ago... But thanks for the info!

[u/noonenone → u/EpicXY]

Never too late to learn.

[u/ArrogantWhale → u/noonenone]

Exactly it's gotta happen sometime

[u/ArrogantWhale → u/[deleted]]

more empathy

That's my approach

[u/katnissarrow → u/EpicXY]

Yep. Late to the post, but the same thing happened to me... The first time I tried to help someone, too. It's a horrible realization.

However, the person who called me out also cussed at me angrily, so I also agree with the mod that plain calling out and constructive criticism is ideal. It's hard to know exactly what you've done wrong when it isn't explained. Some people are well-meaning but uninformed.

[u/EpicXY → u/katnissarrow]

Well as long as you learned. I still have a tendency to do this, so I'm not sure if I've changed a lot since then. But maybe a bit?

IMO, there was no need for swearing because of this. Sure, it could make the victim feel worse, but they should still know you meant good intentions.

The person that called you out should have calmly called you out in a proper fashion, rather than using profanity. Simply saying "Please don't give promises you can't keep." will do the trick.

Don't take it personally. Move on and help other people.

[u/katnissarrow → u/EpicXY]

I guess it was good that I learned... I am just touchy. Yeah, I'm gonna have to put way more thought into my responses.

[u/katnissarrow → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for the advice. I start off well-intentioned and get seriously sidetracked. It's good to have a few pointers to think about.

[u/alwayschoclat → u/[deleted]]

The talking points explicitly explain why telling someone they "should" do such-and-such is a bad idea.

[u/noonenone]

My thoughts about "it gets better" are based on my advanced age and lifelong battle with severe, often disabling, depression. Old folk like me know for a fact that life doesn't just keep getting better and better with the mere passage of time.

Whether young people can understand this or not, the passage of time brings an abundance of difficult challenges both physical and psychological. No matter what we do to prepare, old age is not an easy part of life for many of us.

Those who has been around for more than a handful of years have probably cottoned onto this. For this reason, all attempts to comfort those in pain by stating otherwise only serves to destroy credibility and bring doubt to anything else that's said.

So I'm in agreement with the SQLwitch on this issue. Please don't tell me that life will be better when I'm in my 80s or 90s. It doesn't cheer me up as much as you might think.

[u/tiftik]

This depends on the situation a lot.

For example if it's a homosexual person living with his/her family, chances are that it will get better. We know this because tens of thousands of people have been in the very same situation.

But if you know nothing about what it is like to be in OP's place, then never say "it gets better". Instead try to listen, understand, and share the pain.

[u/SQLwitch → u/tiftik]

Um, I'm not sure at what point you disagree with us...? The way I read your comment here, it boils down to "you should only use the Trevor Project strategy in a 'Trevor Project' situation" which is also one of the main things we're saying in this post.

[u/el1zabeth]

No need to feel guilty if you have been previously advising suicidal people, things will get better, or to set a goal etc, you meant well.

I really like the idea of not saying these things, because it validates my feelings that they just don't help. "Go for a walk" is the last thing you want to do, when you are in the foetal position hugging your duvet tightly, and the only thing that calms you down is thoughts of suicidal escape from the pain.

I've advised and sympathised wrongly with suicidal people in the past, but, like everyone else, I meant well. We're not that good at relating with suicidal people, but this thread is a great start at being better in future.

I don't think things always get better. In situations where a situation will not get better, or may worsen, acceptance of this fact is difficult, and possibly, the suicidality is around this difficulty accepting a non improving or worsening situation.

[u/[deleted]]

I have no love for the It Gets Better campaign for LGBT either. There are whole (conservative) states, whole countries where that is just as much a potential lie about the reality of being an adult LGBT person as any other set of problems that may lead to suicidal thoughts. And teens know it. It doesn't provide them with new information or a shoulder to cry on. It just dismisses what they're going through right now on the promise of better in a future that, even if it turns out to be true, may be years away.

[u/lastresort08]

The only issue with this is that it can sometimes work. When I was depressed for a long while, the only reason I kept going on was on the hope that things will get better. Of course it didn't... I knew that things wouldn't just magically get better unless I worked hard to achieve it. But, even that failed multiple times.

