Have you ever called a crisis hotline?

[Sucsarius]

I'm just really curious about this.

 

[Macedonian1987]

My country (north macedonia) doesn't even have a suicide hotline . If it had one I would never call it because they cannot fix what's wrong with me and what caused me to be suicidal in the first place.

Here is a fun fact about my country, Macedonia: Up until 10 to 15 years ago, the three-digit number now used by the USA's suicide hotline, 988, was used for decades here as the phone directory number. It has since been changed to 188

 

[Sucsarius]

I completely forgot to add that option, my bad. It's fixed now.

 

[NutOrat]

My country (north macedonia) doesn't even have a suicide hotline . If it had one I would never call it because they cannot fix what's wrong with me and what caused me to be suicidal in the first place.

Here is a fun fact about my country, Macedonia: Up until 10 to 15 years ago, the three-digit number now used by the USA's suicide hotline, 988, was used for decades here as the phone directory number. It has since been changed to 188

We have I think only two hotlines: one for victims of domestic abuse, the other is suicide prevention ONLY for children age 18 and below. If you're older, get fucked :)

 

[shampoo sniffer]

No, I never will.

 

[itsgone2]

12 votes in and no one has found it helpful.

 

[NoHorizon]

No, I don't think it would help me. I've had plenty of inbound "checking in" calls from MH and crisis teams but none of them have been much use.

 

[Grog]

I called the suicide hotline. I could tell the person on the other end was just reading from a script. Then they said they were going to call me back the next day and the day after that to check on me — but they never did call back. It was a complete waste of time.

 

[BrainSplatter]

on the rare time I've called no one ever answers there's always a 1 hour wait like there's only so long I can wait I'm in crisis ffs you expect me to stay on the phone?? Fuck no!! It's the stupid automated voice that gets me "your call is important to us please stay on the line" wtf is that about if that was true maybe actually answer the phone??

 

[nobodycaresaboutme]

While in my country forcible hospitalization just by calling a hotline hardly happens, I think calling hotlines will end up in a waste of time. They are nothing more than amateurs due to a lack of funding. I hate Societies aren't going to put money to the education and training for the staffs even though people tell us not to CTB. So hotlines literally cheap band-aid. It'd work for people with minor emotional damage. But we obviously have severe crises beyond that. It's only recommendable when you're desparate to talk someone even if you know it solve nothing and you hate AI chatbots.

 

[AS.star]

I did call the hotline (I'm from Poland), and I can say from my experience for anyone curious about how it looks like that the operator that picked up the call was full of empathy and their voice was warm. They listened and showed interest by asking questions, told me to seek help (like psychiatrist and psychologist) and to always call when I need to vent or an advise.
Did it help me? No + I was stressed and anxious the whole call cause of the severe social anxiety, but what I want to state is that it wasn't a bad experience - I would even say that it was warm.

 

[Hollowman]

No, that would be pointless. My problems can't be talked away.

 

[Sucsarius]

on the rare time I've called no one ever answers there's always a 1 hour wait like there's only so long I can wait I'm in crisis ffs you expect me to stay on the phone?? Fuck no!! It's the stupid automated voice that gets me "your call is important to us please stay on the line" wtf is that about if that was true maybe actually answer the phone??

I imagined the wait times would be a thing, but not to the point where no one actually answers. What a joke.

 

[Persona3]

No, that would be pointless. My problems can't be talked away.

That's why I don't see myself making the call

 

[Off_Switch]

The main goal of these hotlines is to trace the location of suicidal people for the authorities.

 

[somethingisntreal]

Hotline in my country is only available on weekdays 10am-8pm lmaoo it's like we're supposed to suck it up and die if we're suicidal on a sunday night.

I haven't called, but ik someone who has. Horrible experience. They almost never pick up. If they somehow pick up, they give you bs like "think about your parents" "you don't even have problems it's all in your head." Technically, they do prevent suicides - by ragebait.

Pro lifers LOVE to parade with their "get help" and take what they believe is the moral high ground. They just like to jerk off their egos believing they saved someones life by copy pasting a worthless string of numbers.

 

[sideways_spiral]

I've called once.
In the moment, it was helpful to have someone to talk to. My suicidal thoughts had become extremely overwhelming. Of course it didn't "solve" anything. I still felt just as depressed, just as hopeless afterwards. But in that moment, I just needed to get my thoughts out of my head, and it did help bring down the pressure of the urgent desire to ctb.

 

[dontletthembribeyou]

I don't understand suicide hotlines. If I want to kill myself why would I want someone half-heartedly trying to convince me not to

 

[TidalWaves]

I have and they hung up on me. Also not to mention, the line only works from Mon to Fri from 2 PM to 10 PM. It is a joke how my country deals with mental illnesses

 

[Jisatsu]

I've called twice and each time I do I get a welfare check and shipped off into the hospital. Don't call a help hotline unless you know that you'll have a chance of spending a week in a psych ward.

 

[Pale_Rider]

Nope. I never would. I heard they don't help anyway.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I agreed to be put in touch with one- mostly to get the police officers to leave and not take my SN during a welfare check.

