Crisis Text Line Is a JOKE

[Celerity]

Well, I just wasted 30 minutes of my life. In addition to abusing the use of exclamation marks, they check in every 3-4 texts verifying that you're feeling whatever shitty thing you're describing. It's like they're not native English speakers.

Me: "I feel so alone. No one sticks around."
CTL: "So would you say you're feeling lonely and isolated right now?"

You can't make this shit up.

 

[adam]

oh, really?

 

[Celerity]

oh, really?

Yeah....I literally just stopped texting them about 10 minutes ago. I was desperate.

 

[WornOutLife]

Yes, they are a joke here in Argentina too.
I'll leave the link of my thread telling my experience.
Unfortunately, the persons on the phone are just low-paid employees who just follow a script and don't really give a damn about us or at least trying to understand us.

https://sanctioned-suicide.net/thre...ctb-hotline-the-service-was-ridiculous.56808/

 

[adam]

Yeah....I literally just stopped texting them about 10 minutes ago. I was desperate.

In my opinion, it was obvious from the beginning. The best help I've found is here. Nowhere else.

 

[Celerity]

Yes, they are a joke here in Argentina too.
I'll leave the link of my thread telling my experience.
Unfortunately, the persons on the phone are just low-paid employees who just follow a script and don't really give a damn about us or at least trying to understand us.

https://sanctioned-suicide.net/thre...ctb-hotline-the-service-was-ridiculous.56808/

Worse is that they're volunteers here in the US, IIRC.

 

[littleloup]

Yeah, as much as I appreciate the thought, Crisis Hotline has never really made me feel better. If anything, I feel slightly judged and so worse than before. They all stick to a script so it doesn't even feel like you're speaking to another person, in my opinion. Not to mention that when you actually do need them, the wait time has a tendency to be ridiculously looking. I once waited for an hour to speak to someone before I finally gave up.

 

[MYStERY_Man]

Hm... tough. I have yet to try the line in my country, I hope it isn't that bad.

Have you considered calling instead? You might get more empathetic people like that, idk.

 

[nolongerhuman]

Yeah, they call repeating what you say back at you 'mirroring' or something and think that it helps people feel understood. They teach that in therapy too and my therapist uses it all of the time. I personally think it's a major waste of time and makes the conversation feel inauthentic. I know that you can hear me sir/ma'am, please actually try to help me with the reason why I'm talking to you.

 

[Celerity]

Yeah, as much as I appreciate the thought, Crisis Hotline has never really made me feel better. If anything, I feel slightly judged and so worse than before. They all stick to a script so it doesn't even feel like you're speaking to another person, in my opinion. Not to mention that when you actually do need them, the wait time has a tendency to be ridiculously looking. I once waited for an hour to speak to someone before I finally gave up.

That's it. I felt like I was actually talking to a robot.

Yeah, they call repeating what you say back at you 'mirroring' or something and think that it helps people feel understood. They teach that in therapy too and my therapist uses it all of the time. I personally think it's a major waste of time and makes the conversation feel inauthentic. I know that you can hear me sir/ma'am, please actually try to help me with the reason why I'm talking to you.

That's a joke. Mirroring is not something that can be pulled off over text. Especially if you use canned fucking responses. Trained therapists struggle with mirroring face to face. How tf do you expect someone off the street to do this effectively via text?

 

[Buffy5120]

Well, I just wasted 30 minutes of my life. In addition to abusing the use of exclamation marks, they check in every 3-4 texts verifying that you're feeling whatever shitty thing you're describing. It's like they're not native English speakers.

Me: "I feel so alone. No one sticks around."
CTL: "So would you say you're feeling lonely and isolated right now?"

You can't make this shit up.

Thats how my therapist talks

 

[Celerity]

Hm... tough. I have yet to try the line in my country, I hope it isn't that bad.

Have you considered calling instead? You might get more empathetic people like that, idk.

I did call one years ago. Maybe I'll give it another shot. It's not like they can send the cops when I'm not an imminent threat to anyone.

Thats how my therapist talks

Damn, never had one *quite* that bad.

 

[MYStERY_Man]

I did call one years ago. Maybe I'll give it another shot. It's not like they can send the cops when I'm not an imminent threat to anyone.

Good luck!

 

[Celerity]

Good luck!

At this point, I just want to feel less alone. I don't know how I'm gonna make it to the point where I can catch the bus. That's months away, and I'm in hell now.

