“It was just attention-seeking”

The phrase does something unusual. It identifies, correctly, that a person is trying to get someone's attention — and then treats that as grounds for withholding it.

Take the description at face value

Suppose it is exactly right. Suppose somebody did what they did in order to be noticed.

What sort of state is a person in when being noticed has become worth that? Not a comfortable one. "They only did it for attention" describes somebody who has run out of ordinary ways of being heard and has escalated to an extraordinary one.

The correct response to a person who needs attention that badly is attention.

What the evidence says about the people it is used on

This is the part that matters most, because the phrase is generally used to sort the serious from the non-serious.

It sorts them wrongly. A previous suicide attempt is among the strongest known predictors of later death by suicide. The group most likely to be described this way is the group at highest risk.

Self-harm without suicidal intent carries elevated risk too. "It wasn't a real attempt" may sometimes be accurate about intent on that occasion and tells you very little about the next one.

Where it comes from

Rarely from cruelty. Usually from exhaustion and from fear.

Supporting somebody through repeated crises is genuinely depleting, especially when nothing seems to change. "Attention-seeking" is a way of putting something unbearable at a manageable distance — if it is not real, it does not have to be carried.

It also turns up in overstretched services, where it functions as triage language. That is where it does the most damage, because it is a clinical setting giving a person a verdict on themselves.

The better question

Instead of was that a real attempt?, ask what is this person unable to get any other way?

Sometimes the answer is care they cannot ask for directly. Sometimes it is relief from a situation nobody is addressing — an abusive relationship, a debt, a placement, a job. Occasionally it is a straightforward request that has been refused so many times that only the extreme version now gets a response.

All of those have answers. None of them is served by deciding the person is not serious.

If it has been said about you

You may have been given this label by a parent, a partner, or someone in a uniform who was busy.

It is not a diagnosis and it is not information about you. It is a description of how somebody else decided to feel about something you did. People who have been told this frequently stop asking for help afterwards, which is precisely the outcome the phrase produces and precisely the thing it claims to be preventing.

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