12 ms·

Not a comment on the story itself, but rather on the postscript which follows it: > If you are struggling to cope or have been affected by anything in this sto

Not a comment on the story itself, but rather on the postscript which follows it: > If you are struggling to cope or have been affected by anything in this story, please contact the Samaritans in the UK at 116 123 or jo@samaritans.org. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. More information at mind.org.uk, samaritans.org and save.org Years ago, unhappy but not suicidal, I decided to call a suicide hotline. I did this for the same reason we have fire drills and software tests - I was verifying whether it would work if I did need it. It did not work. I was quite disappointed. After my experience, I would never suggest to anyone to call a suicide hotline, and I realized that most people who recommend them probably have never used one and don't know what they're recommending. The individual I spoke to asked if I was suicidal - I said I wasn't at the moment, but then that doesn't mean much, does it? _I'm still calling, regardless of what I say._ I would imagine a lot of people who call suicide hotlines might not be entirely honest about the urgency or seriousness of their emotional state. Their reaction was dismissive thereafter. The person would not make any connection with me - they are clearly trained not to do that to avoid certain problems, but I feel that in a moment where what a person needs most is a connection and is calling to try to seek one out, the total refusal to answer any questions at all or be personable in any way was like having a door shut in my face. The individual continually turned the conversation back to a set of formulaic questions that were of no help whatsoever, and I ultimately disconnected feeling worse than when I'd initially called. I do wonder if my experience is representative of the norm or not.

