If you use social media, it might shock you to know that suicide hotlines do – yes, really – actually help many people.
Seriously.
I swear.
This is shocking news, I’m sure, because according to tweet after tweet on Twitter, if you call a suicide hotline, they do one of only three things:
- Tell you take a warm bath or make some tea
- Put you on hold
- Call the police and have you carted off to a hospital.
I’m here to tell you the facts about calling a suicide hotline. If you don’t have time to read the whole post, here’s the summary:
If you call a suicide hotline, the counselor will probably help you in some way. Research shows suicide hotline counselors do help many people, and usually do not call the police.
Every counselor is different. There are thousands of suicide hotline counselors around the country, some great, some not-so-great; some skilled listeners, some advice givers; some with years of experience, some doing their first gig ever; some with hundreds of hours of training in counseling, some not so much; some volunteers, some paid.
Calling a hotline is kind of like dating: Did you go on one bad date and then swear off dating forevermore? Personally, I gave dating a go for 20 or so years before I finally met my mate. And I’m grateful I didn’t give up, because he’s a swell husband, father, and co-conspirator in getting the cats to pay attention to us. But back to the point…
Suicide Hotlines Help (Mostly)
Like most things in life, suicide hotlines aren’t perfect. They don’t help everyone. But they help most people, in some way.
A research team reviewed 31 studies on the effectiveness of telephone and text hotlines for people in crisis. Their findings make a compelling case for hotlines to get more love:
- All 11 studies that measured a caller’s emotional state at the start of a call and at the end found “significant improvements.”
- In 12 studies that measured callers’ satisfaction with the hotline, the average rating was 78%, with a range of 29% to 100%. OK, that low of 29% is disheartening, but what about the study where 100% of the hotline users were satisfied? Statistically speaking, the glass is way more than half full.
- Six studies asked users if they’d recommend the hotline to others, and 91% said yes.
This is what one hotline caller says about her experience (not in the research cited above, but in a comment to another website’s post):
“I have called 800-number hotlines on multiple occasions, when it was 2am and the darkness was pressing in, and it really did help me to have a presence on the other end of the line who could hear my anguished sobs without making me worry I was a burden. They are definitely why I’m alive now.”
That commenter went on to say, “Some people aren’t able to ask anyone for help. I’ve been there. But some people do reach out, and in those times, anonymity can be such a saving grace. That’s why I support hotlines. They do save some lives.”
Look again at the last line: They do save some lives. It’s true.
In this study of callers to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, callers’ suicidal intent, hopelessness, and psychological pain all went down from the start of the call to the finish.
So, Why the Hate for Suicide Hotlines??
You don’t have to look far to find viral vitriol against suicide hotlines. Like this tweet:
There are many more tweets like that one, too. Hundreds, probably. Maybe even thousands, if you want to go through Twitter and count.
What is it about suicide hotlines that gets people so riled up? Several things, I think:
Most suicide hotlines call the police…sometimes.
Usually, suicide hotline calls do not result in the police being summoned. But some do. One study found counselors “initiated rescue procedures” in 13% of calls. People placed an estimated 2.1 million calls to the Lifeline’s centers in 2020. That means the police were called about 273,000 times.
The proportion of calls to police goes up markedly for people a counselor believes are at imminent risk of suicide. In a study of actions taken for such callers, counselors contacted police without the caller’s advance knowledge or consent in 25% of cases.
When a counselor judges a caller to be at “imminent risk,” the counselor believes the person will most likely die by suicide within hours or, at most, a few days, without immediate intervention. And even in those extreme situations, 3 of 4 people judged to be at imminent risk were helped in other ways, without police or paramedics showing up on their doorstep.
Having the police come to your home or workplace and take you to the hospital can, no doubt, be traumatic. There’s a small but significant risk, first of all, of getting shot to death by the police. In the U.S., one out of ten police shootings occur after a concerned friend or family member called 911 out of concern for their loved one’s mental health.
Most people aren’t shot, obviously, but police involvement can be traumatic in other ways. If the police believe you pose a danger to yourself or others, you might be handcuffed or strapped to a stretcher and taken to a hospital against your will for a psychiatric evaluation. The hospital might charge a hefty bill. And you might end up admitted to a psych hospital against your will for a few days (or, less commonly, longer), which also is expensive.
These actions might be justified if your life truly is at stake. You might even feel grateful later to the counselor for saving your life.
But sometimes, hotline counselors panic. I’ve heard or read of someone calling a hotline because they were having suicidal thoughts but no plan or intent to act on them – and still the hotline counselor called the police. For an especially sobering account, see this Mad in America article: Suicide Hotlines Bill Themselves as Confidential—Even as Some Trace Your Call.
“So many people feel betrayed when a welfare check happens. This is a huge part of the problem because then we say I will never use a crisis hotline again,” wrote one commenter on this website.
Why Do Hotlines Call the Police?
In the U.S., in order to be a part of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a hotline must have a “rescue” policy.
The American Association of Suicidology (AAS), which accredits suicide hotlines, has the same requirement. It states in its accreditation standards manual:
“An active rescue … should be implemented if a person’s life is in danger even when the person will not or cannot assent. Because we also value a person’s privacy and self-determination, ideally, the intervention is done with the person’s consent. When that is not possible, the intervention will occur without the person’s consent or knowledge, only after all other options have been exhausted.” (I bolded those key words.)
Typically the hotline counselor talks with the caller about how to stay safe. This could involve making a safety plan, going to the hospital voluntarily, or getting someone else involved. But if the caller’s not willing or able to do that and the counselor believes the caller’s in immediate danger of suicide, the counselor may well call 911, which then typically dispatches police or paramedics.
The Lifeline’s rationale for requiring “active rescue” is that by calling a suicide hotline, a person is asking for help. “Rescue is a response to a cry for help and may often involve taking extraordinary actions to save a life,” the hotline accreditation standards manual states.
By the way, a call to the Lifeline, at 988 or 800-273-8255 (TALK), routes you to the suicide hotline closest to you. If you call a hotline directly, without going through the Lifeline, it still follows the Lifeline’s procedures if it’s accredited. So, when I refer to Lifeline counselors, I’m really referring to counselors at almost every suicide hotline in the U.S.
Do Any Hotlines Not Call the Police?
Most suicide hotlines in the U.S. belong to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline network. To avoid needing a rescue policy, a hotline can choose not to be accredited. A notable, but uncommon, example is the Trans Lifeline, which has a policy of not calling the police unless the caller asks.
The Trans Lifeline’s website states, “Trans Lifeline does not engage in non-consensual active rescue. Since our founding, we have been divested from the police. That means that if you call us and are in crisis, we will not call 911 or the police — unless you explicitly ask us to.”
The Trans Lifeline explains its reasoning in detail in this post, “Why No Non-Consensual Active Rescue?”
Foregoing accreditation can have financial consequences. In a list of the advantages of accreditation, the American Association of Suicidology states, “AAS-accredited programs have additional credibility with funding agencies and insurance companies.”
Like the Trans Lifeline, there are some peer support lines, often called “warmlines,” that have no accreditation and no policy requiring them to call the police if someone’s in immediate danger of suicide and won’t take steps to stay safe. The Wildflower Alliance Peer Support Line is one example.