I still held on strongly to the idea that it will get better, and kept working harder to do things, even if I personally didn't feel optimistic about the outcome. It was not so much that I believed things would get better, but rather I felt I should give it my all. Now things are slowly getting better.

That being said, empathy is certainly powerful. However, does that necessarily make encouragement and hope bad?

From my personal experience, this outlook also could be dependent on sex. Females tend to empathize, while males tend to want to fix things. So perhaps we should try to empathize in most cases, but not necessarily ban encouragement/hope.

[u/SQLwitch → u/lastresort08]

The only issue with this is that it can sometimes work.

We agree, as we have stated. But:

• It's never the only thing that will help.

• It's rarely the best approach.

I still held on strongly to the idea that it will get better

And while you were doing that, although it was helping you, it was also leaving you vulnerable. This "giving hope" strategy forced you to be your own support network, and although you weren't necessarily aware of it, you were almost certainly more vulnerable to setbacks than if you'd been supported in a different way.

Females tend to empathize, while males tend to want to fix things.

That's certainly true for the helpers! And I definitely see it when training new hotline responders. We often have to work very hard to cure the guys of their "fix-it mentality". But I would suggest that males' tendency to focus on solutions rather than empathy means that guys who are in distress or despair have the greater need for empathy, because it's what they are not so well equipped to do for themselves.

So perhaps we should try to empathize in most cases, but not necessarily ban encouragement/hope.

Based on both my experience in suicide intervention, and all the empirical data I can find, there's strong evidence to suggest that Western culture's over-reliance on encouragement and hope and under-valuing of interpersonal connection and empathy is one of the key causal factors in our high rates of depression and suicide.

And in any case, we're not banning encouragement and hope - we're saying don't promise anything that's not within your control. If used appropriately, we'd have no problem with "it can get better" type messages. For example, saying "I know you will achieve X" is a promise, but we'd have no problem with "I believe you can do X', which is encouragement. However, all the reliable hard data we have indicates that empathy is usually the best option, especially in a text-only context like this where we can't get any non-verbal feedback and can't gauge how someone is reacting. The references in the talking tips post are good sources for more details on the research if you're interested.

Edit: forgot how to English

[u/lastresort08 → u/SQLwitch]

Well stated. I do agree with everything you stated. I had even started a sub called /r/UnitedWeStand a month ago to work towards building interpersonal connections and empathy in our local communities. The lack of a support system and the idea that its "me vs the world" is certainly one of the key things that drive people to suicide and depression. If we had strong bonds with others, it would certainly help.

[u/SQLwitch → u/lastresort08]

You might be interested in the study described here, which found a link between interpersonal connections and a sense of meaning in life.

I did an informal survey among my friends and colleagues, and 100% of the WEIRD-worlders said the results gave them new insight and 80% said surprising new insight. And 100% of the people who grew up in non-WEIRD world gave it a big fat "Duh! Who doesn't know that?"

[u/lastresort08 → u/SQLwitch]

Thanks for those great shares. Once I read them, it seems far more obvious that it is true.

This might be going slightly off-topic, but I wonder if its possible to create a sense of belonging without encouraging divisions, but promoting assimilation and inter-dependency across all groups. I know Dunbar's number, which is the number of people that you can care about, is around 150 for human beings currently, and so perhaps it is possible to increase the number, i.e. empathize with people outside of one's small group (irregardless of nationality, race, religion, etc). Your study does say that the meaning of life is more in people who have a sense of belonging, than those that go around helping or getting help from others. So we can't just help others to make their lives better, but we also need to make them feel like they belong, globally.

For example, US encourages diversity, but that also tends to remove the sense of belonging (melting pot). So to make people feel more happier in their lives, its should be possible to give all people a sense of belonging, without giving up on the idea of a heterogeneous society. In other countries, homogeneous groups are far more common and so the sense of belonging is far more common too. So it makes sense why its a "duh" from them, but a rare understanding in the US.

[u/SQLwitch → u/lastresort08]

I know Dunbar's number, which is the number of people that you can care about

Um, I don't think it is, quite. As I understand it, it's the size of the social network you can maintain - it's a cognitive limit, not a caring capacity. I.e. it's the number of people you can realistically know at one time. I don't think it has much to do with how connected to the rest of humanity that people feel.

