My Resignation Letter

[Sanctioned Suicide]

Hello, members of the community.

Today, I announce my resignation as operator. By tomorrow, this account will be permanantly deleted and I won't have any access to the site, administrative permission, or anything to do with the backend.

Since Serge isn't involved with the site and I'm resigning too, I've spent the last week transferring everything over to the new operator, someone capable and trustworthy who you will get to know very soon. They will also be a familiar face around here, too.

I do not take this decision lightly, but in light of recent events, I believe that putting this community in the hands of someone I trust and who cares about this community is the right call. My mission and desire here has always been to make sure that everyone has the freedom to speak freely about issues around suicide and mental health, topics that you can't talk openly about anywhere else. I believe this site has done good in the world and I am certain that this community has saved countless lives. Many people may not believe that, and to them I say: Ask around, you'll be surprised.

The way the NYT has twisted the purpose of this community and the good that it has done has been very damaging to everyone. Not only did they make a transparent attempt to take this site down, but they did so in the most unethical and dishonest way possible.

This place is full of caring people that are hurting, looking for someone to talk to, or looking for support in life. We are not a cult, far from it. While it is true that many people come here during their darkest moments, myself included, my main intent has always been to make this place into somewhere people can talk about issues in their life, suicide included, without judgment or without being shoved off to a crisis hotline that doesn't care about their well being.

This community has brought me peace and solace, in the fact that before I started it, I was in a very dark time of my life myself.

Community support works, and I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for this community. Although I have researched methods and at one point considered taking my own life, I was able to find some purpose and meaning in my life by being a part of this community. Thank you all for being there when I needed it the most.

I have received thanks from many members on and off this site that tell me that the forum has helped them make friends, and feel at ease about whatever bad is going on in their life. I have also had the opportunity to speak to some of those grieving over the loss of family or loved ones, and I got a chance to hear from them too. As a person that has experienced loss myself, twice in the last year alone, I know that it is not easy to get over losing a loved one. I have much sympathy for those that have gone through the same, and my condolences go out to them.

The truth is that I and many others have been painted as villains for running this community. I have been called such things as callous, dangerous, despicable, angry, or even a "murderous psychopath", but people who know me know that I am far from that, inside and outside this community. Some people may not be happy that this forum exists, but this great community has a purpose, one that started in a subreddit banned out of the blue by Reddit in order to make way for advertisers and to make their site more palatable to investors. They have long abandoned their free speech stance in order to make a quick buck. But this site will never sell out, have ads, or anything of the kind. This place is for you, and for everyone who needs a place to express themselves and feel better.

I have made many friends here, many of whom I would like to still keep in touch with after I resign.

You all have been wonderful, I'm going to miss you all.

Signing off for good,

Marquis

 

[lobster salad]

After all the abuse and speculations towards you for running this site from the outsiders, I understand your decision. This is sad. Goodbye

 

[it's_all_a_game]

Thanks for all you have done for us, man.

 

[Nanami]

Wishing you all the best for your future. Thank you for all you've done for the community and thank you for trusting me with the responsibilities of a mod for the past few years. o7

 

[Circles]

Wow I'm speechless. What the NYT and the fixthe26 did was despicable and sickening. I'm sorry you're going through this Marquis. I'm sorry to have bothered you about scammers and such the week before. You were the best admin this place had. You'll be surely missed. Just wow.

 

[wanttogetonthebus]

This makes me sad too. I haven't been a member of this site for very long, but by giving people a place where they're not censored or forced to lie about their feelings, this site has both saved countless lives and helped others to rationally access their lives and their options as every adult should be allowed to do. What this site is really about is relieving suffering through whatever means is best for each individual as determined by that individual as we all deserve the 'freedom' to live. Freedom, not force. We all are unique individuals and the burdens we must personally bear are unique. As rational adults, we deserve to be able to make and consider all of our choices which can affect our lives. We deserve to be recognized and we all deserve the ability to find peace and to pursue happiness. Thank you for everything, Marquis and I wish you the best.

