6 ms·

Suicide hotlines, on the surface, seem like a good thing. Having a phone number someone can call 24/7 to talk to someone who is trained in helping someone under

• vorpalhex 4y ago
  A lot of suicide attempts describe wanting to be talked out of their attempt. They want someone to help stop them. I've been on the receiving end of a call from someone who wanted to be talked down. I think having a universal number to call if you don't have anyone else is valuable. Will it stop all suicides? No. Will it help reduce suicides in people who are considering but not yet decided? Yes.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • pessimizer 4y ago
    > Will it help reduce suicides in people who are considering but not yet decided? Yes. Is this a made-up statistic? Do we have any good studies that show that a suicide hotline that could loop in emergency services, possibly get you involuntarily committed, and possibly be something that employers and insurers could find out the for the rest of your life reduces mortality, or is that just the kind "common sense" that's so obvious that we don't have to do science?
    • vorpalhex 4y ago
      Yes these studies exist and will come up if you search: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17579545/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17579545/ If you might kill yourself, involuntary commitment might be the right course of action. Typically these things can't be communicated to employers or insurers unless you generate a criminal complaint - eg you decide your method of suicide is going to involve victims. Yes people who attempt suicide probably have shorter lifespans. I'll leave it to you to puzzle that one yet.
• coding123 4y ago
  What would be more useful for people to do? I've noticed this about society too. We often employ the "easiest" solution to some major problem. Look at homelessness, theft, drugs, mass murders. None of the solutions work. (All of the problems are seemingly ALWAYS on the rise - not fall) I've been wonder if the actual root of the problem is everyone becoming an island. Communal interaction has been replaced with online interaction (social media).
  • stop50 4y ago
    From what i could see from europe from the news: mental illness: call the police mass shooting: thoughts and prayer black person lives: kill him
  • vorpalhex 4y ago
    Violent crime until recently has been generally steadily dropping since the 70s.
    • wyager 4y ago
      Attributable to rapidly increasing police expenditures. The "baseline" level of crime in the counterfactual scenario where police expenditure had stayed constant is almost certainly increasing.
      • tomtheelder 4y ago
        I don't think anything about what you just said can be assumed to be true. I am not convinced that increased police expenditure has a significant impact on violent crime, and even if it does I don't think it's reasonable at all to assume that violent crime rates would have increased without them. I suspect that decreasing violent crime rates are caused by a constellation of forces (increased education, aging population, decreased alcohol consumption, more out there stuff like decreased childhood lead exposure, etc.).
        • coding123 4y ago
• metadat 4y ago
  Is it better to receive the suggestion to call the help line phone number than no reply at all?
• cpill 4y ago
  • mathogre 4y ago
    fuckcensorship: "During depressive episodes, I have no interest in connecting with other people. This includes friends, therapists, family, etc. So the idea that I would ever pick up the phone and call a suicide hotline to talk to someone on the phone about my depression is borderline laughable." cpill: "yeah, but clearly you haven't committed suicide yet, so maybe you don't really know what is like to _really_ want to kill yourself? I knew someone who did do it and they did want to connect every time they tried, even the last one." cpill, it's good your friend wanted to connect on every attempt they made. Not all people are like that. Additionally, saying that a person who doesn't actually kill themself doesn't know what it is like to want to kill themself suggests a lack of knowledge on your part. There are people who cry out for help; there are also people who simply exit. fuckcensorship, I grok.
    • jayd16 4y ago
      One offered a clear example where a service would help, while the other extrapolated their own situation to all situations. I don't grok the argument that this service shouldn't exist because it can't help everyone.
    • wolverine876 4y ago
      The GP is just awful. I hope the author reconsiders that comment and removes it.
• marcinzm 4y ago
  The 2+ million calls per year to the US suicide prevention hotline would disagree with you.
  • mgdlbp 4y ago
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/09/us/where-the-despairing-log-on.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/09/us/where-the-... (https://archive.ph/rwD7G https://archive.ph/rwD7G) “The site now draws six million page views a month, on average — quadruple that of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, according to data from Similarweb, a web analytics company.”
• danachow 4y ago
  • DigiDigiorno 4y ago
    Let me help you with brevity, as it relates to his specific points: “I disagree”
  • bowsamic 4y ago
    • metadat 4y ago
      Grandparent post is insensitive to others who experience depression differently than they do. GP deserves empathy, of course. At the same time, the judgement in their post is quite harsh and negative.
    • Fargoan 4y ago
      It's not callous at all. Why would anyone expect random social media users to do more than post the number? If I was the type of person to try and talk people out of suicide I wouldn't be doing it on social media, it'd be volunteering for that hotline. Obviously the number works for many people.
    • themitigating 4y ago
      His initial post is disregards others based his own personal experience.
