Community guidelines

What belongs here

Stories about being awake when you shouldn’t be, and honest about what kept you there. Love, distance, family, work, grief, spite, the thing you never said. It doesn’t need a twist. It needs to be true to how it felt.

You can remain anonymous

Anonymity is the default. You can attach a name if you want one, and you can leave it off entirely — neither affects whether a story is published. We don’t ask for anything we don’t need, and we won’t ask you to identify yourself to be believed.

Protecting other people

The people in your story didn’t agree to be in it. Before you send it:

• Change names, workplaces and other identifying details.
• Leave out anything that would let a stranger find someone — addresses, handles, photographs, specific dates and places together.
• Don’t include private messages or images someone else sent you in confidence.

We edit for this before publishing, and we’ll come back to you rather than publish something that could identify a person who didn’t choose to be here.

What we won’t publish

• Anything that identifies, targets or harasses a real, findable person.
• Sexual content involving minors, in any form, including implied.
• Graphic instruction — anything that reads as a how-to for self-harm, suicide, or harming someone else.
• Hate directed at people for who they are rather than what they did.
• Stories presented as true that we have reason to believe are fabricated to deceive.

Difficult subject matter is welcome. Grief, abuse, addiction and despair all belong in honest writing. The line is between telling what happened and giving someone a method.

How submissions are handled

Every submission is read by a person. Most get light edits for clarity and for the safety points above; nothing is published under your name or your words in a form you haven’t seen. If we can’t publish a story, you’ll be told why rather than left waiting.

You can ask for your story to be taken down at any time, for any reason, without explaining yourself.

If a story lands hard

Some of these are heavy, and reading at 3am doesn’t make them lighter. If something here has left you struggling, talking to someone helps more than finishing the archive.

• Find a Helpline — free, confidential support lines, searchable by country.
• IASP crisis centre directory — an international list maintained by the International Association for Suicide Prevention.

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency number.

Questions

Anything not covered here is covered in about, privacy and terms.