How Can You Avoid Having the Police Called?
In general, a hotline counselor will consider you to be at “imminent risk” for suicide – and thus requiring rescue against your will, if you can’t collaborate on a way to stay safe – if you make clear you want to kill yourself, you intend to try soon, and you have the ability to do so, according to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s Policy for Helping Callers at Imminent Risk of Suicide.
To avoid having a hotline counselor call the police, you can avoid giving them a reason to. That is, don’t say anything to indicate you’re in peril of ending your life imminently. Also, complete a safety plan if the counselor proposes one, and say you’ll follow it.
Now readers, if you are having thoughts of killing yourself very soon, I do recommend being honest about them. As a therapist, I very much want clients to be truthful with me about their suicidal thoughts.
But I’m also a realist. I know many people are terrified of someone calling the police to forcibly take the person to a hospital. (If you have any doubt, check out any of the 500 or so comments on my post, Will I Be Committed to a Mental Hospital if I Tell a Therapist about my Suicidal Thoughts?)
To me, advising you to watch what you say is “harm reduction,” in the same category as giving clean needles to people addicted to injectable drugs: You wish the person would do the ideal, safest thing, but at least you can make it so they’re in less danger.
It doesn’t need to be all or nothing. That is, I’d rather you call a hotline, be careful not to give the appearance of imminent risk, and connect with a trained, caring counselor than never call at all because you fear the police will come.
I happen to think talking with someone who’s trained to truly listen (no small thing, by the way) can help you. You can, at least for a bit, not be alone with your pain. You can talk things through and maybe – hopefully – come to a point where you feel enough hope when the call ends that you do stay alive.
The possibility of police involvement isn’t the only reason some people hate suicide hotlines. Here are a couple more:
Some suicide hotline counselors give condescending advice.
It’s frustrating when you’ve suffered from major depression for many months, tried a half dozen antidepressants, read a zillion self-help books, gone to therapy enough to pay for your therapist’s next overseas vacation, and the hotline counselor advises you to take a warm bath. Like, that’s really going to cure my depression. Like, why didn’t I think of that?
I get it, being told to take a bath can feel ridiculous – to some people. But not to everyone.
When I was an emergency room social worker, I often reminded patients’ worried family members to drink water and to eat. They weren’t stupid. They knew that the human body requires water and food to stay alive. But in those moments, while they vigilantly waited to hear whether someone they loved would live or die, they were focused on only one thing, and it wasn’t drinking or eating. The gentle reminder to attend to bodily needs did make a difference for many people, because they simply had forgotten.
People in crisis often get trapped in tunnel vision. They forget the obvious things that can help. And if the advice to take a bath isn’t useful? Ignore it. Hotline counselors are trying to help. That’s all. They might have some bad ideas, or obvious ideas, or ridiculous ideas, but they’re coming up with ideas for you to accept or reject as you please.
And, who knows? Some of the ideas might work for you.
But advice-giving can derail listening, which brings me to another reason some people have a negative experience when calling a hotline:
Some suicide hotline counselors don’t listen.
A suicide hotline counselor ought to listen to you, respond with empathy and compassion and curiosity, help you feel heard and less alone, and let you speak without immediately offering rebuttal, advice, reassurance, persuasion or anything else that puts you and the counselor on opposite sides of a potential argument. (Usually, that is. Obviously there are exceptions.)
Ideally, when you speak with a counselor who’s not bossy or judgmental, you experience the space for your own wisdom to bubble up while in connection with someone else. You end up giving yourself advice, essentially. And you trust that advice more because it came from you, not a stranger, though a stranger’s keen listening skills might have helped you get there.
If you don’t arrive at solutions yourself, it can be helpful for a counselor to give advice if you’ve already had the space to be heard and listened to without judgment (barring an immediate, significantly life-threatening crisis that requires an immediate response).
Advice around safety planning tends to be especially useful. Advice around baths and tea-time? That depends on the person, but clearly a lot of people don’t like those kinds of recommendations, based on angry social media posts to that effect.
Why do suicide hotlines recommend a bath so much? Or tea?
When someone’s in crisis, advice can help them get through the moment. I suspect that the take-a-bath advice comes near the end of the conversation, when the counselor asks the caller what they’ll do when the call ends. Based on my own years working at hotlines in the 1990s, it probably goes something like this:
Counselor: “Now that we’re nearing the end of our call, what will you do when we get off the phone?”
Caller: “I don’t know. Just sit here, I guess.”
Counselor: “What could help you do to feel calm or give yourself some pleasure?”
Caller: “I can’t think of anything.”
Counselor: “What about a warm bath, would that help?”
Is that so bad? The person might say, “No, that won’t help” or “For f’s sake, I don’t even have a bathtub.” OK, so a bath’s out. What are other possibilities?
It’s not like someone says, “I have major depression, I want to kill myself, I’m in so much pain that I can’t bear it another moment,” and the counselor says, “You’ll cure your depression and stop feeling suicidal if you take a warm bath.”
At least, I hope not.
Wait, it does happen, apparently. One person said when she turned to a hotline for help with her incessant suicidal thoughts, the counselor suggested that “the cure for my problem would be to go get my nails or hair done.”
Not good, right? Indeed, if the counselor truly did suggest that a manicure or hair cut would cure a person of suicidal thoughts, that reflects a poor understanding of the deep stress, psychological pain, trauma, substance use, mental illness, and social injustices that typically trigger suicidal thoughts.
A suicide hotline counselor is trying to help callers survive, moment by moment, not to cure a person’s longstanding problems in a single phone call. If getting a manicure helps someone stay alive for more moments, fantastic! If not, maybe a bath will help.
Just kidding – sort of.
Kidding, because advice to take a bath can feel like telling someone who’s been shot to take an aspirin.
Not kidding, because baths do help some people relax, distract themselves, experience pleasure, and more. And whatever helps, helps.
My advice about suicide hotlines:
If a hotline counselor doesn’t help you, please try a different one. As I said earlier, there are many hotline counselors, and the next one will probably be better.
Or the next after that.
Chances are high you’ll find some value in calling, because, as the research shows, most people do.
If you prefer to text…
The Lifeline offers services via online chat. Additionally, the Crisis Text Line offers help by text; you can access them by texting HOME to 741741.
Have you called a suicide hotline?
What was your experience with the hotline like, good or bad? Was it in the U.S., or elsewhere? If you’d like to share, please leave a comment below.
Copyright 2022 by Stacey Freedenthal, PhD, LCSW. Written for SpeakingOfSuicide.com. All Rights Reserved.
Logically, and realistically, the only thing a hotline *can* do for you is listen and be attentive. The fact that police involvement is even a consideration is frankly stupid. The police can’t force you to continue living, and their “help” isn’t going to do your mental state any favors.
[This comment was edited to abide by the site’s Comments Policy. – SF]
There’s also the fun experience of getting a suicide hotline operator who skips through all the BS and just flat out tells you to do the deed. That’s happened to me three times, on three different hotlines, in two different states.
