TW*** Suicide attempt

Due to the nunmber of people concerned about Mudd's well-being and being baffled and upset about her being banned, I asked Shrinklady's permission to explain what happened which she freely gave.

Last Wednesday, Mudd contacted a member on this forum by PM and informed them that she had used a means of suicide. This member wrote back urging Mudd to contact 911 and not allow herself to die. When she received no response from Mudd, she contacted TN to ask if there was something she could do. TN and I are friends off the boards as we knew each other before either of us posted here. She sent me a text to ask if there was anyway for a moderator to determine someone's real identity.

There isn't since the only info retained by the system is someone's email address. Individual posts are identified by IP address but the most they can yield is a general location. They're only real use to identify if someone is using two different usernames. I told TN there was really nothing that could be done, but then remembered that Mudd had written to me at my blog address around the same time she started posting here. In fact, I believe she started posting here based on recommendation when I replied to her.

I normally do not track down people's real identities and treat email written to me at my blog address as confidential but since we thought Mudd's life was in danger, I thought these were extreme circumstances. It turned out that her email to me gave her full real name and there was a link to her pottery studio's Facebook page. Her facebook page provided an address for the pottery studio which provide a city in which to search. I then did a search on her name at 411.com using her full name and the city and found a home address for Mudd.

I then looked up the number for her local police department and placed an emergency call to their dispatcher and reported a suicide in progress (based on my training in suicide prevention and taking into consideration that she had informed the member that she had already taken action, I accessed this as a situation in which Mudd was in imminent danger so a call to emergency services was in order).

I informed the police that I was from psychcafe forum and explained the information I had and gave them Mudd's name and address and they took my cell phone number.

An officer called me back to tell me that he was at the house and his partner was waiting inside with Mudd (she had told them that it felt too threatening to have two policemen in the house so Officer Small had stepped outside). He told me that when they arrived, Mudd denied that anything was going on and had shown them the means that she had said she had used to the other psychcafe member and they were untouched. Officer Small told me that they were having an Mental Health Crisis worker come to the house to talk to Mudd as that was standard protocol, but without hearing directy from the person who had heard the threat, they could not commit her involuntarily. But he also told me as far as they could tell, no attempt had been carried through and she was safe.

I have been suspicious of Mudd's stories for some time as many details of her hospitalizations have not been credible with friends who have been inpatients and some other interaction I had with her, so at this point I became convinced that the suicide attempt may only have been a bid for attention. I became even more suspect when her "apology" did not match up with what the officer had described about her behavior and what she had said.


Upon taking a closer look at her studio facebook page, I noticed a couple of entries that very happily discussed pottery classes and outings and how well they had gone that were published on the same dates as posts she had put up on psychcafe discussing how terrible her hospitization was and her experiences there, convincing me that the hospitization had never happened.

Both TN and myself contacted Shrinklady to tell her what happened (I wanted her to know what I had done as psychcafe would be mentioned in the official police report). Based on the fact that Mudd had informed a member of the method, time and place of a suicide attempt, not to mention the cruelty if this had been a faked attempt to involve and upset someone powerless to do anything about it, Shrinklady decided to ban her, believing that no matter what had motivated her behavior, she was too unstable to be involved in the forum.

I am very sorry as I know a number of you have spent significant amounts of time interacting with and supporting Mudd, but thought you deserved to know the truth, if for no other reason than I believe you do not need to fear that she is truly facing so many terrible situations as it is clear that she had manufactured at least some of what she was saying.

I am sorry to not have expressed any doubts sooner than this but without proof did not feel it was fair to Mudd, as if what she was saying was true, then she was in need of support. I was also worried that it might just be personal dislike on my part. But I did act in good faith in calling the police, believing her life to be in danger and will be very honest that I was pretty angry after speaking to the police officer.

If anyone has any questions they are not comfortable asking here on OF, please feel free to PM me and I will do my best to answer, although I have tried to convey everything I know in this account.

AG