7cups sending away people in crisis
It happens often enough that someone in crisis stumbles into the group chats on 7cups. And as soon as they show any signs of wanting to self-harm and/or being suicidal they are told to leave. Which is done in seemingly pretend way of telling the person that they are not equipped to help with a crisis and that this person should seek out the help of a crisis hotline. From my perspective that kind of ostracizing of those most in need of support and basically telling them that they dont belong will likely push someone even more into crisis. But 7cups does not care (mainly the owners - the rest has to follow the owners orders, for fear of losing their job (the mods) or simply being kicked out from the website).
I am not saying that dealing with people in crisis is an easy task or that it should be done by laypeople, but the way it is handled at 7cups is just simply wrong. If you basically promote yourself as a place of support and community for people who are struggling, but then show total disregard for those who are struggling the most, then something is really wrong with your approach. And the most vulnerable might be pushed over the edge having to realized that the support that people claim to offer at 7cups is only skin-deep.
“ No matter who you are or what you're going through, this is a place where you'll be heard and cared for. We might be strangers on the surface, but underneath we're just the friends you haven't met yet. “ This is how 7cups greets you on their home page. And nowhere do they mention that people in crisis are not welcome.
In what kind of real life scenario, we would consider a community to be a good place that claims to be supportive and basically says: Come on in, we care about you. But if you come in and then they find you to be particularly vulnerable and needy tell you to just leave again? We would consider such a place fake and mean. If you offer help for those who struggle you have to make sure that those who struggle the most also get helped. And no simply giving them a list of crisis hotlines and tell them to immediately leave is making sure that those people are helped.
