Its pretty fucking sad when the hotline is basically telling you that yeah,you’re worthless and you will probably end up dead.
Some gems from last nights call:
When I mentioned having herpes…
“Yeah…thats a big one. That would make me think twice about being with someone. Thats a bummer for you.”
When I mentioned being fat…
“Well,you might be overweight,I dont know if I would call you fat walking down the street,but at least thats something you can work on.”
When I mentioned nothing getting better and wanting to die…
“Well,you dont mention having an active plan,you sound pretty depressed. if I had to categorize you specifically,I’d say,yeah,you’re depressed and you are on the trajectory to suicide,but you’re not active right now.”
When i mentioned the hotline peeps doling out platitudes..
“Yeah,thats my go to strategy…Im glad you warned me upfront not to do that….our main goal is just to keep people alive until the end of the call. Whatever works,right?”
*****************
This is the HELP you get.
Thanks Andrew of the hotline…..
8 comments
Wow, that guy should not be on a suicide hot line. What an assbag!!!
When I called them, they talked to me for roughly 30 seconds and then the girl said, “I really don’t have time for you. Other people are important too.” and then she hung up. They seriously need better, kinder, more empathetic people to talk when you call.
“… our main goal is just to keep people alive until the end of the call. Whatever works, right?”
I take it that is an admission that quite a few callers don’t survive the call. What a target.
One of the problems with suicide hotlines is that they often will not recruit listeners with a history of depression or mental illness – so the listeners they do recruit have absolutely no idea what their caller is going through. They also prioritise problems – they prefer to deal with broken marriages rather than with young people with relationship problems; they prioritise certain kinds of debt above others, no matter that all debt is devastating; they do not take matters of sexuality seriously; when it comes to abuse they have a clear pecking order – physical over emotional; children over adults. They treat everything as short term – they cannot conceive of a problem going back 10 or 20 years. Many of the listeners seem to have very conservative belief systems, and if your problem challenges the social status quo, they may even refuse to acknowledge you have a problem.
Don’t phone them, unless you’ve already half-persuaded yourself to go on and just need a little company.
Truth be told – how would one realistically expect to call a perfect stranger and expect them to solve all their ills in the span of 2 minutes? They are fighting a losing battle and they are ill equipped to handle it. That doesn’t excuse the uber-lame “responses” posted here that they give, clearly they have some very poorly trained people manning the phones. But at the end of the day, they can only go on what you tell them … they aren’t psychics and can’t guess what will be meaningful to the caller.
I think causeway is pretty much on point by saying their only goal is to babysit you long enough to get you past the highest crisis point of your emotions and hope you can’t build yourself back to that level anytime soon.
reason dawg
… additionally – this is why you should try to remove all emotion from a decision as dire and final as suicide. Emotions are inherently unreliable. I know … easier said than done. but emotions have a nasty habit of clouding and obscuring the actual facts – which are usually not nearly as bad as one would think when the emotion is removed.
sleep on it dawg
Good Morning Sunbird,
I had a similiar experience in December …actually I got put on hold…now it’s kinda funny…not at all then….and never would have been funny if there wasn’t something else available to me…like the SP. I’m almost tempted to give you my phone # and you could call and try again. I would love to hear what you have to say. My sister is a nurse as well….and you are dealing with something that most of us have no idea about….as well those in your profession…because of the nature of their jobs…and the things they have to deal with…develop strange coping behaviours and skills…me I couldn’t survive in your job for 1 day without cracking. But nurses who are empathic and they are not all …but they tend to have a darker sense of humour….use sarcasm to protect themselves….and struggle to distance themselves from the life and death drama of their days.
I have learned in the last few weeks that my sarcasm and anger were my ways of keeping people at a distance…to protect myself…but I didn’t realize it was keeping me from getting any type of help. The funny thing is…the therapist who finally smacked me awake….she was a practical nurse before she was injured and retrained…come to think about it…most of the real help I received along the way was from nurses….maybe they could see past my anger and sarcasm and silliness….do you think there’s anything there….I think rather than a hotline…maybe you just need a good nurse to talk to…know any?
Here if you want to talk
Will e-mail if you want
Amakua
p.s i can relate to all three things you pointed out in your OP….damn retro-viruses
What an arsehole sounds like a bad desision to put him on i think sp is much better at helping than some dick on the phone here we are more realistic and if you keep comming back we all get to know you be it anon still but alot of good people who care are on this site spend a little time responding to others and post your worries we all share the same or similar woes i have been talked through a really rough patch where i came within a whisker of suiside im glad i got through it maybe you can too with a few good people listening it can make a world of difference hang in there sunbird i read your posts with interest…
I called a suicide hotline once because i needed someone to talk to after me and my fiance broke up. The rep judged me for living with my fiance and said that is prob why and something about it being wrong and God… i was 36 and i moved in with my fiance at 34 and he was my first real relationship and the first guy i ever lived with and now i guess i feel worse and i was homeless and desperate at the time i moved in with him or i would not have. It is a good thing i did not tell her i was so broke i stripped. Oh well. So much for help.