 

[RainAndSadness]

I'm sorry it had to end like this. Your reasons are absolutely understandable. I don't think anyone doubts that. Many of us would have done the same if they were in your position. There is so much pressure on you right now. I can't even imagine the severe distress this entire smear campaign has caused to you... knowing how vicious they attacked us this time. I've talked about this in other threads already but this was a very dishonest and malicious campaign against this community. This is frustrating on so many levels and it's just sad.

You contributed so much to this community and I'm really thankful for that. I can't stretch it enough, Your work and persistance despite all the previous attacks and sabotage on this forum kept the community essentially together. You kept this community afloat despite all the previous incidents and all the trouble we went through. So I want to thank you with all my heart for creating such a comforting, compassionate and supportive space. I respect that. I'm grateful for your work and I hope you can recover from the nasty and disgusting attacks that we had to endure the last few days. SS has become a very important home for me and I'm grateful for that. I'm gonna keep fighting for this place. I believe we have a right to exist.

Thanks a lot.
Sincerely, RainAndSadness

 

[DocNo]

what's really crazy about it that i think it's lousy journalism. it was an article with mainly a clear agenda without even showing the other side. i didn't expect that from a newspaper with that reputation cause this is in my opinion really closer to yellow press level of journalism.

 

[LastLoveLetter]

I am sorry it came to this, Marquis, and for the irresponsible, reprehensible actions of The NYT towards you, Serge and this site. I am so saddened to read this, but fully support you doing what is best for you. I can only imagine how hard your circumstances must be right now.

You do not deserve to be painted as a murderer, a predator or a criminal for providing a space where suicidal people can speak freely without judgement and make their own choices. We deserve a community, a space and a voice, not to be continually censored, silenced and brushed under the carpet.

This site has been a lifeline for me during my time here. It is thanks to SS that I am still alive, and that I did not die from a poorly considered method that could have easily failed with devastating, irreversible consequences. Now, I have the means to depart peacefully on my own terms when the time is right, and also the crucial support network that motivates me to stay here a little longer. I will forever be grateful for the information, support and - most of all - the human connections I have made here.
Many of us will continue to defend this platform and its members from the onslaught of bad faith, ignorant and shortsighted attacks made by the mainstream media, the anti-SS activists and society.

I have truly admired your perseverance and resilience in the face of accusations, attacks, threats and pure malice directed towards you. You have responded with such eloquence, maturity and strength, and remained a reassuring pillar of the community no matter how difficult things must have been behind the scenes for you. It is completely understandable that you have chosen to resign after everything that has happened. You deserve peace and respite - you have worked so hard in the time I have been here and long before I joined.
Your presence will be missed, but I trust your judgement in choosing a new Administrator and look forward to meeting them.

In a world that routinely demonises, ostracises and stigmatises the disadvantaged and downtrodden members of society for factors beyond our control, having somewhere to be heard, somewhere to share and somewhere to belong is truly priceless. And you created that. Thank you.

Love,
Persephone

 

[Kobusu]

Be well, friend.

 

[Myforevercharlie]

I'm so sorry it has come as far as this. SS was and still is I place to feel accepted and respected for me.

Thanks for all you've done Marquis.

MFC.

 

[Meretlein]

I am at a loss seeing this. What you have done for the prochoice community is invaluable and I will always be grateful for this site.

I am sorry that you and Serge have had to pay the price for helping people. I wish you both the best going forward.

 

[Simba]

Please dont go :( this really sucks ,not every creator would last long like you ,i hate that they doxxed you - not once but couple of times.. i wouldve said be the bigger person in this situation and not give in to them but i guess even if i were creator id be extremely worried and what not too ,im sorry they had to make you and serge out to be the bad guys ,its not your fault that society dont really have much places to talk bout taboo matters without being judged or censord.. this makes me sad to hear even tho i barely know you :( hugs you
From ,Simba

 

[stellabelle]

Well, this is disappointing.
I do not blame you for leaving, but I wish you would stay.