Then of course there’s the fun of getting to the hospital E.R., either under your own power or because you were drug there by authorities summoned by the “help” line people, and then being left to rot in the waiting room for hours. Got to sit in the waiting room for eight hours at one point before I finally determined that doing so was worse than dying or continuing to suffer, and just walked out. No one stopped me. No one cared. No one bothered to check up on me despite having all of my contact information.
I spent a year as an unpaid phone volunteer on a suicide/crisis prevention hotline in California. We received about 40 hours of training on a variety of relevant topics. The paid staff were deeply dedicated to helping callers. I never had occasion to call the police, but I did see it happen once or twice during the year I spent on the hotline. For us, at least, it was a last resort used only when the caller said they were about to harm themselves imminently, they were alone, they had a plan, and they had the means.
Nevertheless, I did quit after completing the one year I agreed to prior to training. I quit for two primary reasons. First, we were expressly forbidden to give advice of any sort, except referrals to other services. Callers would sometimes implore me, “Please, just tell me what to do!” I was required to respond with something like, “I believe you have the ability to handle this. What do you think you should do?” This was often frustrating for the caller and me.
Second, the vast majority of the callers were not suicidal. These “familiar voices” often were isolated, lonely people who simply wanted someone to talk to and maybe vent to about their frustrations. They often wanted to stay on the phone as long as possible, but we were instructed to limit these calls to 10 minutes each. Some had a list of hotlines and warm lines and they would work their way down the list, making 10 minute calls to each. Frequently, my entire four hour shift was familiar voices. While I did like talking with these familiar folks, and I came to care deeply about them and their circumstances, that’s not what I signed up for on a suicide prevention hot line.
From reading the comments in this thread, I see a lot of hostility towards these hotlines. Let’s face it, their effectiveness is limited because suicidal ideation is a DIFFICULT problem to solve in the best of circumstances, and talking to a well-intentioned volunteer stranger on the phone is unlikely to add long term value. Our job was to keep the caller “safe for now” – meaning during the immediate crisis- and to encourage them to find someone to be with them until the immediate crisis waned. I believe this approach is potentially useful for callers in immediate emotional crisis, but of limited value for those suffering from persistent, debilitating suicidal ideation.
Stacey, thank you for your work on this vital topic.
Michael,
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and impressions. You provide a greater context than my article did. It’s a bit ironic: Many people detest hotlines because the counselors give advice they don’t like, yet you’ve demonstrated how it can be constraining not to give any at all. And I appreciate your pointing out that hotlines’ effectiveness is inherently limited in many cases, because suicidal individuals typically face complex, difficult-to-solve problems. Perhaps that’s yet another reason some people hate hotlines: they called with hope of solving their problems, when hotline counselors don’t have a magic wand. (If only!)
Last, I want to thank you for your words of appreciation for my work. 🙂
You should be ashamed of yourself for writing this absolutely bullshit article. I have called hotlines numerous times and it has NEVER made anything even close to better or helped in any way and mostly I ended up feeling worse off than before the call.
You are perpetrating a fraud and you discount people with real experience dealing with these failure hotlines to bolster a system that doesnt work but you likely profit off of somehow. I am disgusted how you ignore and downplay the horrific treatment so many have experienced and posted about. You are everything wrong with mental healthcare in this country, stuck in your old ways that havent helped anyone and ignoring the people who are going through it.
Anonymous,
Wow, you have very strong opinions about this. I’m sorry you’ve been hurt by hotlines. The article does acknowledge reasons why people dislike them, so it’s hardly a puff piece. (And no, for the record, I don’t profit off of hotlines in any way.)
It’s truly unfortunate that you’ve never been helped when you’ve called a hotline. At the same time, research shows that many people are helped. Is there a reason why you believe your experiences apply unilaterally to all the millions of people who use hotlines every year?
Anyway, I do appreciate your sharing your viewpoint — and my having the chance to respond. Thanks for sharing.
I am glad you responded to him/her. I have to say when I called maybe 3 times many many years ago the experience was not a good one but that doesn’t mean that all those who answer the call are not professional, able, etc.
Carol (not sure how to reply directly to you, so this might reply might appear in the wrong order),
Thanks for sharing. I understand how someone’s experiences with hotlines (or anything, for that matter) may be uniformly negative. But it’s also true, as you note, that it doesn’t mean those experiences are true for everyone.
With that said, I’m sorry your experiences with hotlines haven’t been helpful. I hope you found good help in other ways.
As a reporter I’d have thought you would understand survivor bias. What do you assume happened to the people these suicide hotlines DIDNT help?
Matt,
That’s an excellent question! Survivor bias is definitely an issue in many studies, and it’s true that some people who were unhappy with suicide hotlines may have ended their life, thus depriving researchers of the opportunity to interview them. But statistics put the situation in perspective. In the U.S. in a single year, almost 50,000 people die from suicide. Meanwhile, in a 10-month period, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline provided services to people across 5 million calls, texts, and chats. Assuming everyone who died by suicide had used the hotline (which is extremely unlikely), that still would mean that almost everyone who used the hotline survived and were able to give their opinion.
Based on another comment you left (which I’ll reply to soon), I see that you’re very angry with me for not unilaterally condemning suicide hotlines. I don’t understand why you, and many others, take such an all-or-nothing stance about them. Is it really that hard to believe that hotlines actually help some people among those 5 million calls, texts, and chats in a 10-month period? (6 million a year, if we extrapolate.) I find it hard to believe that that would not be the case. When millions of people use a service, there will be highly negative reports and highly positive ones, too.
Like just about everything else in life, hotlines aren’t all good or all bad. For the people they help, I’m grateful. For the people who don’t feel helped – or who even feel hurt – by hotlines, I offer my sympathies. I hope they find good help, wherever that may be.
I’ve been calling them for about 10 years, I would say. Obviously I’m still here! But it’s a mixed bag with the responders. Some are the coolest people you’ll ever want to meet and you wish that person was your girlfriend. Others are dull, are slow and don’t listen to you – they interrupt.
Others just say nothing, so you’ll tell them something that was incredibly difficult to share, you’ll pause and eventually say “Are you still there?” And there will be more silence, because the person is NOT there – they are daydreaming or distracted or what-have-you, but they certainly didn’t hear what you’ve just said – and then they’ll say “I’m still here.”
At which point I say “I gotta go. Thanks for your time! Bye.” And I hang up and call back and try and get someone cool.
Farkle,
Thanks for sharing your experiences. Your description mirrors what I’ve heard from many others: some hotline counselors are great, and some still have a lot to learn. It is, as you said, a mixed bag. Sort of like many things in life, right? I always urge people to please try again if they have a bad experience, because every counselor is different.
In any case, I’m grateful you’ve been helped on some occasions and especially that you’re still here. 🙂 Thanks again!
What’s keeping me from calling 988 is the simple fact that I’ll probably end up in a locked ward, potentially after being handcuffed and dragged to an ER in the back of a cop car. I’ve been traumatized by that too many times now.
So, I ended up chatting with 988 last night. I guess about the only thing that was moderately helpful was I ended up nodding off waiting for their replies… that is, until the police arrived an hour later and I had to convince them that I’m fine.
