How to Use This Guide
This guide is designed for low cognitive load. If you are in crisis, your executive function is compromised. Decision-making is harder. Reading dense text is harder. This document accounts for that. Follow the numbered steps in order. Skip nothing marked with ⚠️. Use the headings to jump to your current situation. You do not need to read the whole document from top to bottom.
Step 1: Documentation First
Before you delete anything, before you lock anything, before you respond to anyone — document. Evidence disappears fast online. Harassers delete their own posts to avoid reports. Platforms remove content without preserving it for you. What you capture now may be the only record that exists.
- 1.Take full-screen screenshots of every harassing message, post, or thread. Include the platform interface, timestamps, and usernames.
2. Save URLs. One click per page is enough. Paste them into a document.
3. Note dates and times. Create a simple timeline: date, platform, what happened, evidence captured (yes/no).
4. Store everything in at least two places — your device and a secure cloud backup.
Step 2: Privacy Lockdown
Go through every platform where you have an account. For each one:
- •Set profile to private or friends-only
- •Disable direct messages from non-followers
- •Remove or restrict your real name, location, and contact information from public display
- •Review your follower/friend list and remove anyone you don't personally know and trust
- •Turn off tagging and mentions from non-followers where possible
Step 3: The 48-Hour Hold
The urge to delete everything immediately is a documented survival reflex — the deletion cascade. It is valid. But permanent deletion during a panic spiral can cost you evidence, memories, and creative work you may want later.
Lock everything down now. Set a timer for 48 hours. During that window, preserve what matters. After 48 hours, if you still want to delete — delete from a place of agency, not terror.
This guide is maintained by The Unadulting Society. Platform settings and reporting mechanisms change. If you find an error or outdated instruction, help keep this resource accurate for the next person who needs it.
For crisis support, call or text 988 (US). You do not need to be suicidal to call. You can call because you're scared and don't know what to do. That's enough.
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