Don't waste spoons on people that ask for your advice but don't want it.

I want to add some additional context.
For weeks and weeks (abt 2-3 months actually) on a mental health support discord server before I wrote this post quite a few of us there had been trying to talk another user out of suicidal ideation and the user kept making out there were no good sides to life and it took it's toll on the mental health of those who had become extremely emotionally invested, eventually one of us who had initially been in a good place started to have their own mental health decline, and eventually took their own life... it was scary to see something like that almost act as if it were contagious, and I realised although it wasn't wrong to care, it was a mistake to get too attached to a total stranger like that. And proved unhealthy for at least one of us there. That Discord server now has a new rule, we are there to support eachother but we are not a crisis service, you need to already be in a strong place yourself to do that, and those people at Smaritans have training and check ins for themselves too, which we don't,  so if someone comes in to that server with ideations now we have to just direct them to actual crisis services.
I'm not saying it is contagious in the physical sense but it is true that what I witnessed was someone taking on the emotional burden of another to the point it became self harming. You cannot and should not be expected to ripp yourself into peices just to keep others whole. I've noticed some of us here do duck out of the forums for a while for self care before coming back again and that is a healthy way to treat online spaces in general tbh.
I didn't want to write the whole sorry tale in the original post at the time I wrote it as I know if people are already feeling down putting more emotional load on them can be dangerous and I didn't want to do that here. But I decided to add it now because I couldn't help but feel like some people may not realise this is more than just "omg bad vibes ew" it's a serious thing.

I want to add some additional context.
For weeks and weeks (abt 2-3 months actually) on a mental health support discord server before I wrote this post quite a few of us there had been trying to talk another user out of suicidal ideation and the user kept making out there were no good sides to life and it took it's toll on the mental health of those who had become extremely emotionally invested, eventually one of us who had initially been in a good place started to have their own mental health decline, and eventually took their own life... it was scary to see something like that almost act as if it were contagious, and I realised although it wasn't wrong to care, it was a mistake to get too attached to a total stranger like that. And proved unhealthy for at least one of us there. That Discord server now has a new rule, we are there to support eachother but we are not a crisis service, you need to already be in a strong place yourself to do that, and those people at Smaritans have training and check ins for themselves too, which we don't,  so if someone comes in to that server with ideations now we have to just direct them to actual crisis services.
I'm not saying it is contagious in the physical sense but it is true that what I witnessed was someone taking on the emotional burden of another to the point it became self harming. You cannot and should not be expected to ripp yourself into peices just to keep others whole. I've noticed some of us here do duck out of the forums for a while for self care before coming back again and that is a healthy way to treat online spaces in general tbh.
I didn't want to write the whole sorry tale in the original post at the time I wrote it as I know if people are already feeling down putting more emotional load on them can be dangerous and I didn't want to do that here. But I decided to add it now because I couldn't help but feel like some people may not realise this is more than just "omg bad vibes ew" it's a serious thing.

That must have been really difficult. It's not the same thing but whenever friends would talk about something they're struggling with, I would always feel like I need to actively fix it for them. 

Even though they'd never expect me to, I fear that I'd be being unreasonable by keeping an eye on my own mental health. Like I'm being selfish and don't care.

One time someone I knew was clearly at crisis point and she was messaging me (late night). I made the mistake of leaving her to go to bed because I did find it very heavy and overwhelming and I didn't know how to deal with it. She wasn't happy and remained upset with me for the best part of a year.

I could have handled it better but at the same time, I just didn't know.