I think it was almost inevitable that mainstream media caught on and published a few stories or articles about the forum.

I don't think the forum is the issue, I think our society and culture is the problem. I think our environments have caused us to feel this kind of distress.

I think the added media coverage has created a bigger problem. I think people and their bullshit little "games" have gone entirely too far.

I hope you return someday. Or that you reach out. You've been a good person to me.

 

[PDAnnie2610]

Don't yield to those morons but please stay for the rest of us.

They never did understand and why should we let those who know not our pain judge us for who we are?

 

[Closetotheedge]

I learned about SS from the NYTimes. This is my first post. In my short time here i have been impressed by the compassion and thoughtfulness i have seen. SN has been ordered and i now hope and believe that what remains of my life will be less fraught with the terror that i will have to suffer/bear painful decline and a prolonged, agonizing death. Thank you, Marquis.

 

[bed]

Sad to see what they have done here and made you feel like you had to step down.

When I joined this forum I only joined for the purpose of obtaining a peaceful method to end my life and leave. I have made many close friends since being here. I honestly never expected, the kindness that I have received from being here. I have been able to share my story and my darkest thoughts without judgment and I am very thankful for that. I honestly believe I would have CTB much sooner without meeting people here. In a way, it has prolonged my life - quite the opposite of what the article insinuates.

Thank you for building this forum.

 

[DivineMedicus]

Your unflinching diligence and compassion will both be missed sincerely, but your contributions to this platform will be commended and celebrated for as long as it will stand. You have added so much value to this world, please never forget that.

 

[nex]

Just read the NYT article. Surprised how they call this site by name, which they're absolutely not supposed to do by their own standards.

But if they wanted to make suicidal people aware of this site, then job well done I guess.

edit: here's the article if you don't know what I'm talking about:

Where the Despairing Log On, and Learn Ways to Die (Published 2021)

It has the trappings of popular social media, a young audience and explicit content on suicide that other sites don’t allow. It is linked to a long line of lives cut short.

www.nytimes.com

edit 2: it's hidden behind a registration wall. Here's the article:

Where the Despairing Log On, and Learn Ways to Die

By Megan Twohey and Gabriel J.X. DanceDec. 9, 2021
It has the trappings of popular social media, a young audience and explicit content on suicide that other sites don't allow. It is linked to a long line of lives cut short.

As Matthew van Antwerpen, a 17-year-old in suburban Dallas, struggled with remote schooling during the pandemic last year, he grew increasingly despondent. Searching online, he found a website about suicide.

"Any enjoyment or progress I make in my life simply comes across as forced," he wrote on the site after signing up. "I know it is all just a distraction to blow time until the end."

Roberta Barbos, a 22-year-old student at the University of Glasgow, first posted after a breakup, writing that she was "unbearably lonely." Shawn Shatto, 25, described feeling miserable at her warehouse job in Pennsylvania. And Daniel Dal Canto, a 16-year-old in Salt Lake City, shared his fears that an undiagnosed stomach ailment might never get better.

Soon after joining, each of them was dead.

Most suicide websites are about prevention. This one — started in March 2018 by two shadowy figures calling themselves Marquis and Serge — provides explicit directions on how to die.

The four young members were among tens of thousands around the world who have been pulled in. On the site's public forums, in live chats and through private messaging, they discuss hanging, poison, guns and gas. Strangers seek out partners to meet face to face and kill themselves together.

Participants routinely nudge one another along as they share suicide plans, posting reassuring messages, thumbs-up and heart emojis, and praise for those who follow through: "brave," "a legend," "a hero."

Though members are anonymous, The New York Times identified 45 who had killed themselves in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada and Australia — and found that the trail of deaths is likely much longer.

More than 500 members — a rate of more than two a week — wrote "goodbye threads" announcing how and when they planned to end their lives, and then never posted again. In many of them, people narrated their attempts in real-time posts. Some described watching as other members live-streamed their deaths off the site.

