I'll help you find your own reason
May 3, 2015 7:13 AM   Subscribe

Life as a suicide hotline responder. Imgur gallery. Surprisingly, read the comments.

If you need help, suicide.org has international listings of helplines. USA: 1.800.784.2433; Canada.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering (24 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
Some of the comments trying to answer the "One reason" question definitely missed the point there.

Great post fffm, thanks!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:24 AM on May 3, 2015 [3 favorites]


Comment by rattledup:
"Give me a reason not to pull the trigger"---"There's a video on the internet of Mr. Rogers break dancing." It fills 90% of people with joy

Here's the segment. (He even takes a crack at moonwalking.)
posted by Iris Gambol at 7:42 AM on May 3, 2015 [17 favorites]


This touched me.
posted by Falling_Saint at 7:46 AM on May 3, 2015


That is one job I know I could never, ever do. I don't think I'd last half a day. Those people are real heroes in my book.

Serious question...Do the people who man the hotlines have access to a counselor as part of their job? Like, does the hotline provide them with a way to talk-out a particularly rough call?
posted by Thorzdad at 8:05 AM on May 3, 2015 [2 favorites]


When I was a kid our telephone number was literally 1 digit more than the distress hotline our number ended in 7778 and the distress line was 7777. This was when there were ONLY rotary telephones. I remember at the age of somewhere between 7 and 9 my mother getting a call from a young man... you was going to commit suicide. She spent hours and hours on the phone with him more than 6 I KNOW and she talked and talked and talked to him until he felt better and was ready to go get help. Missing an appointment and having us kids make dinner etc while being attached to the wall and helping this young person.
I am just mentioning it because it is one of the many amazing memories of my mother who died the week after I turned 13 that I have. She was not trained but had the biggest heart you could imagine and if nothing else will be remembered by this comment.
posted by mrgroweler at 8:19 AM on May 3, 2015 [219 favorites]


This reminds me of Sad YouTube. It's a medium where you've come to expect the worst, but sometimes you see a ray of hope for humanity in how we all confess our shared vulnerability.
posted by jonp72 at 8:21 AM on May 3, 2015 [3 favorites]


The only time I've called a suicide hotline, the person got frustrated after platitudes didn't work and just hung up on me. Left an impression.
posted by byanyothername at 8:49 AM on May 3, 2015 [13 favorites]


I'm fascinated by the small handful of callers that think the line is some sort of suicide tech support.
posted by dr_dank at 9:21 AM on May 3, 2015 [4 favorites]


Serious question...Do the people who man the hotlines have access to a counselor as part of their job? Like, does the hotline provide them with a way to talk-out a particularly rough call?

From my own experiences on various helplines you speak to a supervisor after a tough call, or debrief with a fellow volunteer, or there might be an end-of-shift debrief. Generally you have a supervisor to take anything that's bothering you to, and you're allowed to step away from the phones if you're struggling. It's usually a very supportive environment, unless I've just been lucky. It's also a lot less grim than you'd imagine. In between calls it can be a pretty lighthearted atmosphere.

This all rang pretty true, especially about the sex calls. The shift I used to do on a children's helpline was 7am-12pm. And because the number was free you'd get heavy breathers and men (in my experience, only men) asking about your underwear or whatever. And I always thought "Seriously? It's fucking 7am! Did you set your alarm for this?"
posted by billiebee at 9:28 AM on May 3, 2015 [6 favorites]


I bet Mr. Rogers would have been a really effective suicide hotline operator.
posted by notreally at 10:12 AM on May 3, 2015 [4 favorites]


I bet Mr. Rogers would have been a really effective suicide hotline operator.

This. Fred made it so difficult to be cynical.
posted by lon_star at 11:57 AM on May 3, 2015 [5 favorites]


I made it to picture #5 (Has anyone ever killed themselves while talking to you?) and there was a chill running down my spine. I immediately remembered this comment from an old thread about emergency lines. That comment stayed in my mind for months.
Something like this or or pic #5 would leave me scarred for the rest of my life.
I have the greatest respect for the people doing theses jobs! Thank you for being there!
posted by mortimore at 12:00 PM on May 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


This isn't precisely a suicide line, but if you are in the Bay Area, my friend runs the Mental Health Peer Warm-Line, where people with lived experiences of mental health issues are able to provide phone support to each other. They're currently hiring, and it's paid a decent wage.