have_faith 5y ago
Is your advice based on this single interaction?
- windowshopping 5y ago
  Well, I have two options going forward: 1. Despite my bad experience, recommend suicide hotlines in the hopes that they work even though they didn't for me. 2. Recommend against suicide hotlines while explaining why and cautioning that my experience may or may not be representative of the norm. I'm going with #2 for the time being, yes.
  - AutumnCurtain 5y ago
    3. Collect more meaningful data before offering recommendations?
  - wpietri 5y ago
    You really can't think of any other options?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - ccvannorman 5y ago
    Why do you feel recommending anything at all is required? 3. Share my experience, acknowledge this is a single data point, and withhold recommendation.
    - aerovistae 5y ago
      This is a good point, and phrased better and more openly than the other replies.
  - mitigating 5y ago
    Recommending against anything because it didn't work for you isn't good, even with the disclaimer. Antidotal evidence is the worst.
  - ebb-tide 5y ago
    3. Not post about something you have scant evidence one way or another about.
gowld 5y ago
A suicide hotline is not a general mental health therapy. It was one function -- to prevent the caller from committing suicide in the immediate future. It was successful. You can't test the effectiveness of a suicide prevention with a dry run. Fire drills don't put out fires either. Also, you essentially admityed that you were making a false call. That's not going to get a great reply. You shouldn't call 911 to test response time either.
- vlunkr 5y ago
  Exactly, and I'm sure they want to keep their lines open for the real emergencies.
  - aerovistae 5y ago
    My point is that it can be hard to tell a real emergency from a non-real one. Not everyone is going to be sobbing and shouting. Some may sound calm and alright. If you've known someone who committed suicide, you probably know that there isn't always a flashing warning sign the day of. There is sometimes, but it's not reliable. I think it's important for a hotline to treat all calls equally.
- mjevans 5y ago
  My impression differs. The caller left the experience feeling more disheartened and unsupported. Logically that seems like they were at an _increased risk of suicide_ relative to when they called.
  - watwut 5y ago
    He literally answered "no, I am not suicidal" to the "are you suicidal" question. And in fact, he did not became suicidal after. This was not failure of suicide hotline. This was them recognizing he is misusing the service.
    - R0b0t1 5y ago
      If you answer yes they are liable to send someone to kidnap you, so people are trained to not answer yes.
paxys 5y ago
A single hotline experience not working for you doesn't warrant a blanket "I would never suggest to anyone to call a suicide hotline". There are lots of studies that show that such programs are at least moderately effective (https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-019-2147-y https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12...)
- thelettere 5y ago
  Look at the methodology - borderline laughable. Tells us no more than his anecdote does, for there are a million other potential explanations - including that it isn't calling those hotlines that helps, but knowing that one can, which dovetails nicely with research on the benefits of friendship. Some things you simply can't test.
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  There's also studies that show the more times you are committed the more likely you are to commit suicide, i.e., that psychiatric hospitals cause suicidal ideation.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    Would love to see the methodology on this. I wonder how they controlled for the cofounders are addressed. it stands that more seriously distressed people are committed more. It is like saying that the more times you are hospitalized for illness, the more likely you are to die.
  - Invictus0 5y ago
    Or perhaps the most suicidal people are more likely to be committed? Causation seems very hard to show here.
    - R0b0t1 5y ago
      If incidence of suicidal ideation goes up with number of involuntary holds then it means that psych facilities are not treating the problem. That is enough: that they are provably not treating it. First do no harm means you have to be causing good; ambivalence is treated as likely harm because it is invasive.
ebb-tide 5y ago
I used to work at a hotline, and OF COURSE the 'quality' of the volunteer varied. We were not trained to avoid anything, we were there to stay on the line as long as people wanted, and talk about whatever people needed unless there were more calls than we could handle. Many people called who were in crisis, rather than overtly suicidal, we were there for them.
agumonkey 5y ago
Called an emergency line after hallucination episode. Woman meant well but was very limited in her suggestions and empathy. I don't blame them though. That said whether or not they're optimal.. it's often a good last resort option. Many people might have avoided tragedy through some mild listening. I've seen it happen on other venues. [0] To be fair.. most psychology professional I ran into were far from perfect.
dogleash 5y ago
>I do wonder if my experience is representative of the norm or not. When you need help, you find out pretty quickly that institutional support is like bumpers in a bowling alley gutter - it's crude and manufactured. It might keep you on the lane, it sure doesn't help you bowl any better. You also find out that even well-intentioned people aren't much better. What sucks about suicidality is that everyone is so sterile about it. Maybe it's that everyone is so on guard against personal connections except from select loved ones. For some people, it might even require talking to someone in a similar headspace just to get on the same page and start talking for real. But I've found out I helped people after the fact, and if I knew I was playing defense going in, I'd probably would have been too scared to say the things I did. Anyway, here's a nice article, the first half of which explains that failure to communicate better than I ever could: https://eggreport.medium.com/envying-the-dead-skyking-in-memoriam-99262389268f https://eggreport.medium.com/envying-the-dead-skyking-in-mem...
codingdave 5y ago
You were not suicidal. Not passively, definitely not actively. The needs of the actively suicidal are not the same as someone who is unhappy and just calling to check the experience. I don't know if you've ever been around someone who is actively suicidal, but it is a completely different state of mind than normal interactions. What they need is not a connection or a therapy session to talk them down - that comes later. They need help. That could be talking, but it could be figuring out whether to send an ambulance, law enforcement, whether someone is there who can restrain them from taking irrevocable actions, or to drive them to a hospital. So yes, maybe you got someone who had no idea what to do with you. Maybe they did suck at that job. But you were applying the wrong tool to the problem. If you are unhappy, call a therapist. If you are suicidal, call a hotline.
- chris_wot 5y ago
  If you are suicidal, don't call a hotline. See a friend, talk to family, but don't consult a professional. Professionals, in many countries, are bound by law to refer you to a psych ward. Even if your state of mind is temporary, you'll be stuck there for days, weeks and sometimes even months. Often, staff are abusive. If you are suicidal, do not call a hotline.
  - rackjack 5y ago
    It's 3am, you ring a friend, they don't pick up. You ring home, your parents are asleep. "do NOT call a hotline" you remember. Nobody to talk to. Nobody loves you. Worthless piece of human fucking garbage. Better off dead. Better off dead when the people who "love" you aren't there when you need them. Waste of space, waste of air. A bother. You're just bothering them. The last thing they'll think of you as is a bother. That's how worthless you are. Piece of shit. Absolute garbage. Better off dead. Just fucking end it already. ^ Thought process of a suicidal person. "do NOT call a hotline" is, IMO, actively harmful advice. If you're debating whether or not you should call, remember that normal people wouldn't even think about it, and call the damn hotline. Save your life.
    - chris_wot 5y ago
youreawesome 5y ago
It's heartbreaking our social institutions failed you so badly that you needed to call a suicide hotline to connect with someone, even though you weren't suicidal. However that's not a test call. In telecom people who install phone systems are legally required to call 911 just to make sure it works. It usually takes five seconds and then they hang up, because they know emergency hotlines might be understaffed and they need to be available for people in emergencies. One thing you might consider is calling your bank or some commercial call center where company policy prevents representatives from hanging up on customers. There's so many people who are lonely and have no one else to call, so they turn to these hotlines. It's still not great, because it contributes to hold times and makes it harder for the person who picks up to meet their quotas, but you'd at least be freeing up resources for the people who at risk.
Igelau 5y ago
It's not a hotline for free therapy, and they only have the script/training for one circumstance. You don't blame your hammer if it doesn't saw very well.
phailhaus 5y ago
So uh...you made one call to a suicide hotline, admitted that you were not suicidal, and you think that experience is enough to assert that the service is completely useless for those that are suicidal?

