Police Twitter: Have a word with yourself

Dear police twitter,

I'm going to preface this by saying that I think the police are great, you're overworked and underpaid and the job that you do is often a thankless task. The police have saved my life more times than I've had hot dinners and I'm eternally grateful for that. I've been incredibly lucky that I've had a lot of good experiences with the police, and they've probably done more for my mental health than the any support I've had from the three different NHS trusts I've been under.

I also love police twitter. You guys are funny, you laugh when I make jokes that no normal person would laugh at. You're empathetic to my rants and my issues with various members of the public. When I do something great that I'm proud of or when I have a recovery win you often celebrate with me, and when my life shatters into pieces around me a lot of you are willing to offer a listening ear or a virtual shoulder to cry on. 

TL;DR: you guys are generally pretty sound people. There's the odd idiot here and there but you get that everywhere.

Now that's out of the way, and you know that I'm saying this with love: 

Please have a word with yourself about the content that you're putting out there.

A lot of you are blessed/cursed (depending on your point of view) with relatively large platforms, most of you have at least 2,000 followers - a lot of you have more than that. Due to your account name of PC/DC/Sgt. Thingymajig, or just generally identifying yourself as a member of the police force on your account, you have a great professional title to back up the credibility of whatever you decide to say. 

It's also clear to me that a lot of vulnerable people follow your accounts - you'd probably be able to class me as one of them. Autistic, mentally ill, has been sectioned multiple times within the past year. As much as I hate to admit it I'm one of those 'vulnerable' people. You're not idiots, you probably know this too.

Why is it that I'm seeing so much content surrounding suicide and mental illness? You guys really need to do better.

I'm not saying that talking about suicide and mental illness is bad - if you know anything about me you'll know that's basically all I ever talk about. Smashing stigma, raising awareness and letting people know that they're not alone is kinda my whole thing. Also just venting, but I'll get into that in another post. I am, however, pretty careful about the information that I put out there and the language that I use. When my platform was smaller (even though it is still pretty small) I was probably less careful, but since then I've grown and I've learnt and I've educated myself.

In the past week I've seen several videos of people being 'saved' from suicide by police officers, and some content detailing some individual's specific situations or suicide methods.

I'll start with the videos.

 I get that you see this stuff on the regular, and you're probably not thinking about anything other than "woah what a brave officer" when they jump and grab the vulnerable person to keep them safe, potentially putting their life on the line in the process, or when they're dangling off a ledge to pull somebody to safety. I understand why you'd want to share that, you're proud of your job brothers and sisters and want to shout it from the rooftops. 

But here's why you shouldn't:

Behind every one of these video's there's a very real distressed person having what might well be the worst day of their life. Did they give their consent for this to be plastered all over the timeline? Probably not. Even if you blur out their faces it's still ethically sketchy. I have a pretty identifiable clothing style and voice, so even if you do blur out my face someone will probably be able to tell it's me in that video. Heck, I'd be able to tell it's me in that video! Should I have to go on twitter and see an account with 17k+ followers sharing me at my worst? Absolutely not.

These videos are also incredibly triggering for those of us who've been in that position. When I scroll past videos like that my stomach ties itself in knots. I was sat at my desk shaking and crying the other night after seeing the beginning of one of those videos on auto-play. I know that sounds dramatic, but it's the truth - and I was in a good place that day, I dread to imagine what my reaction would have been if I was struggling. 

It makes me wonder if I've been video'd being dragged kicking and screaming away from a bridge. I did accidentally flash half of central London one time, so for my sake I hope a video of that isn't floating around the internet!

Now onto the other content.

A lot of you like to live-tweet your shifts, especially if you're an official account. This is great! I love seeing more about what you guys are up to, and I tend to learn something every time. But do you really need to live tweet everything? 

More specifically, do you really need to live tweet like this:

I just located a high risk missing (young/elderly) female/male at location doing dangerous thing. If we hadn't got to him/her in time then they might have come to serious harm. They're now getting help.

I have a lot of issues with this. First off, it's unsafe for you to share methods of suicide on the internet, especially if you clearly highlight that they would have potentially been fatal. I'm not even sure why I should even need to say this, but there's enough of this information on the internet already; on suicide forums (like the ones discussed in the BBC Panorama episode "Failed by the NHS: Callie's Story") and other people's accounts, does it really need to be plastered across police twitter accounts too? Even if I'm not going to try that method (I won't, don't worry), it's still incredibly triggering and something that I really didn't need know.

There's a reason why the Samaritans and other charities have such well written guidelines for the media (click here to read) asking them not to share the methods of suicide. When someone dies by suicide and the media reports on it there tend to be a lot of 'copycat' suicides and attempts, this is lessened if the information isn't readily available. 

Secondly, like Michael Brown - also known as "mental health cop" - highlights in this blog post,  live tweeting like this is bad for the welfare of the vulnerable person. If I was to stumble across a tweet from my local force, or a police officer from my area saying something along the lines of "located a high risk misper on the wrong side of a ledge, fortunately after myself and some colleagues having a conversation we managed to get her back to safety. She has been taken to hospital under the mental health act and is now being assessed by doctors to get her some help" I would probably know that was me, and even if nobody else did I'd be incredibly upset that my business was being shared all over the internet 

I've not been unlucky enough to come across tweets like this about myself, but I know some people have and they weren't too pleased with it. 

If you've made it this far then please let this be the message you take away from it: tweeting about mental illness is great, but please consider the impact that your words have. If you have a platform, especially one that's even vaguely related to a profession like policing, you have a responsibility to not put harmful content out into the world. Sometimes intent and impact don't align, so if you're tweeting about mental illness please try and talk more generally. 

Share links to suicide prevention resources like the text line Shout (text SHOUT to 85258 to speak to a trained crisis counsellor) and mental health organisations like Young Minds. Talk about your general experiences with vulnerable people, instead of anything where someone could identify themselves from your tweets. Put yourself in that person's shoes and think about how you would feel if you saw what you're about to say.

You have an important platform - please use it for good.