Suicide Hotline Experience

[!WILL!]

If you've ever called a suicide hotline, what was your experience? Mine overall has been pretty lackluster. I've used multiple and I continue to get the same generic responses such as "try out a hobby" or "try journaling" and "distract yourself". Though these solutions may work for others and I'm not discrediting them, these have not worked for me and I often don't have the motivation to even continue these activities. They go off the assumption that these feelings are just temporary when I've been dealing with them for years. I just needed to rant a little I guess, I know this isn't everyone's experience.

 

[signifying nothing]

They were useful for me when I felt I had no one else to turn to. Just having someone there on the end of the line listening is enough of a help sometimes.

 

[WornOutLife]

My experience was ridiculous. Just a follow-the-script talk and phrases like "life is precious"
If you're interested, here's the thread I posted with the full conversation:

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

 

[Tackingintothewind]

I normally get try journaling which is a joke as I have photographic memory. One person sent me to a website to create a saftey plan. Things for me to do when i start getting the urge strong. It actually helps a little. It tides me over until I no longer feel like that. But the number was extremely local, only for people in my local health board.

 

[Symbiote]

An online sex worker has more empathy and feeling than those robots at the suicide hotline center.

 

[nolongerhuman]

I felt like the individual was pretty unempathetic. Since I already had a therapist the line I got was "talk to your therapist".

what people need to understand is that for liability purposes volunteers have a script and they will be not allowed to take calls anymore if they don't follow it. I'm the kind of person who obsessively researches suicide whenever I get Big Sad so I've read the script straight from their official documents. The script goes something like this:

Ask what's wrong
Listen to you talk while using 'active listening' skills to put on the false impression of them giving a crap.
Ask leading questions to determine if you're going to ctb right now.
If you're not, recommend therapy and drop the call as quickly as possible to get to someone who is going ctb right now
If you are, distract you while they send cops. They may ask for permission but your answer is irrelevant to them.

There are some people who say the hotlines really helped them. Good for them. From my personal experience, anything you could get from a hotline you could get a better version of somewhere else. If you want a friend to talk tl you probably have actual friends (some of whom may be on this website) who will do a better job of actually listening. If you want therapy, your insurance provider likely has a list of therapists you can actually afford and this should be your first place to look. If you would like to be institutionalized and live in the US you can save yourself an expensive ambulance bill and an encounter with the cops by driving to the ER yourself.
This is my personal opinion though. Sometimes having a dispassionate stranger sit there while you talk is enough for some.

 

[GenesAndEnvironment]

The guy just kept asking me about what I was wearing and wanted to obtain my "measurements", pretty fucking creepy.

 

[I want to end it]

I've never used them. There's no point. They won't solve your issues.

People here need to understand that "help with suicide" basically means "stop someone killing themselves at all costs, while giving them very basic words of encouragement to keep them just above the threshold of taking their life". That's all it is.

People have a huge difficulty with letting someone take their life of their own free choice. They feel like they need to stop it, regardless of who you are or what your circumstances are. Because of this, the best thing to do is never let anyone in the real world know you want to ctb.

 

[demuic]

All they did was call the cops on me. I won't be doing that again.