have_faith 5y ago

Is your advice based on this single interaction?

windowshopping 5y ago
Well, I have two options going forward: 1. Despite my bad experience, recommend suicide hotlines in the hopes that they work even though they didn't for me. 2. Recommend against suicide hotlines while explaining why and cautioning that my experience may or may not be representative of the norm. I'm going with #2 for the time being, yes.
- AutumnCurtain 5y ago
  3. Collect more meaningful data before offering recommendations?
- wpietri 5y ago
  You really can't think of any other options?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- ccvannorman 5y ago
  Why do you feel recommending anything at all is required? 3. Share my experience, acknowledge this is a single data point, and withhold recommendation.
  - aerovistae 5y ago
    This is a good point, and phrased better and more openly than the other replies.
- mitigating 5y ago
  Recommending against anything because it didn't work for you isn't good, even with the disclaimer. Antidotal evidence is the worst.
- ebb-tide 5y ago
  3. Not post about something you have scant evidence one way or another about.

gowld 5y ago

A suicide hotline is not a general mental health therapy. It was one function -- to prevent the caller from committing suicide in the immediate future. It was successful. You can't test the effectiveness of a suicide prevention with a dry run. Fire drills don't put out fires either. Also, you essentially admityed that you were making a false call. That's not going to get a great reply. You shouldn't call 911 to test response time either.

vlunkr 5y ago
Exactly, and I'm sure they want to keep their lines open for the real emergencies.
- aerovistae 5y ago
  My point is that it can be hard to tell a real emergency from a non-real one. Not everyone is going to be sobbing and shouting. Some may sound calm and alright. If you've known someone who committed suicide, you probably know that there isn't always a flashing warning sign the day of. There is sometimes, but it's not reliable. I think it's important for a hotline to treat all calls equally.
mjevans 5y ago
My impression differs. The caller left the experience feeling more disheartened and unsupported. Logically that seems like they were at an _increased risk of suicide_ relative to when they called.
- watwut 5y ago
  He literally answered "no, I am not suicidal" to the "are you suicidal" question. And in fact, he did not became suicidal after. This was not failure of suicide hotline. This was them recognizing he is misusing the service.
  - R0b0t1 5y ago
    If you answer yes they are liable to send someone to kidnap you, so people are trained to not answer yes.

paxys 5y ago

A single hotline experience not working for you doesn't warrant a blanket "I would never suggest to anyone to call a suicide hotline". There are lots of studies that show that such programs are at least moderately effective (https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-019-2147-y https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12...)

thelettere 5y ago
Look at the methodology - borderline laughable. Tells us no more than his anecdote does, for there are a million other potential explanations - including that it isn't calling those hotlines that helps, but knowing that one can, which dovetails nicely with research on the benefits of friendship. Some things you simply can't test.
R0b0t1 5y ago
There's also studies that show the more times you are committed the more likely you are to commit suicide, i.e., that psychiatric hospitals cause suicidal ideation.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Would love to see the methodology on this. I wonder how they controlled for the cofounders are addressed. it stands that more seriously distressed people are committed more. It is like saying that the more times you are hospitalized for illness, the more likely you are to die.
- Invictus0 5y ago
  Or perhaps the most suicidal people are more likely to be committed? Causation seems very hard to show here.
  - R0b0t1 5y ago
    If incidence of suicidal ideation goes up with number of involuntary holds then it means that psych facilities are not treating the problem. That is enough: that they are provably not treating it. First do no harm means you have to be causing good; ambivalence is treated as likely harm because it is invasive.