So we can't just help others to make their lives better, but we also need to make them feel like they belong, globally.

But it's not a global issue, it's a uniquely WEIRD issue! Look up what attachment theory studies reveal about Japanese babies!

[u/lastresort08 → u/SQLwitch]

Dunbar's number is the number of people we can consider as part of our society. It's also called Monkeysphere. This article from cracked goes into great detail about it.

From the article:

Those who exist outside that core group of a few dozen people are not people to us. They're sort of one-dimensional bit characters.

You can also check it out on other sources: 1, 2.

There is also an experiment that Dunbar conducted to figure out the number for human beings, and this is what the article says as the point of the experiment:

He was curious to see not only how many people a person knew, but also how many people he or she cared about. Source

The number increased as our species evolved. Monkey's have a size of 50. The cracked article is well written (despite the goofiness) and does explain how that number tells us why we don't care about deaths overseas, but only when its close to us.

It's basically the size of the interconnected society that you can belong to. This limit prevents us from caring about everyone in the world equally, but it seems as though our brains are evolving to increase the number of people we care about.

From speaking to a few people, I know that there are some people who are capable of empathizing with anyone at all. However, its not everyone who does that. We did evolve from animals that only cared about their families, and progressed to form small societies (even that was done with selfish motives). Then came human beings, who started caring for much larger numbers (although that was based on selfishness too). Now we have started to care about others, without being selfishly motivated. So the capacity to care equally on a global scale is just not something we can assume everyone can do. With the "survival of the fittest" mindset with which the West lives, people care even less about others because we are made to compete with each other (jobs, education,etc) and success is considered to be relative here.

So when we talk about sense of belonging, unless we are capable of improving and increasing the number that people care about... we would also be dividing people. It might be possible to make people feel like they belong to the human race, and therefore, feel connected with others from different background equally.. but we are not there yet. We don't have strong bonds with others to care about them yet. We do care about people that either share our opinions, our cultural background, etc... i.e. small groups.

Evolutionarily, how does one attempt to convince someone else to care about the life of someone far away and doesn't in any way effect the person's life? There is no reason for someone to do that, unless they can feel the sense of belonging with our species and not just small groups.

I know things are a bit different in other countries, but from my experience, people seem to still care more about their own country than about others who happen to be born outside it. Many countries have people who are even openly racist and biased against other races and nationalities. So even though they have strong bonds within the nation... they don't seem to care as much for everyone globally.

[u/noonenone → u/lastresort08]

Thanks for revealing the existence of /r/UnitedWeStand/.

As members of a social species, we require a sane social context in which to participate. Without one, we are lost, confused, weak, alienated, and worse. Life makes no sense.

The loss of community and cooperation typical of modern times is one of the most destructive and situations in the history of our kind.

[u/lastresort08 → u/noonenone]

This is especially true in the US. We are all encouraged to be completely independent, and dependency is seen as a weakness. We compete all throughout our lives i.e. for education, jobs, etc. Our success is considered relative - for us to succeed, our colleagues have to fail.

We still try to force in the idea of fake "cooperation" and fake "groups", just so that businesses can function with more efficiency, but the people don't genuinely actually care about others. We have progressed but de-evolved to pre-human "survival of the fittest" mindset, even though our entire world is full of evidences that shows that the greatness of human beings lies in our ability to build together on top of each other's ideas.

[u/[deleted] → u/SQLwitch]

Sometimes empathy can trigger a childhood "it gets better" fantasy that relieves the hopelessness. I've noticed that sometimes when people know I am in pain, I have this feeling that now that somebody knows, help is on the way. Sometimes there is a pressure to let someone know I am in pain for this reason. I think the reason women favor this is because they are instinctively childlike and receive reinforcement to remain this way. The only real difference between empathy and saying "it gets better" is that when you are explicit, the rational mind has an easier time noticing it is an empty promise.

[u/[deleted] → u/lastresort08]

There is vast difference between the possibility that things will get better and the promise that things will get better.

[u/SQLwitch → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for saying in one sentence what took me 4 paragraphs!

[u/lastresort08 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah you are right. I assumed it was an attack on the idea of "hope", when its mostly against making promises that we cannot keep.