 

[MYStERY_Man]

At this point, I just want to feel less alone. I don't know how I'm gonna make it to the point where I can catch the bus. That's months away, and I'm in hell now.

I know... and I'd like to be more of a help. But I kinda suck at doing it. And these volunteers have some sort of training, right? At least here they do.

 

[Celerity]

I know... and I'd like to be more of a help. But I kinda suck at doing it. And these volunteers have some sort of training, right? At least here they do.

The Crisis Text ones do. Clearly, it's not the greatest. LOL

Also, that's sweet of you, and I don't mean that in a condescending way.

 

[9BBN]

"I'm trying to text a real person, not a robot"

 

[Broken Buzz]

This was a sad thread to read. My experiences with crisis lines have been very mixed. Some have left me feeling genuinely worse after calling, I've been hung up on a couple of times without reason, presumably due to time limits or the boredom of the call handler - I'll probably never know.

Trained therapists struggle with mirroring face to face. How tf do you expect someone off the street to do this effectively via text?

I use the 'mirroring' technique a lot in my work but see it so often misused and contorted into something resembling a bad psychic... A lot of professionals seem to think the idea is just to rephrase what's been said and parrot it back with or without your own thoughts.

I was taught that you don't rephrase, you internalise what's been said, and any mirroring should be a genuine, natural and subconscious part of your own thoughtful response, or in other words, don't repeat what you don't understand.

Quite often that means I'll echo a client's thoughts in the form of a metaphor or an allegory since that's generally how I think, it's the same meaning but it actually moves the conversation forward as it's my own perspective and interpretation, as opposed to a robotic act of 'theraputic virtue signalling'.

 

[Wrennie]

I tried one once back in 2018 and I ended up blowing up at the crisis worker that was assigned to me for their semi-automated responses. Then I just put an end to the conversation since it was leading nowhere and only serving to stress me out more.

 

[Fthis]

A literal fucking robot would be better

 

[Wrennie]

A literal fucking robot would be better

Cleverbot would be better

I remember fooling around with that back when I was 13. Ah, the good 'ol days.

 

[Fthis]

Cleverbot would be better

I remember fooling around with that back when I was 13. Ah, the good 'ol days.

I remember I decided to tell cleverbot about being depressed at around that age, and cleverbot tried it's best to help and said some random stuff that didn't make sense. At least the police weren't called or anything

 

[motel rooms]

That's it. I felt like I was actually talking to a robot.

That's a joke. Mirroring is not something that can be pulled off over text. Especially if you use canned fucking responses. Trained therapists struggle with mirroring face to face. How tf do you expect someone off the street to do this effectively via text?

Pathetic/horrifying/infuriating...

 

[BloodyNobody]

Cleverbot would be better

I remember fooling around with that back when I was 13. Ah, the good 'ol days.

That's a blast from the past, cleverbot was goldddd

 

[GenesAndEnvironment]

About the mirroring, they have to actually add some things of their own for it to work. The point isn't to make the subject feel literally listened to, but rather to make them feel like someone understands, agrees and wants to help. If we return to monke for a second, this is comparable to back-hair-grooming.

"I am lonely." should be met with something like "When I feel lonely I always get the urge to hurt myself and others, is this true for you as well?" as to build some rapport. Even if it turns out that your experiences are different you still get the feeling that a real person is trying to help/connect/understand/share, rather than the feeling of talking to someone that's punching clocks and skimming through the latest communication e-books for a living.

As an autistic not even this would work on me since I don't gain anything from understanding, help (non-material) or "emotional support". The therapists I've met have all been shit, either they give obvious and unsolicited advice (CBT) or the retards simply cash in big-time from doing nothing but sitting in a chair and nodding.

Talking to people isn't real work, change my mind.

 

[Titania]

I talked to them before and they aren't helpful at all. They arent definitely a replacement for real therapy if you need it.

 

[FarAcrossTheWater]

They're doing the best they can do. They're just volunteers. Unfortunately we're at a point where we need good trained professionals.

 

[Celerity]

They're doing the best they can do. They're just volunteers. Unfortunately we're at a point where we need good trained professionals.

The good, trained professionals haven't worked though. I have seen multiple.

 

[FuneralCry]

So many people have had bad experiences with them, and yet suicide crisis numbers ae everywhere and people always say to use them. It really is hopeless. I have always personally seen those types of things as useless.

 

[Largeletters]

I'm really sorry you had this experience, Celerity... I've learned the crisis text line, suicide hotline, etc. are completely worthless. It's horrible when you're at a state of complete desperation with only them to rely on.