The replies I got were just canned variations of “I understand that you’re in pain”, that “you’re strong for reaching out” (felt like anything but that) plus constant prodding for me to tell them that I’m safe. Truth is, I don’t know if I’m “safe”, but I let them know being put in lockup or having the police arrive wouldn’t help. I have no desire to be alive, yet guilt and cowardice has so far kept me here.
So, was it helpful? Not in the way you would expect. A well trained chat-bot could probably do much better.
because I’ve called this suicide hotline and all they care about is people who are in crisis, not real people
I love the hot lines, so helpful to have access to a person! But I hate how many are told to “just listen”. I have no interest in talking to someone who is following a protocol. So afraid of ” giving advice” they do nothing. Thats worst. Just react, be real. Say “that sounds rough* or even ” I can’t really understand”be another human being. Offer advice thats very small, and tentative. Not just hide reactions, that feels lonely to hear.
I’ve lost count of how many times Suicide hotlines DIDNT help me. They’re honestly scumbags.
All the suicide hotline is, is a way for some rich folks to funnel tax money to themselves for no effort.
They get paid via grants from the government, and then they just have to manufacture some data no one really knows anything about to make people think they’re doing something, and they live fat and happy while you kill yourself.
They get a few church lady volunteers to tell you about how you’re going to hell and should take baths and what not, then they call the cops on you who harass you and likely will kill your dog.
Fuck you fuck the hotlines and fuck anyone who tries to push those evil fucking things. It’s all theater – they don’t help. They barely even respond to what you say and when they do they change the fucking subject to try to trick you into saying something so they can send their hit squad of pigs to kill you
Anonymous,
It’s awful that you’ve had bad experiences with hotline. And it’s important for me to point out, for the sake of others considering calling a hotline, that your experiences definitely are not reflective of everyone’s experiences. It’s a fact that many people *are* helped when they call a suicide hotline. But, as your comment attests, not everyone. I don’t mean to invalidate or minimize your feelings of anger and frustration; they are definitely understandable! Thanks for sharing those experiences here.
If nearly every single comment on your article about how suicide hotlines ARENT that terrible, is telling you they actually ARE that terrible, maybe you’re the f**king idiot.
Matt,
I considered not publishing your comment, because it goes against the site’s policy to not publish comments that are personal attacks against an individual, including me. But you raise an important issue that it might help you and other people to see addressed.
Please, never take the comments section of any article — here or elsewhere — as evidence of a true pattern in the general population. This advice applies to chat rooms, Twitter, Facebook, and anything else where large numbers of people share their opinions. You mentioned survival bias in another comment you posted, so I assume you also know about selection bias: the tendency of people to participate in these public forums for specific reasons, usually that they’ve had a negative experience, which then biases the results.
It’s an odd fact of the Internet that people tend to share their worst-case scenarios, whether about a specific diagnosis, job, suicide hotline experience, or something else. Probably someone’s done research on why this is, but my own hypothesis is that people who are angry, hurting, or otherwise struggling about their experience are more motivated to seek help from these online forums than people who are content. (Some review sites like Yelp seem to be an exception to this Internet pattern, probably because the sites aren’t focused on problems to begin with.)
I was curious to see what’s been written about the phenomenon of predominant negativity online, and this article is on point: Why You Should Never Read Online Illness or Medication Forums, and Why You Should be Skeptical of Google Search Results as Well.
Of course, as I said in another comment to you, few things in life are all-good or all-bad, so the headline above is a bit of an overgeneralization. But there is some truth in it, and I hope others who read the comments here understand that many people who comment do so precisely because they’re struggling to make peace with life, themselves, negative experiences, or even suicide hotlines, and their experiences aren’t necessarily (or usually, even) representative of everyone else’s.
What a reply to perfectly encapsulate how little you know about which you’re speaking emphatically on. That article is about physical diseases and illnesses themselves , not about people’s opinion of the treatment they are receiving. Yes the internet exaggerates points, but referencing WebMD hypochondriassm as a defence of your article/comments telling suicidal people they’re just being emotional pack-animals is almost hilariously absurd.
Matt B.,
You are correct that the article I linked addresses people with medical conditions, but the principles apply here, too. That is, the preponderance of negative comments about hotlines are not a representative sample. For example, these words by the author are spot on:
“Unfortunately, Internet illness forums often present a distorted, grim, and negative impression of most illnesses and most medications. Why is this? The main reason is because of selection and sampling bias. The groups of people who post on illness forums are not a representative sample of people with a particular illness.”
This bias applies to other situations, too, not only illnesses.
Also, the author wrote: “The forums are full of posts from the people who suffer the most. People who don’t suffer don’t spend their time posting. And people who have overcome their suffering also don’t post.”
I’ve observed the same, not only on my site but in many other contexts.
For more information about biased samples vs. those representative of the population under study, see this article from Current Epidemiology Reports: Selection Mechanisms and Their Consequences: Understanding and Addressing Selection Bias.
This has been my experience too and I feel the same about anyone who pushes these hotlines … Fuck these hotlines and the people who push them on others.
[This comment was edited to abide by the Comments Policy. — SF]
I have been suicidal for many years now and sometimes I would have multiple hotlines saved in my phone in case I spiraled to that “place” again. However, each and everytime I did this (between 5 people and different lines over the years) they have all failed me. And made my breakdowns 10x worse. Eventually I stopped contacting them all together because they gave me the same scripted crap, parroting literally every small detail I gave to an annoying point. One time I was ODing on lithium and I told the hotline lady this, she didn’t even take me seriously and I should have been hospitalized but was medically messed up and lived after that… So I don’t think hotlines work for everyone. My experiences where terrible
My experience of calling both the Samaritans hotline and mental health crisis hot line has been to make me even worse. The first time I had postnatal depression but I didn’t know it. All I knew was I wasn’t sure my son was my baby, didn’t have anything to say and sat crying all day. The bad Samaritan said ” you don’t have to feel happy all the time” Fast forward to me nearly killing my son in a psychotic break only to be stopped by my dog. I genuinely thought he was trying to kill me. For months my dog guarded and slept with my son, then a neighbour noticed something was wrong with me and took me to emergency doctor. They treated me for Postnatal depression but the shame and guilt consumed me for years.
The last time I called a helpline I said I had gone from thinking, what if I die to if I kill myself to When I kill myself. I said I can’t think of any reason to keep living and she said, have a cup of tea. It was while I was planning my suicide. I came across a suicide sight on how to do the job, and this site was more understanding of my situation than the prevention hot line.Are you going to kill yourself right now is not a one size fits all question.
I just hung up after hearing about this “new” 988 number. I needed 5min of someone telling me at 2am that things were gonna be okay and reminding me to breathe–I had a terrible experience with the old number hotline when I was 19 that ended in a misunderstanding and the cops being called. I was committed to a psych ward for 3 days and I still have a facial scar from the neglectful staff there 10 years ago.