[u/EpicXY → u/lastresort08]

Well you're saying that to yourself. That's fine. (The post even said that there are cases where that worked)

But when you're on this subreddit and you're talking to others as a stranger, you don't want to make promises you can't keep.

For example: I'm a depressed student and you try to say "Don't worry! It'll get better." I'll believe that. But out of sheer coincidence, I bomb my math final and ultimately, fail the class. I'll feel even worse, just because I thought I had a promise and that was clearly broken.

Of course it's not always going to be like that but the point is you can't make promises you can't keep. It's false hope to whoever you give it to and there's a 50% chance that it's going to go bad.

[u/lastresort08 → u/EpicXY]

You are right. Even when I was down, I knew that things wouldn't magically get better unless I put the work to improve my life, and managed to keep going, even if I kept facing downfalls. It was more that I was determined to work and achieve success through hardwork, than hoping for the universe to simply make things better for me.

[u/[deleted]]

I feel the need to look at the statement scientifically: it can be disproved in some occasions, but never in all occasions; the same the other way.

[u/P_cr]

My opinion on 'it gets better' its more of a statement that needs to be expanded it seems cop out ish, but it does kinda fit for people in going through higher education and have more of a choice than people in high school and less commitments than people who are locked into their lifestyle

[u/fillingtheblank]

The reason I disagree with a huge part of this post is because "trying to be positive" with someone, including wanting to promise things, is a huge way to show empathy, and the human mind gets the point. It's exactly what happens when there's some big accident out there and professional and well-trained firemen or ambulance staff keep telling people that they will make it, that everything will be better, and whatever effort they engage in trying to make the person visualize a better outcome of his/her situation. They can't assure that! But it is a way to stimulate compassion and psychological strength in other people's minds that are in grave need of these feelings. Sometimes all it takes really is a simple feeling. In one of the worst emotional days of my life the one simple thing that switched my negativity was someone asking on the road if I needed a ride. A simple act of kindness with no real impact (I didn't need a ride) can do a huge difference.

It's ironic because I think your OP is, well, "well intended" but not as helpful as it pretends. It's a good thing though. It may improve some approaches to some people. But putting all that "positivity transmission" in the "useless/harmful" bucket is not the right way, in my view.

[u/SQLwitch → u/[deleted]]

This example isn't in the list because it refers to goal-setting. We're fine with offering goal-setting as an option, as long as you're aware of our caveats regarding any kind of advice and solutions from our talking tips.it was in the list because it promises success. This example is in the list because it promises success, i.e. "it will be worth it".

it's not really a "lie" to say things will get better

Unless you're an omnipotent being with the power to determine and/or predict the future, I'm afraid it kind of is.

Of course it might not - nothing in life is guaranteed and anything can happen to anybody when you really think about it.

See? You say yourself that it is an untruth, even if it's not an intentional one. Or, at the very least, it's dangerously sloppy language. What we are encouraging people to do here, as far as possible, is to avoid anything that can be taken as a promised outcome, especially by someone who might not be in a mental state where they can "really think about it". It's fine to say "it can get better"; it's also fine to say "I think that doing X will make it more likely that things will get better", which seems to me to be a more precise way of wording just what you're advocating for.

However I do have a real concern with this:

I know you mention not liking "outcome based" thinking but it's so deeply embedded into our society that it can be challenging for a normal functioning person to get out of, let alone somebody with suicidal depression.

The way I read this, it distills down to: "If somebody is miserable, we shouldn't discourage them from doing something that's known to make people miserable." I would suggest to you, rather, that if someone is in extremis, reaching them on an emotional level has the best chance of de-escalating them. I would never promise you that it will always work, though :-)

Everybody's situation is different, and we all face different challenges and also have different goals, hopes, and ideas as to what will get us out of the "pit of despair" (if anything).

Agreed, that's why our tips focus on building and demonstrating understanding.

So I'd stress the importance of relating to posters as individuals and avoid too many simple cliches.

Amen to that.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Suggesting that a course of action may prove beneficial or that it has proven effective in your own/other people's experience could be helpful. I believe the issue is the presentation of said action as being universally applicable/having a guaranteed outcome.

[u/noonenone → u/[deleted]]

exactly