I have had spotty experiences with helplines like these. Befrienders Malaysia (which you could email) was fantastic and helped me out a lot through some rough patches of teenhood. Trevor Project was really lovely too even though I am older than their target audience. Some others were just platitude-heavy or not even really listening, which soured me off the concept.
posted by divabat at 12:40 PM on May 3, 2015


I was surprised to learn that pranking a suicide hotline is a felony.

But then what isn't a felony?
posted by clarknova at 12:52 PM on May 3, 2015


Some colleagues who were in the Samaritans (a helpline in the UK that also takes a lot of non-suicidal calls, and not these Samaritans) confirmed once over lunch that the worst thing they ever heard was
"I don't want to die, but I just need the pain to stop."
Because that's the phrase that shows how truly late in the process a call is.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 1:39 PM on May 3, 2015 [10 favorites]


I want to kill myself because I have a small penis (giggling in background)

Pranks. At least 3 per shift, usually more.

This happened to my relative who worked a hotline for a short time. Contributed to her burnout in a big way.
posted by Melismata at 3:40 PM on May 3, 2015


We were taught to be calm and polite even with prank calls - "I'm going to end the call now" - rather than just hanging up or telling them off. The rationale being that kids will always do this kind of thing, but maybe if they know it's being met by an adult who can take it and not freak out then maybe one day they'll need to call for real and there'll be some level of trust there. Or maybe that was a way of keeping us from losing heart...
posted by billiebee at 4:01 PM on May 3, 2015 [4 favorites]


@Thorzdad You could be asking two questions here but I'm not clear. If your question is about my qualifications: I received 40 hours of training from an international curriculum called ASIST. I actually receive calls from my local 211 that are too difficult for them to handle (which is rare). If your question is about my ability to get self-care, they let me have off whenever I need (e.g. I knew someone who was murdered about a year ago and I got an indefinite leave of absence) and my boss will let me call 24/7 to debrief after a difficult call (which I have done twice in two years). Does that make sense?

When it comes to the "Why do you do this? / Because I've been there" image macro, I definitely do not recommend this kind of answer and it's also opposed to my training. The conversation should be drive by the caller and shouldn't be about the person who answers. If I start talking about my own personal experience—particularly traumatic ones—then the conversation can easily shift to somewhere that is inappropriate.

@byanyothername: Do you want my number?
posted by koavf at 4:26 PM on May 3, 2015 [2 favorites]


This fellow had the greatest suicide hot line stories I ever saw on the internet but it now pulls a 404. A bunch of it was HOWTO's. HOWTO deal with chronic callers, &c.
posted by bukvich at 4:42 PM on May 3, 2015


Last February I called a help-line and the one thing that I remember most about the person on the other end was that they listened to me, even through the silence. I recall asking after a minute or two of silence, "Are you there?" and the woman on the other end responded: "I'm listening." At that moment, at that instant, it is what I needed. Someone to not judge me or try to fix me in some way. I've sought help since and am on medication. Some days are better than others. I wish I could tell that woman on the phone how much she helped me by simply listening to me, even if it was just me sniffling through some tears. It meant the world to me.

Thanks lady.
posted by Fizz at 4:58 PM on May 3, 2015 [22 favorites]


For years, I avoided calling any kind of helpline, because... what could a stranger do about my particular situation? But I'd been making good progress with my therapist and psychiatrist, and they told me to try calling a helpline if I really needed to talk to someone and there was no-one available. So I did.

I think I was sobbing. I don't remember what had triggered it, exactly, but it was just a bad winter for me. The person on the line couldn't make out any of the words I said, and told me to hang up and try again when I was a bit more coherent. I remember being disappointed by her -- I guess, more than advice or an assessment of the situation, I really wanted someone out there to recognize that I was in pain.

I guess that's the last time I tried reaching out to anyone when I'm in the middle of being emotional, and definitely the last time I've used a hotline. These days, I wait until the emotions pass and I can analyze things coolly. Which my new therapist says is the source of my current problems. Welp.
posted by tickingclock at 8:30 PM on May 3, 2015 [2 favorites]


Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1(which won best doc short this year at the Oscars) shows listeners being offered support.
posted by brujita at 8:52 PM on May 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'd like to advise anyone who may be in this situation that you shouldn't actually tell anyone suicidal that seeing Captain Kangaroo skateboarding on Youtube or something like that is a "reason to live". It may really have the opposite effect.
posted by thelonius at 4:51 AM on May 4, 2015 [6 favorites]


But then what isn't a felony?

pranking stuff that isn't regularly involved in literal life-and-death situations?
posted by kagredon at 10:20 AM on May 5, 2015


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