Instead, I got a man yelling at me for 20 minutes about how uncooperative I was, wasting his time at 2am when he had other callers, saying I was putting words in his mouth and shooting down his ideas. I wasn’t, I was just struggling to understand and asking for clarification and taking a moment to process and think genuinely about his suggestions, and when I started crying, he said I wasn’t being productive anymore and unless I needed him to call 911 he was going to hang up. I beat him to it, hung up, got paranoid and emailed my therapist about what happened so that at least if the cops come, I have it on record that I’m safe and just wanted a warmline, which I didn’t even know about til after the call.
I get so furious each time–and have since I was 19–someone solemnly says suicide hotlines save lives. The U.S. medical system cares more about prolonging death than it does saving lives. Remind me that life is worth living even when it’s hard. That it’s okay to face my own mortality without fear, but that it’s not my time yet. Don’t shame me for seeking help wrangling with that odd desire to live but not at the cost of surviving. Don’t frighten me into obedience. Honestly, if I ever do take matters into my own hands, I’ll make sure to write in my note that I killed myself because of 988, lmao. Clearly there’s a bit of truth to it, no?
In all candor, reading everyone’s comments here criticizing these useless “trained counselors” has filled me with a stronger desire to live than anything that dude was screaming at me. As my therapist says, anger has a biological purpose.
Hey, folks. I hate being bipolar and depressed and struggling and lonely and independent and frightened too. I’m so glad I’m in such good company.
Let’s try and stay alive together as long as we can, and use our disgust and anger to make 988 irrelevant. If spite will keep me living, so be it. And the next person I see promoting any suicide hotlines on social media with a wide-eyed statement to “never fear reaching out” gets blocked.
Your not alone. I’m sorry.
I’ve had 15 wellness checks all hostile, 3 involuntary psych admissions all in 3 short years. I have never felt more helpless.
I have never ONCE MENTIONED SUICIDE OR THAT ANYONE WAS IN DANGER.
the worst I’ve done is call the operator on their absolute narcissism.
I called one today. Feel even worse since making that call. They give zero fucks at all
What do you mean by suicide “hotlines”? As far as I’m aware, there is one single hotline for the entire U.S. Also, the National Suicide Prevention hotline did literally absolutely nothing to help after keeping me on hold for over an hour while I waited for someone to become available. I was more suicidal after finally speaking to someone, who sat silently on the phone, refusing to engage in conversation with me. The suicide hotline was put in place to encourage suicide.
This suicide hotline is a joke. They are gaslighting us to believe that having volunteers (untrained strangers) answer a suicidal persons call for help is appropriate. It is not. You should be angry. We need to demand systemic reform! It’s not okay to say “well it helps some people so it’s good”. That is ignorant thinking! We need to put more programs in place that prevent people from getting to the point of wanting to die in the first place. It is common sense. Do let weak sensibilities rule your view. Be realistic. Demand equity. Stop making excuses and manipulating people. The hotline is not helpful. They told me they couldn’t talk to me bc there are other callers. Wtf? Not okay. Shut it down and give the funding to the people in need so they can get the help THEY NEED. It’s sick that I even need to write this out. Be adults. Be human. Use your critical thinking skills- I beg you!
I texted the Crisis Text Line recently because I was suicidal about my grandfather dying. They took forever to respond and just said “you’ll get through it” in a completely dismissive way. If you want real support, look into peer warmlines in your area.
Exactly my experience! It needs to be shut down!
I have used the email service of a suicide crisis charity several times during difficult episodes of depression and anxiety. Some replies are more supportive than others, and you can get the impression you are being a nuisance.
It’s awfully difficult as these services are often charity funded, so resources are stretched. It saddens me that mental health is still nor treated with parity of physical health.
They ranked my risk as “medium” and still called police. I ended up being arrested and slandered all over the news. They did not make any other efforts or even really talk to me. They questioned me like a was a criminal, and then subsequently treated me like one.
You really think they care they’re just getting paid to sit there and listen which isn’t helpful at all and they really think getting hauled off to a hospital helps news flash it doesn’t it makes the situation way worse I’ve been there I was hospitalized 7 times and it got worse after each visit
I’ve wished for death almost every day since my son died 2 years ago. I would very much prefer death over life but I’m trapped on this earth to care for my disabled daughter. I was involuntarily committed as a teenager and will never speak to a therapist or counselor again. I’m also a deeply private person with no interest in telling friends or family just how bad it is. I would never even consider calling 988. Any chance at all emergency services will be called out to my house makes it an impossibility for me. I did try once last year, woke up on the floor with the belt still around my neck, no idea how I got down. Samaritans hotline is the best, they will stay on the line with you to the bitter end if you need it. It’s often a busy signal or no answer, but they have helped me several times.
Ed,
I’m so sorry. For your pain, especially the loss of your son. I have two sons, and I can only imagine – but don’t want to even imagine – the pain of losing a child. I’m sorry you went through that and continue to suffer so much. I do not have expert advice, and I can’t honestly say I know what you’re going through. We almost lost our sons, years back now, but we were lucky. I can’t explain how you got down and onto the floor. I can believe that it happened for a reason, and I do, but I don’t know what you believe about it. I don’t know what higher power you do or don’t believe in. What I can say is: I’m glad your attempt didn’t work. I’m glad you’re still here. I admire your devotion to, and sacrifices for, your daughter. And I’m sorry for your pain. For whatever it’s worth, there’s someone out here thinking of you and rooting for you…Take care. Rob
I am glad you received assistance and wish the best for you.
Suicide and crisis hotlines sometimes work for me, but mostly I have found that volunteers know nothing about mental illness and its variety of manifestations, and therefore can’t read well what constitutes a crisis. I have been a target of abuse twice. That is a rarity, but the idea that a volunteer on these hotlines thinks they really know your mental state and motivations is dangerous and disturbing. When I reach someone who is trauma-informed, things have gone very well. Volunteers who are not often get things very wrong and risk making things worse for the people who call. I would advise people with Severe Mental Illness not to bother. Volunteers can easily make the problem worse.
I have had mainly positive experiences with suicide hotlines. I am severely depressed and have had chronic suicidal thoughts since I was 15 back in 1999 and was diagnosed with epilepsy. What didn’t help was the staff at my high school in 9th grade telling me to stop saying phrases like I want to hurt myself and I want to hurt myself without talking with me first if I was serious or why I was saying these things telling me not to say them again or I won’t graduate from that high school and go to an outside counselor. They basically used talking with someone outside of school as a threat. Then that outside counselor when the sessions ended having me write and sign something saying I would not say it again. I get it was after the Columbine shooting happened and the school wanted to take it seriously and probably asked the outside counselor for that signed paper. Yet, using it as a threat made me feel like I couldn’t trust telling my feelings to others. There was one time that I texted 988 though where the person I talked to said at the end of the chat that it is mainly for those that are teens through 25. That didn’t discourage me though from trying again.
I texted the National Suicide Prevention about two days ago and am honestly conflicted about it. I wasn’t exactly full-on suicidal at that moment, but the feeling I had was one I had experienced during my last attempts so I decided to see if it would help. We talked for about 30 minutes and the things the person said sounded generic but I was desperate and really didn’t care at the time. I was just beginning to trust the person and open up when the operator just- “wrapped things up” as they so eloquently put it and left the chat. I mean- I understand that since I was no longer in immediate danger I wasn’t a priority anymore and there are many other people who ACTUALLY needed help. It just- hurt to the point I sobbed for a bit afterward. I was finally being heard and they just left. Maybe I missed the point on what the chat was actually meant for- I really don’t know. After my crying though, I felt a bit better. The generic conversation though is a real turn off though, and the ‘that must have been terrible’ or ‘I’m sorry you’re feeling that way’ kind of makes me mad now that I think about it.