Most of the narratives cited the same lethal method, a preservative used for curing meat, The Times found. By promoting the preservative as a poison, the site has helped give rise to a means of suicide that is alarming some coroners and doctors. Yet many public health and law enforcement officials are unaware of it.

"It's disgusting that anyone would create a platform like this," said Dr. Daniel Reidenberg, a psychologist and the executive director of Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, a national nonprofit. "There's no question that this site, the way they created it, operate it and allow it to continue, is extremely dangerous."

While 10 of the identified suicides have been previously reported, the Times investigation reveals the broader scope of the deaths, the growing use of the poison and the influence of the site. Reporters analyzed more than 1.2 million messages from the site, examined members' online histories, reviewed hundreds of pages of police and coroner records, and interviewed dozens of families left behind.

The site now draws six million page views a month, on average — quadruple that of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, according to data from Similarweb, a web analytics company.

Most members reported that they had experienced mental illness and were 30 or younger, according to a survey last year by the site. That age group roughly aligns with the demographic in the United States — 15 to 24 — that had the sharpest rise in suicide rate from 2009 to 2019, the most recent data available.

Among them was Matthew. Despite the strain of virtual high school, he had appeared to be looking to the future. He and his older brother were mapping out a summer road trip with friends. He had applied to Texas A&M University and intended to become a public defender.

"'I want to help people,'" his mother, Sharon Luft, recalled him telling her. "He was just a sweet kid."

His other plans took shape quickly and secretly. In only 29 days, Matthew joined the site, learned of the lethal preservative and ended his life, listening to a playlist that he'd said made him nostalgic for his childhood.

"My son committed suicide at 17 two weeks ago," Ms. Luft tweeted in January, calling out the site. "They told him how to, encouraged him after he took the mix."

"Please help me," she wrote, joining the calls of other parents for Marquis and Serge to be held accountable and for the banning of the site, called Sanctioned Suicide.

Australia, Germany and Italy succeeded in restricting access to the site within their borders, but American law enforcement officials, lawmakers and technology companies have been reluctant to act.

While most states have laws against assisting suicide, they are inconsistent, rarely enforced and don't explicitly address online activity. Federal law shields website operators from liability for most harmful content posted by users. Court decisions have left unsettled questions about protected speech.

And when asked to stop steering visitors to the suicide site, the world's most powerful search engine deflected responsibility. "Google Search holds a mirror up to what is on the internet," a senior manager for the company wrote to Australian officials in February 2019.

Marquis and Serge have vowed to fight any efforts to take down the site. They have experience running websites with dark content: They operate several online forums for "incels," or involuntary celibates, men who believe that women will never have sex with them because of their looks or social status. Many on those sites openly discuss a fatalistic outlook, including thoughts of self-harm.

The two men have worked to shield the suicide site and to frustrate efforts to learn who is behind it. The servers have been moved from country to country. Marquis and Serge use multiple aliases and have removed nearly every trace of their real identities from the internet. Still, The Times found them, thousands of miles apart, in a city in Alabama and the capital of Uruguay.

In online posts, Marquis repeatedly said that the site complied with U.S. law and did not permit the assisting or encouraging of suicide.

He has several times referred to the site as a "pro-choice" forum that supports members' decisions to live or to die. "People are responsible for their own actions at the end of the day," Marquis wrote last year, "and there's not much we can do about that."

Daniel Dal Canto, a high school junior, arrived on the suicide site with little idea of how to end his life.

Three years earlier, he had been depressed, prompting his parents to steer him into months of therapy and medication. Now he was drumming in a jazz band, playing video games with friends and getting straight A's. To those around him, including his father, a physician, the 16-year-old seemed to be doing well.

"It almost created a false sense of security for me because I thought I knew what a depressed Daniel looked like," his mother, Pam Dal Canto, said in an interview.

But in September 2019, Daniel, expressing anxiety over his stomach pain, was gathering information and advice from the website.