ebb-tide 5y ago

I used to work at a hotline, and OF COURSE the 'quality' of the volunteer varied. We were not trained to avoid anything, we were there to stay on the line as long as people wanted, and talk about whatever people needed unless there were more calls than we could handle. Many people called who were in crisis, rather than overtly suicidal, we were there for them.

agumonkey 5y ago

Called an emergency line after hallucination episode. Woman meant well but was very limited in her suggestions and empathy. I don't blame them though. That said whether or not they're optimal.. it's often a good last resort option. Many people might have avoided tragedy through some mild listening. I've seen it happen on other venues. [0] To be fair.. most psychology professional I ran into were far from perfect.

dogleash 5y ago

>I do wonder if my experience is representative of the norm or not. When you need help, you find out pretty quickly that institutional support is like bumpers in a bowling alley gutter - it's crude and manufactured. It might keep you on the lane, it sure doesn't help you bowl any better. You also find out that even well-intentioned people aren't much better. What sucks about suicidality is that everyone is so sterile about it. Maybe it's that everyone is so on guard against personal connections except from select loved ones. For some people, it might even require talking to someone in a similar headspace just to get on the same page and start talking for real. But I've found out I helped people after the fact, and if I knew I was playing defense going in, I'd probably would have been too scared to say the things I did. Anyway, here's a nice article, the first half of which explains that failure to communicate better than I ever could: https://eggreport.medium.com/envying-the-dead-skyking-in-memoriam-99262389268f https://eggreport.medium.com/envying-the-dead-skyking-in-mem...

codingdave 5y ago

You were not suicidal. Not passively, definitely not actively. The needs of the actively suicidal are not the same as someone who is unhappy and just calling to check the experience. I don't know if you've ever been around someone who is actively suicidal, but it is a completely different state of mind than normal interactions. What they need is not a connection or a therapy session to talk them down - that comes later. They need help. That could be talking, but it could be figuring out whether to send an ambulance, law enforcement, whether someone is there who can restrain them from taking irrevocable actions, or to drive them to a hospital. So yes, maybe you got someone who had no idea what to do with you. Maybe they did suck at that job. But you were applying the wrong tool to the problem. If you are unhappy, call a therapist. If you are suicidal, call a hotline.

chris_wot 5y ago
If you are suicidal, don't call a hotline. See a friend, talk to family, but don't consult a professional. Professionals, in many countries, are bound by law to refer you to a psych ward. Even if your state of mind is temporary, you'll be stuck there for days, weeks and sometimes even months. Often, staff are abusive. If you are suicidal, do not call a hotline.
- rackjack 5y ago
  It's 3am, you ring a friend, they don't pick up. You ring home, your parents are asleep. "do NOT call a hotline" you remember. Nobody to talk to. Nobody loves you. Worthless piece of human fucking garbage. Better off dead. Better off dead when the people who "love" you aren't there when you need them. Waste of space, waste of air. A bother. You're just bothering them. The last thing they'll think of you as is a bother. That's how worthless you are. Piece of shit. Absolute garbage. Better off dead. Just fucking end it already. ^ Thought process of a suicidal person. "do NOT call a hotline" is, IMO, actively harmful advice. If you're debating whether or not you should call, remember that normal people wouldn't even think about it, and call the damn hotline. Save your life.
  - chris_wot 5y ago

youreawesome 5y ago

It's heartbreaking our social institutions failed you so badly that you needed to call a suicide hotline to connect with someone, even though you weren't suicidal. However that's not a test call. In telecom people who install phone systems are legally required to call 911 just to make sure it works. It usually takes five seconds and then they hang up, because they know emergency hotlines might be understaffed and they need to be available for people in emergencies. One thing you might consider is calling your bank or some commercial call center where company policy prevents representatives from hanging up on customers. There's so many people who are lonely and have no one else to call, so they turn to these hotlines. It's still not great, because it contributes to hold times and makes it harder for the person who picks up to meet their quotas, but you'd at least be freeing up resources for the people who at risk.

Igelau 5y ago

It's not a hotline for free therapy, and they only have the script/training for one circumstance. You don't blame your hammer if it doesn't saw very well.

phailhaus 5y ago

So uh...you made one call to a suicide hotline, admitted that you were not suicidal, and you think that experience is enough to assert that the service is completely useless for those that are suicidal?