Anonymous,
I’m sorry you had that experience. It sounds like you “tasted” connection, and the loss of it was painful. That taste can be tantalizing! I can understand how it hurt to be cut off abruptly, but I hope you’ll try again, if not with the Lifeline then somewhere else. I list some places you can get help on the Resources page. Also, though not included (yet) on the page, some “warmlines” might be more helpful to you. Here’s how warmlines work, according to Mental Health America:
“A warmline is a phone number you call to have a conversation with someone who can provide support during hard times. Whether you’re in crisis or just need someone to talk to, a warmline can help. Warmlines are staffed by trained peers who have been through their own mental health struggles and know what it’s like to need help.
“Warmlines are free and confidential. They’re different from crisis lines or hotlines like the National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, which are more focused on keeping you safe in the moment and getting you connected to crisis resources as quickly as possible. (That doesn’t mean you can’t call a warmline when you’re in crisis—a warmline may even be able to help you find the best place to go for crisis resources, or help you mentally prepare to seek out more formal treatment.)”
You can find a list of U.S. warmlines in the Warmline Directory. (And now I must go include that link on the Resources page!)
Thanks for sharing here. I hope you find a warmline or other resource that helps you and that, more generally, you feel better soon.
Thank you- I’ll try a warm line next time! You have a swell day!
I called my area’s hotline (one of the three biggest cities in France) yesterday, that was the first time i’ve tried to reach out for help in the 7 years I’ve dealt with self-harm and suicidal thoughts. They hang up after I had just said hello.
they didn’t say, anything, just ended the call. I don’t know if there’s a social code i accidently broke (i’m autistic and not always aware of those) or what i was supposed to do. so know i’m feeling quite bittersweet and desperate towards them
Lily,
I’m really sorry that you had that experience, especially in a moment of need. Please keep reaching out: There are good resources out there and people who truly do care.
Im sorry youre feeling so bad but glad you were trying to reach out. Is it possible that somehow the call just got disconnected? It might be worth trying again.
I have suffered from suicidal ideation since I was a kid. I’m 27 now. I don’t think suicide hotlines are helpful for people with chronic suicidal ideation. Sometimes I’ll text the lifeline at 741741 just because I have literally no one else to talk to that doesn’t get frustrated with me, but more times than not, I come out feeling more hopeless. And at the end of the conversation, I don’t want to be told to cope or told to think of ways to do so, even politely or with different wording like “self-care”. Generally I’ve exhausted my roulette of distractions by the time I’m desperate enough to text in. A lot of counselors are jumpy when it comes to wellness checks and at this point I just find safety questions triggering, even though they have to ask them. I try not to text because I know it doesn’t work for me, but sometimes I just have nothing else. Like Googling and finding articles like this. It doesn’t help me but it’s better than ignoring the issue. I guess I just wanted to give my experience and went on a little rant instead. I know the crisis counselors try to help but I’m not Epictetus. I can’t seem to will away my negative emotions about my life’s encompassing problems, even with meds, therapy, etc. I wish it was acceptable to get euthanasia if you can prove you’ve had a severe mental illness (SMI) for a certain amount of time. A decade should be long enough.
Sorry for my depressing rant. I had to get it out because I experienced almost all of what I just described with the crisis counselor I just texted, and it’s not even close to the first time I’ve had a negative experience and felt worse after texting the lifeline
To your point about fudging the truth: counselors will put in less effort if there’s low/no urgency. Sometimes they won’t even continue to talk to you if you say no to the safety questions.
Aaron,
I’m sorry hotlines haven’t been helpful to you, and I appreciate your sharing your experiences with others. From my years running this site, I know your comment will help some people out there because they’ll feel less alone upon reading it. So thank you.
I wonder if you’ve checked out the site chronicsuicidesupport.com? It has a forum for people who have thought of suicide a long time, and you don’t have to worry about them calling the police.
There also are some good groups Reddit, like r/SuicideWatch, which bills itself as “peer support for anyone struggling with suicidal thoughts.” It had almost 400,000 members when I checked, so if one person doesn’t help, another might.
If either helps, please feel free to drop in and let us know. Thanks.
I absolutely loved reading through this! I’ve seen so much both negative and positive. It’s nice to see reality. I’ve never had a good experience reaching out. When I’ve texted the lag time has been so long in between each message and response… but I don’t live in the US. I love your harm reduction advice – don’t give them a reason to call the police! If I’d want to copy some of this to share on instagram (crediting you) would you be okay with that?
Ellie,
Thanks for letting me know the article was helpful to you. Yes, please do feel free to share with credit; I appreciate your checking.
I hope, if you’re still willing to give crisis lines a chance, you have more positive experiences to balance out the negative. Take care. ❤️
“Don’t give them a reason to call the police!” Is the “just comply and they won’t shoot you!” Of these discussions. Meaningless and worse than that, wrong.
They get so much hate because when someone is looking for help there is no one there unless you save money for four years to find it when you are in so much physical pain you spent all of your savings and you got nothing there is no f- ing person to help
Dear Anonymous,
I’m truly sorry that this was your experience. I hope things are better for you now, today. Sending much love.
Exactly me too
I wish therapy was free & then they send police out which makes u feel worse instead of sending a support person
Are you happy now? The guy got gunned down by an enemy officer. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/federal-civil-rights-charges-wont-filed-kansas-police-officer-killed-t-rcna44024
Then there was Seung Hui Cho. They seized him alive, took him to a hospital, locked him up and drugged him, and payback was nasty on 16 April 2007 at Va. Tech, where the body count stands at 33.
Tom,
I’m not sure what you’re asking. Happy? Because someone was killed by a police officer? Impossible. But I assume the question was rhetorical, and I don’t understand its relevance here; this post isn’t extolling police intervention. Such intervention is necessary in extreme circumstances, and it’s tragic when it goes awry. As for Seung Hui Cho, his mass murders are also tragic, but I don’t think we can know that prior treatment is to blame. Really, we can never know what drives people to that kind of violence; any cause-effect relationship we identify might play a role but is bound to oversimplify.
Despite my confusion, I thank you for sharing here! It’s helpful for me to see where a post strikes a chord, especially if it’s one I didn’t foresee.
You are actively campaigning for this to continue to happen, though I absolutely love that you immediately pivoted to bringing up the victim’s crimes in order to obfuscate the harm you are doing. I hope I cleared up your confusion!
Anonymous,
Your belief that I brought up the victim’s crimes for any other purpose than to respond to the original comment makes me wonder if you saw the original comment. You can read that comment here.
With that said, I’m confused about your statement that I’m actively campaigning for “this to continue to happen,” which appears to be in relation to police officers killing people. That is so contrary to anything I advocate for that I have to think you’ve confused me with somebody else or have a deeply distorted notion of both me and my work.