It came online after Reddit shut down a group where people had been sharing suicide methods and encouraging self-harm. Reddit prohibited such discussion, as did Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. Serge wrote days after the new site opened that the two men had started working on it because they "hated to see the community disperse and disappear." He assured users that "this isn't our first rodeo and we know how to keep the website safe."

On their site, Daniel could browse a "resource" thread, a table of contents linking to methods that were compiled by members and stretched for dozens of pages. Or he could click on a suicide wiki page with similar instructions. Fellow members often derided therapy and other treatments and encouraged one another to keep their suicidal intentions hidden from relatives and medical professionals.

In posts, Serge and Marquis noted their own struggles.

"Not much to tell about myself except that I've never really found a reason to be here," Serge wrote. "There is little that I find worthy in this life."

Marquis had been on the brink of suicide at one point, he disclosed. And he had concluded that the mental health system "fails everyone" and treats people with problems as "outcasts."

Explaining the purpose of the site, he wrote, "This community was made as a place where people can freely speak about their issues without having to worry about being 'saved' or giving empty platitudes."

While some of those drawn to the website described suffering from physical pain, most mentioned depression, bipolar disorder or other mental illnesses.

About half were 25 or younger, the survey showed; like Daniel, some were minors. One shared, "I'm 13, I ran away from home 1 month ago." Another, who claimed to be 14, wrote in a post about contemplating suicide, "My dad would probably be really angry."

The suicide rate has risen over the past 20 years in the United States. About 45,000 people take their own lives each year — more than die from traffic accidents. (That figure does not count the hundreds of physician-assisted deaths in the nine states where they are legal and restricted to the terminally ill.)

For many people, suicidal thoughts will eventually pass, experts say. Treatment and detailed plans to keep safe can help. But clinicians and researchers warn that people are much more likely to attempt suicide if they learn about methods and become convinced that it's the right thing to do. The suicide site facilitates both.

"It's like when someone's having road rage, handing them a gun," said Dr. Matthew Nock, a psychology professor and suicide researcher at Harvard University.

While there is discussion on the site about not giving up hope and the merits of staying alive, there is much more about the reasons to die. Among the most viewed posts, for example, are the "goodbye threads."

One member, a 45-year-old Englishwoman named Emma Davis, recalled feeling shocked the first time she read a goodbye thread and the messages of support it drew. But reading more and more of them, "it just becomes normal," she said in an interview.

"It felt like you were wrapping yourself up in this blanket of all of this misery and darkness," said Ms. Davis, who eventually found the site dangerous and quit. "You sort of felt safe, but you weren't safe."

Within several weeks, Daniel settled on the lethal preservative, sodium nitrite, one of the most discussed topics on the website. Members guided one another to online sellers. They advised on obtaining it without alerting family. And they shared directions for using it.

As Daniel took in the information, he asked in a post: What could he do if his attempt with the preservative failed?

Moments later, a member calling himself Stan responded.

Stan, who had shared on the site that he was depressed, divorced and largely estranged from his children, made it his mission to learn all he could about the preservative as poison. He would later write a guide on the method that turned him into a celebrity on the site.

In September 2019, when someone posted that she was planning to die by poisoning the next night, Stan quickly replied, "Keep talking to us, you are not alone." When another member wrote that he had booked a hotel and decided on dosage, then asked if the plan was OK, Stan responded, "Don't stray from the method now."

And he had an answer for Daniel about trying again. Still, the teenager had doubts as he planned his demise.

"I thought that you were supposed to feel happy as you near your bus date," Daniel wrote, shorthand for "catch the bus," a phrase that members use in referring to suicide. "Is a part of me just desperately hanging on?"

In the site's written rules, assisting and encouraging suicide were prohibited, while providing "factual information" and "emotional support" was not. In practice, some members urged others on, whether with gentle reassurance or with more force.

When a woman with bipolar disorder from Brighton, England, explained that she had twice attempted suicide and didn't want to further distress her two sons, another member messaged her, "I'm sorry your sons got traumatized but you know you need to kill yourself."