    • dang 4y ago
      "Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      • bowsamic 4y ago
        Okay, I’ll flag it, thanks dang
• teaearlgraycold 4y ago
  I don’t know how the service is used in practice, but maybe a lot of people are calling on behalf of someone else?
• awsrocks 4y ago
• lozenge 4y ago
  You would never use it, therefore nobody would use it and it's useless?
• WalterSear 4y ago
  I've been similarly confused, but I believe that the majority of suicides are impulsive, and driven by distress rather than depression, and those are the people these services are intended to support.
  • colechristensen 4y ago
    I know people who have been helped and perhaps saved by suicide hotlines. A phone call isn’t the only tool for help, but it is an important one.
• jillesvangurp 4y ago
  Suicide is something that just claims a lot of lives. The tragic thing is that often these people are not beyond help and just get caught up in a desperate moment. So, I can see the value of a phone number that is there. Of course suggesting that as a solution to somebody that is suicidal is not always going to produce the desired outcome. But it's not like that that is going to push them over the edge either. And I imagine there are people that do call and live. The math is probably in favor of that number being there for those who need it. Of course some people really are determined to end their lives but for many this is just a desperate way to solve a seemingly desperate situation that objectively isn't actually that desperate. People with mental health issues often have trouble doing rational things and sometimes just calming them down gets them to a stage where they are at least open to being helped. That's hard work but it saves lives. Usually that help comes initially in the form of extremely heavy sedatives. That doesn't solve any of the underlying issues but it does get them in a state where they are at least able to be somewhat rational again. I have some relatives and friends with mental health issues that went through such a thing. I also remember talking to them while they were in the middle of that. It's just horrible to witness somebody going through such a thing and realize that they are scared of what they might do to themselves and that there is literally nothing you can say or do that changes that. I'm glad they are still there and managed to find a way past that and back to leading a happy life. But of course not everybody is lucky enough to hear what they need to hear or get the care they need when they need it most. A common pattern with people that are difficult to help is that they reject the whole notion that they need it to begin with. Telling such people that they need help is not an easy message and it can easily result in people getting upset and angry. But not telling them is not an option either. A phone number is not a solution to anyone's problems. But somebody will answer that call regardless and it might save a life once in a while. The absolute worst case is that it doesn't, which I'm sure happens as well.
• wolverine876 4y ago
  Usually the top comment in a HN discussion is a takedown of the OP, but I didn't expect that for a suicide prevention hotline! I'm sorry about your problems and your experiences. While the hotline may not suit you, millions of others do call and find help. Also, imagine a world without one - where a person has nowhere to turn. > it has become commonplace for social media users to simply paste the suicide hotline number and walk away That sounds awful; where do you see it? Fortunately, I haven't seen it on HN.
• watwut 4y ago
  > Rather than offering advice, help, solace, or anything remotely human, it has become commonplace for social media users to simply paste the suicide hotline number a Average person has no idea what to say or how to help you. Their impulse will be clumsily say something contraproductive and not having any idea they blamed you or whatever.
• godelski 4y ago
  As someone else who has battled depression most of my life I have to make it clear that depression is a broad diagnosis. Robert Sapolsky discusses this in depth and why this makes it such a difficult disease to treat[0]. Hotlines will help some people but not for others. Diet and exercise helps some but not others. Medication helps some but not others. There is no singular solution to depression and framing it that way is one of the worst things we can do. We shouldn't be teaching people that depression looks a certain way because it doesn't. It's why people were surprised by Robin Williams and Anthony Bourdain, despite all the signs being there. Also, we should also be clear that you are talking about toxic behavior. You isolating yourself when depressed probably isn't the best move. But I do agree with you about how people react on social media. But I think this is because of the issues above. We discuss depression like it is sadness. So the average person feels empathy at their neighbor struggling but don't know how to help. But I'm not convinced this is criticism for the hotlines, but this should be criticism at how we talk about depression. So let me talk about depression. For me it can be like a filter is over the world. Everything is just more dull (Anhedonia). It can be difficult to start doing anything, including getting out of bed or things I like (Psychomotor retardation). It's not sadness. It can be a loss of appetite. It can be getting angry and frustrated over things I know don't matter. My friend don't notice unless I tell them. I tend to isolate myself too, but this isn't helpful to my mental health. If your friends suffer from depression be there. Listen to them. Maybe don't let them isolate themselves if this isn't helpful to them. But it's hard to give good advice because depression is personal and what helps a specific person is also frequently personal. Still, I think hotlines can help. They don't have to help everyone, just some. [0] https://www.robertsapolskyrocks.com/depression.html https://www.robertsapolskyrocks.com/depression.html
  • KennyBlanken 4y ago
    > Also, we should also be clear that you are talking about toxic behavior. You isolating yourself when depressed probably isn't the best move. "Well", said the rich person to the beggar, "being poor really isn't the best move."
    • godelski 4y ago
• alexashka 4y ago
  Having a problem does not make you qualified on what steps would be effective in resolving it at large.