I call a suicide line after a few moments I was told I wasted her time. I was so scared because I didn’t want to die I just needed someone to hear my pain. I live alone moved to be near family who seem not want to be bothered with me. I have always been self sufficient and independent. In this new place I have no friends. I have visited churches . Church has always been my source of strength. I am finding now even churches have people who are cold and uncaring. Sometimes I feel like I have some weird disease so no one wants to come near me. I have a therapist who sometimes appear to be oblivious to what I am saying. I tell myself who cares anyway. Attempted suicide and even my family thinks I am crazy. I am lonely and sad and afraid I don’t know what to do anymore except to kill myself I have a plan and suicide notes written to my family. Today I have tried to reach out and no one calls or stop by so that tells me to just do it.
Rosie,
Oh, what you wrote is so painful. How awful to experience apathy and even cruelty from people when you’re hurting and vulnerable. As hard as it is, I hope you’ll keep trying to find someone who can help you. They’re out there! Unfortunately, it can take multiple tries. One thing you could do is go to an emergency room and tell them you’re planning to kill yourself. You might or might not want to be hospitalized, but it could at least buy you some time. I can’t help but think that once you find someone to connect with, at least this searing loneliness will lift a little.
Also, the hotline has many callers. Try again? Here in the U.S. it’s 988. You can also check out places on the Resources page.
Thanks for letting us know here you’re struggling. I hope you’re helped soon.
This is an interesting site. People are spot on, hotlines are useless. They are non-profits and that means someone is making a living off of your pain. They simply don’t work.
Even therapists with advanced degrees are often failures.
People need a rapid response non-judgemental human, this is where money should go.
Callers have already figured out they are in often hopeless situations, but not being alone in the world helps. These idiots on the other end of the phone often don’t have a clue. The United States fails people in every possible way. And put the blame where it belongs, whose stupid idea is it to incarcerate people in a psych ward? Psychologists and psychiatrists. The very people who should know this is traumatizing. Yes, if someones life is falling apart and this often involve a lack of money, take away their free will and saddle them with debt, that will make things better, not!
Rosie,
I’m sorry you are hurting and suffering so much. I’m sorry if some people have failed to help you. I pray and hope that you keep reaching out. There are people out there who can, and will, help. I am just a simple person you don’t know, sending you a message. For whatever it’s worth, I am rooting for you, praying for you, and wanting you to hold on. Your life has value. You have value. Whatever anybody says or fails to say. Whatever awful thoughts sickness tries to fill your head with. You matter. And there are people out here who care, who love, and who are rooting for you. Please take care.
Rob
Rob,
What loving, kind words. Thank you for sending this gift of a message to a stranger.
Don’t.
I’ll Call or stop by. You are worth it.
How do they do those follow-up surveys?
Tore,
Excellent question. The review article I quoted above, by Kelly Mazzer and colleagues, says most studies measured outcomes during or immediately after the person’s contact with a crisis service. Some had pre- and post-contact measures, and many followed up 2-4 weeks after contact. The authors also note, “There are … major challenges to measuring outcomes for crisis support services, due to the anonymous, one-time intervention nature of the services. Often outcome measurements were conducted via researchers coding recorded calls or volunteers assessing the helpfulness of calls. While external ratings of outcomes have some advantages, self-report is also important. Many studies noted the challenges to ascertaining longer-term outcomes, largely due to anonymity, but there are also problems determining immediate and short-term outcomes. While some studies employed standardized measures of distress, suicidality, or mood, similar measures were not used across studies. There does not appear to be an agreed set of measurable expectations and outcomes for crisis support services within the field, and this is an issue for future consideration.”
The article also indicates that “eleven studies measured changes from the beginning to end of call for telephone modalities.”
I would expect nothing else but defense for the industry and its tools from an industry professional. The reason these hotlines get so much bad press is BECAUSE so many actually have horrible, horrible experiences with them. But it doesn’t matter how many of share “help”-line horror stories because, as usual, the shared experiences of the less powerful are discounted and explained away to preserve the status quo. Happens to minorities. Happens to wrong-gendered people. Happens to the poor. Happens every day to wrong-group people everywhere. Different day, same story. But I think, thanks to the ubiquity of social media, more and more people around the world are receiving validation regarding their own traumatizing experiences or learning how many callers corroborate each other’s experiences.
I also find it absurd that some would try to minimize these harms by claiming these hotlines “help a lot of people.” Not only is that a vague, non-rigorous claim, but it minimizes the harm done to others. None of us would find ongoing allegations against a powerful organization with a history of harming children less frightening because the same organization, it’s claimed, “helps a lot of people.” Wrong is wrong.
You can’t hide bad things that happen to people indefinitely. But your response to them shows the world where your priorities lie.
many years ago, make that decades. I used to call but got so afraid of speaking to someone that I hung up without saying anything. It probably wasn’t fair to the hotline but at that point in time just knowing someone was there was a help. However, when I called because I had taken pills and they hadn’t worked I called said I did this and don’t know what to do now, and got a snarky “well maybe you should consider going to the hospital.” I hung up immediately. One other time I got up my nerve and thght I could talk After my first sentence, I forget what I might have said, the person on the line said “You’ve called here before, haven’t you?” (In a tone that to me sounded almost accusing) Now I knew she couldn’t know I had called and hung up numerous times, but it scared the heck out of me that somehow she knew who I was or at least my number (although I was on a pay phone) and again hung up immediately. I have mentioned here before I am totally alone and live in chronic pain/fear of the pain. I have been seriously considering my options as to what to do (this is not the place to be less discreet than that) and have thght of calling but despite my experience being such a long time ago, I fear ever calling one of these lines for getting someone again who is snarky/threatening to me (as I interpreted it re you’ve called here before haven’t you?)
Lee, for what it’s worth I understand the fear of the pain. Once upon a time one used to be able to get help with pain, now it’s literally a pain, often cruel.
People are here, online, looking for help. That alone speaks volumes about our society.
I understand what completely alone is too. I hate it when people say you”feel” alone, nope some, many people are completely alone.
Ya know what, professionals have no idea how to help. Go out and meet people, doesn’t work, It doesn’t make one a social misfit either. Some people don’t do shallow “friendships” which aren’t friendships at all. People with lots of acquaintances are often narcissist. We don’t have community anymore. Families abandon their own.
As for pain, to be honest I would shoot up heroin if I could. If I lived in the Netherlands I could, and they’d give you a nice place to do it. Whatever helps you through your day should be OK.
I wrote I want to die on TikTok just to see if anyone noticed, they didn’t. If I make a comment on a post of a truck that used a runaway ramp though I get all kinds of hate / attention.
Mental Health care in the USA is useless. No one asks for the input of those suffering.
Regarding the “If you get a bad counselor, just try another one”…
It’s really not that simple for us. It may sound simple, but it isn’t. They say the opposite of depression isn’t happiness, but resilience, perseverance… and that’s true.