When an Australian disclosed that he had become suicidal because of persistent behavioral problems, several members taunted him. "Maybe he/she can film it," wrote one person, joining others in sarcastically calling for popcorn for a viewing. Weeks later, the young man took his life.

No sooner had Daniel expressed his uncertainty than another member commented: "Setting a date has always upset me. I just keep extending it, but I won't be able to forever. I don't think you're doing anything wrong. Hang in there."

Then, on Oct. 3, the teenager posted a photograph of a bottle of the lethal preservative and announced that he would take it that weekend. But hours later, he posted again. Things had changed: A disagreement with his parents had prompted him to move up his plans.

"I hope you'll be there :)," he wrote.

Later that night, he thanked other members for "all of the good wishes." He noted that he was "a little scared" but had specific plans, drawing a flood of messages: 11 "hugs," four "likes," three "loves" and two "awws" — the emoji crying a single tear.

At 2:30 a.m., Ms. Dal Canto lay awake and got up to check on Daniel. There was her son, dead in bed.

 

[ImLosingMyGrip]

Hello, members of the community.

Today, I announce my resignation as operator. By tomorrow, this account will be permanantly deleted and I won't have any access to the site, administrative permission, or anything to do with the backend.

Since Serge hasn't been involved with the site in a long time and I'm resigning too, I've spent the last week transferring everything over to the new operator, someone capable and trustworthy who you will get to know very soon. They will also be a familiar face around here, too.

I do not take this decision lightly, but in light of recent events, I believe that putting this community in the hands of someone I trust and who cares about this community is the right call. My mission and desire here has always been to make sure that everyone has the freedom to speak freely about issues around suicide and mental health, topics that you can't talk openly about anywhere else. I believe this site has done good in the world and I am certain that this community has saved countless lives. Many people may not believe that, and to them I say: Ask around, you'll be surprised.

The way the NYT has twisted the purpose of this community and the good that it has done has been very damaging to everyone. Not only did they make a transparent attempt to take this site down, but they did so in the most unethical and dishonest way possible.

This place is full of caring people that are hurting, looking for someone to talk to, or looking for support in life. We are not a cult, far from it. While it is true that many people come here during their darkest moments, myself included, my main intent has always been to make this place into somewhere people can talk about issues in their life, suicide included, without judgment or without being shoved off to a crisis hotline that doesn't care about their well being.

This community has brought me peace and solace, in the fact that before I started it, I was in a very dark time of my life myself.

Community support works, and I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for this community. Although I have researched methods and at one point considered taking my own life, I was able to find some purpose and meaning in my life by being a part of this community. Thank you all for being there when I needed it the most.

I have received thanks from many members on and off this site that tell me that the forum has helped them make friends, and feel at ease about whatever bad is going on in their life. I have also had the opportunity to speak to some of those grieving over the loss of family or loved ones, and I got a chance to hear from them too. As a person that has experienced loss myself, twice in the last year alone, I know that it is not easy to get over losing a loved one. I have much sympathy for those that have gone through the same, and my condolences go out to them.

The truth is that I and many others have been painted as villains for running this community. I have been called such things as callous, dangerous, despicable, angry, or even a "murderous psychopath", but people who know me know that I am far from that, inside and outside this community. Some people may not be happy that this forum exists, but this great community has a purpose, one that started in a subreddit banned out of the blue by Reddit in order to make way for advertisers and to make their site more palatable to investors. They have long abandoned their free speech stance in order to make a quick buck. But this site will never sell out, have ads, or anything of the kind. This place is for you, and for everyone who needs a place to express themselves and feel better.

I have made many friends here, many of whom I would like to still keep in touch with after I resign.

You all have been wonderful, I'm going to miss you all.

Signing off for good,

Marquis

We love you and thank you for giving us lost souls a home so we can choose what do do with our lives, but either way, not have to be alone through it all. Stay safe in the crazy world.

 

[RudolphTheReindeer]

I'm sorry to hear this news. Thank you for all you've done in getting this site up and running.