Initially to be fair- the first lady I spoke to at least sounded nice and concerned. However, some of the responses I found weird. I tried to reassure her from the start- that I was fine. I didn't need their help. She responded: 'Don't you think we should talk about these intrusive suicidal thoughts you've been having?' So- straight off I thought- Why assume these thoughts are intrusive for me? Why assume suicidal people follow some textbook standard? Surely, running a helpline, they would talk to all sorts. My suicidal thoughts have been a source of comfort for a long time. Passive ideation anyway.

But, I wasn't calling for their help. Only to tick their boxes and close the case. I managed to end the call quickly. The second lady that called back though- some sort of supervisor I imagine wasn't nice at all!

'Why did I but the SN?' I mean- why do you think? I said nothing though. 'Think about what my suicide would do to my loved ones.' That's why I've been stuck here- for 35 years- thank you. Not that I said that either. I told her it wasn't a decision I'd make flippantly. She then made some comment on mental competency- which did scare me. Was she going to attempt to get me sectioned? I doubt I have much mental illness beyond possibly mild to moderate depression. Then, she said- before you take the SN, will you promise to call us? Like- really? So- if I'm sure I want to make the decision to kill myself one day- I should call a helpline that will do all in their power to stop me? Why would I do that?!! I just said I knew their number now. I would call them if I wanted their help in future.

All in all though- guilt tripping, borderline threats to consider sectioning me. It was a horrible experience! I was really scared they might ring again over the next few days. The crazy irony of the whole thing was that the police officers were so much kinder to talk to! Lol. Maybe they should have swapped job roles.

A colleague I worked with ages ago suffered with bad depression. She told me she had rung one of these lines at a really bad time. But, as soon as they'd established she had no suicide plan or access to methods, they weren't interested. I think that's pretty common by the sounds of it. Sad really. Maybe they should have lines for people who are depressed but not suicidal yet.

 

[littlecutecorpse]

called one time while i was having a bad breakdown from ssri withdrawal few years back. wasn't expecting it to do any good, and unsurprisingly did not help. a little shameful i even called in the first place since i had already known hotlines were bs beforehand

 

[SarahThrowsGin]

Once in entire lifetime and it was utter garbage. The country had no dedicated line for LGBTQ+ people active, so the transgender activist community directed us to a hotline for suicidal teenagers or something, which was also not a mobile line, and after picking it up and confirming this specialist is not trained in supporting queer people specifically I hang up. The call thus lasted less than a minute. I wasn't suicidal at the time, though, just in severe distress over legislation about to pass that would be impacting me and needed someone to talk to and I had no friends (because autistic and didn't yet know it, and met many rude queer people who thought of me as clingy, creepy or whatever, as if this wasn't a hard time for all queer people).

There were other times I was referred to hotline but didn't need it, for example, when I got kicked out of the house and had to live in motel. Queer activists I was in contact with suggested I call a hotline which was then functioning, BUT I didn't need it and was instead busy arranging to find a new apartment through a friend whom I didn't come out to yet (later I'd ex-communicate all prior friends due to no longer wanting to live a closet life, in retrospect this turned out to be a mistake, as you can infer from previous paragraph). I successfully moved to new apartment and didn't care less, from my perspective my mother was just a shit person, a monster rather than human being, and I didn't need any consolation over this fact as I've resolved situation anyway.

 

[TAW122]

Nope, I never had and never will, especially given the recent past few years of the whole 988 debacle and aggressive pushing of such numbers along with stories of even worse things happening to people who call them. Furthermore, even if things like having the cops called on the caller weren't a thing, it would still be futile and useless for people in my situation as my situation would never truly get better, but each and every day alive is just another day of copium until the day comes that copium is no longer sufficient.

 

[darksouls]

yes, once last year in december, I explained my situation, the man said he did not know what to say about it and hung up

 

[Kotochan]

I call sometimes but I don't tell them everything because I won't cooperate and I don't want the police showing up

But if I'm ever really stressed and need to talk it can be pretty nice to get to talk through some issues, mostly just to have someone hear my pain

But again, I think it only works because I'm careful with what I say, that way they are worried enough to talk but not so worried they read off a script and or call the police lol

Edit:

I'm in the US BTW

But if you do let them know too much or they start getting worried just cooperate, like for me I separated my gun and ammunition and said I would go to the clinic and they chilled out

Like Idc about making my gun harder to get to because I'm not planning on shooting myself in my house anyways, and I didn't go to the clinic

 

[inkmage333]

I live in the US. I've contacted the hotlines several times but ultimately I either got no response for hours at a time, or I got some copy-paste, scripted response where they give the same resources I've tried before but found no help or relief from.

 

[BlueberryDeer]

The problem with the suicide hotlines here is that is full of psychology students who do it as part of the mandatory internship in order to get their bachelor's degree, so we are talking about persons without the maturity to talk with more serious cases. So it doesn't matter if I call or chat to the "Life appreciation center hotline" (I swear it's called that way), it will not help in any recovery.

 

[catinthefurnace]

I've spoken to the samaritans here (uk) they were well meaning but not much help