Speaking for myself, I ruminate heavily. When an encounter of any kind doesn’t work out well for me, I use that as justification for my deep-seated belief that I am cursed and everyone on Earth is my enemy and nothing I try ever works out and what the hell am I still doing on this floating rock when I could just leave right now. I am constantly dealing with those thoughts. Sometimes I can set them aside to an extent but they are always waiting, and they would LOVE for me to reach out when I’m in a desperate place and get rebuffed. That would be fine dining to them.
So what you might consider to be an innocuous negative encounter can put me in a really horrible frame of mind for days. As in at least one of those nights I’m getting a total of 20 minutes of sleep. I’d be in no condition to keep reaching out. I think most depressives have these tendencies to varying degrees, many worse than me.
So we’re often told that we need to keep pushing and advocate for ourselves and in this case, keep trying different people. But that’s exactly what we can’t do – a lot of us can barely get out of bed and we have to get up and push? Our mindset prevents exactly that! If we were mentally capable of pushing and advocating, we wouldn’t need help to begin with!
I don’t know what the solution would be for that as there just aren’t enough resources to hand hold everyone in a hotline type situation and make sure no-one falls through the cracks. But it’s hard to overstate just how damaging a negative experience from a counselor can be.
I don’t know how these places work but I hope there are settings in place where the wrong types of people are pulled before they can do too much damage.
Exactly. Exactly.
I have gotten to where I have to weigh whether I want to interact with people. Cruelty and indifference is the norm, from people you don’t expect it. Why it’s so painful perhaps.
What you described, yes, it takes me days to recover from a bad encounter, like an illness. PTSD I think.
When one too many traumatic events had happened and my daily life felt like walking through a minefield.
I miss the person I was. Other people did this to me, out of malice.
By the way, Therapy is expensive. Poor people therapy is useless. The idea one can just pop from one therapist to another is ridiculous and out of touch.
Most therapists are sitting their doodling on their note pad. I’ve never had one help me. They really don’t interact, apparently if you talk yourself to death you supposedly will figure things out yourself?
Then telling your story again and again is exhausting.
I call it emotional prostitution…you pay for a temporary friend
Dear Anonymous,
I’m so sorry that you’ve experienced such cruelty and pain. I hope that you have even some small moments of kindness today and are able to know, and feel, that there are people out there who genuinely care. It is a deep shame that some people don’t care, or care but fail to say or do anything. If that has hurt you, I’m truly sorry. Much Love
My daughter worked on the suicide lifeline and I know that she helped a lot of callers. It was intense work, but she loved being there for people in need. I believe the only time they’d ping a phone number to get the police was when a caller was in imminent danger, e.g., a person who had a noose around her neck and determined to go through with it; a man who was about to drive off a cliff in a rural area. Most time the police were not involved.
I believe too many people don’t understand the nuances and reasons for wanting or needing to choose to die by suicide and we need to raise awareness and understanding. When I was 21 (back in the 70’s), I thought that suicide was a “f**k you” to that person’s family and didn’t have much sympathy. Luckily, I grew out of that. I believe the conversation has changed in recent years, but hope that the lack of understanding and stigma attached to mental health problems and suicide will change.
Your daughter should have asked if the people she called the police on wanted her to.
She could have helped them down from the ledge or noose if she was so great.
Calling the police is really cruel. The only way it wouldn’t be cruel is if they just showed up, put an arm around the person, talked to them, took them home and stayed with them.
I will tell you an “I shit you not story”
As a child of about 8, my brother and I had a mother who wasn’t a good mother. One night something happened and a cop basically babysat my brother and I. Played games with us, stayed with us. I will never forget that.
Now CPS would come in and traumatize the whole already shaky family unit.
Things are not better.
“we need to have a conversation”, yeah that will fix everything.
at least her daughter is trying to do work that may help some folks. I personally did call an online site about someone posting very suicidal thoughts and then she disappeared so I did let them know and their stated policy (don’t know if actually do it or not) is to call police for a wellness check. She posted a few days later so probably they did send someone out. Yes many of the people in “helping professions” are unable or just don’t want to really help but I would posit the majority do or they wouldn’t take the job.
If I called and stated I was taking action I’m sorry that does seem like something you do only if you do want to be saved or have someone to talk with you about it. (When I was younger I did call and soon as I felt they were trying to track me (which may or may not have been true) I told them you’re trying to find me and immediately hung up.
When giving the stats on how many people were actually helped by a hotline, you have to consider to what degree the person is depressed and/or suicidal and in fact that’s true of the pros as well.
Someone like me, who has been clinically depressed for the best part of a decade and spent 4 years seeing a psychiatrist (with at best mixed results)… well, I ain’t calling no hotline and I don’t think other severe long term people would either. So those stats are largely cherry picked.
I’m sure hotlines do help some people, but if you can’t even be sure that a professional psychiatrist – with 4-8 years of study and a job doing nothing but seeing people for x amount of years… if you can’t even be sure that someone like that knows what is going on and is able to help you, then what are the odds that some rando on a hotline would?
I’m confident when I say that I personally know more about depression than most of them do, and I’ve found that the best help I’ve gotten is not from the places you’d tell people to go to as a professional, but from other depressives who it is easy for me to form an emotional bond with and who understand what I feel like.
I don’t think people are specifically mad at hotlines or the people who man them who I’m sure mean well. They’re angry in general – because a large part of depression is internalized anger and resentment – but also they’re mad because we’re given the impression that, “Oh, when you’re feeling depressed just reach out and people will come help you and it’ll be OK”… when people who have actually tried that know damn well that this isn’t how it works in practice.
Personally I have a hard time buying that any of these anti-suicide initiatives, or professionals, actually stop pretty much anyone from committing suicide unless they use some manner of force. Take the meds… yes, meds work great on people who have good lives but perhaps a hormonal issue… but most depressives don’t have good lives. They have trauma. They’ve been abused. They’ve been wronged. They’re not getting by. They have crap lives and those crap lives have usually been made more crap by months and years of being inert due to their condition. Giving them a med or taking a bath or talking about their feelings or whatever, maybe that makes them not feel like killing themselves at that particular time but it does not solve the underlying problem. The next low point will come and the next low point after that…
Paul,
You raise excellent, nuanced points. I appreciate your sharing your perspective. I’m grateful you find support from others, wherever and whoever those others are. You are absolutely right: Some people don’t need special training to know how to help.
I can’t recall, have I already given you information about the site for people with chronic suicidal thoughts? They have a discussion board.
Thanks for sharing here!
I will take a look.
Thanks!
I agree my frustration began as a facet of that futility, however now all I can think about is how 90% of these and all other reports online of interactions with any of these hotlines are negative. They are clearly contributing to the detriment of those they’re meant to help … Makes me sick.
[This comment was edited to abide by the site’s Comments Policy. – SF]
Ya know, talking on the phone isn’t what I need. Why not messaging?
I don’t understand why anyone outside of my family would give a damn whether I’m dead or live.
Jim,
I’m glad you raised the issue of messaging. The Lifeline offers services via online chat. Additionally, the Crisis Text Line offers help by text; you can access them by texting HOME to 741741.
Thanks for (perhaps inadvertently) pointing out my omission! I’ll add that information soon.
Jim,
I care whether you live or die. I don’t think we’re related. And you might or might not understand this, but it’s true.
Rob