 

[blue]

I heard the story done by the NYT Daily and was very disappointed. There coverage presented a one sided narrative They were committed to their view and did not care to present a viewpoint of the positive that has come out of this site. Never believe what you hear in the media, regardless of how reputable they seem to be.

 

[AnnonyBox]

You didn't deserve what they did to you Marquis. Nobody deserves to be doxxed. You had the courage to stand up for the right to self determination, and I thank you for all your efforts.

 

[PeopleAreWeird]

Thank you for all the work you've done Marquis. I admire your efforts in keeping this community together and respect your decision.

SS has given me a place filled with like minded individuals who added value to my existence, this site, not the campaigns made by pro lifers, is what has actually shown me how meaningful life is. It allowed me to be heard without having to listen to the empty platitudes of society or being referred to a hotline of people who'll tell me there's a light at the end of the tunnel without knowing that I'm headed into an abyss.

Eventually, it will allow me to die painlessly and be at peace.

The article only promoted their own agenda and to any pro-lifers relishing in this "achievement," know this: If I don't do it before then, the moment you shut SS down permanently will be the one I ctb. Don't think you can end SS without taking many lives with it. If this is a cult, then it has prolonged my life rather than ended it. It has saved many others and made life more beautiful. That's more than NYT, fixthe26, or anyone else in society at large ever did.

 

[TheEndTimes]

What you have built here is beautiful. I'm deeply grateful to you. The NYT piece was yellow journalism, sensational and one-sided.

Your courage in creating this site is remarkable. My best wishes to you for peace and prosperity, health and happiness.

 

[Wrennie]

I don't know what I would've done without this website, either.
The mental health industry had only succeeded in further exacerbating my isolation and despair.
Here I feel a sense of community and understanding. I can freely express my desire to die without being treated like some sort of defective organism that is incapable of making rational end-of-life decisions for itself in spite of the physical agony I must forcibly endure on a daily basis.
If not for SS, I probably would've had to resort to jumping out of a window again.
You've actually served to prolong my life and spare me from further unnecessary suffering.
I wish you all of the best, and pray that your circumstances improve.

 

[Pallf]

I'd prefer if you didn't go, but I understand why it's probably in your best interests to leave. We're about to enter a new era of this site and I'm wondering what the future will hold. It's not gonna be the same without you man. You'll be sorely missed.
Thanks for making and admining this site for us.

 

[avoid_slow_death]

Was shocking to read this, but in light of recent events, not surprising. You need to protect yourself and the people around you whom you love and care for first and foremost. Especially after the horrendous and highly unethical and quite frankly, INSANELY DANGEROUS approach the article took with regards to publishing information that should have never been published in the first place regardless of the supposed moral stance they likely feel they are taking. That was far worse than anything that they claimed this site perpetrates. Completely irresponsible, selfish and completely immoral of not only the reporter, but the newspaper AND its parent company as well. All for the bottom line. Sickening and completely antithetical to the supposed "mission" of the article.

All that said, I want to thank you with all my heart for not only creating and maintaining this extremely helpful safe haven, but also being a kind, level headed and thoughtful participant in it. You have done a great deal of good for many people who would otherwise face isolation, uncertainty and most likely suffer far more horribly than they already do in both their lives and deaths. Never for one moment doubt the integrity of your initial mission regardless of what the naysayers might twist it into. Context is key in understanding any situation and it seems their context is superficial in nature.

As parting words, I wish you great success and goodwill in whatever you do after your exit. You have earned it. Take care Marquis and once again, thank you for all you have worked so hard to build and protect. You will always be appreciated for it.

Much Love,

avoid (J)

 

[Ashu]

This New York Times incident simply confirms what we all already knew: that there is no point in talking to the normtards. We have to hide ourselves from them, find each other secretly, and keep to ourselves.

 

[Buffy5120]

You are an amazing person Marquis. Do not let these people make you think otherwise. You have done so much for all of us and helped many people here find a place of support. You will be missed greatly.