Venting I Hate Suicide Prevention Textlines

[Final_Choice]

I can only speak for how suicide prevention is implemented in the US, but I would not be surprised if a lot of other places have something similar or exactly the same. There's a few reasons why I dislike suicide prevention.

The suicide prevention hotline is made up of volunteers all below a supervisor. Currently, while there are multiple such organizations in the US most are rerouted to The Crisis Textline if it is a chat/text and are either taken by 988 or The Crisis Textline if they are a call. Most volunteers fall under two categories, either previously depressed/suicidal people who want to help others or premed students wanting easy service hours and something to add to their resume.

This means that most people do not care too much about the caller/texter and just say the most basic thing that follows their training to get it over with, additionally they volunteer at times with less callers so that they can just be on queue for a caller/texter and not have to talk to anyone. Those who do care volunteer at high-risk hours (these are usually at between late evenings and very early mornings and more-so during the weekend) and sometimes are forced to answer multiple people at a time, in fact, it is encouraged in the training to assist between 2 to 4 people at once. From what I've seen, those who do care can genuinely handle this and help their texters as much as they can, though they are really only trained to handle mental crisis's.

The entire training only prepares them to handle mental crisis's in a moment of panic, which makes sense, but if that's the case I don't understand why it's considered suicide prevention. If they find out you're planning on doing it they will see if you have a plan, means to do so, and if the timeframe is within the next two days. If they feel like you are going to do it they'll just call the cops on you, which usually makes things worse overall. If someone has gone through and tried everything accessible to them and are planning on making a conscious decision to CTB and they call just to try it, the textline will flag it as a crisis if you don't comply and may call the cops on you.

Once the cops get you they put you involuntarily in a psych ward which, depending on what psych ward they put you in, they could either try to genuinely help you or treat you like a subhuman. This whole system seems predatory since they advertise themselves as willing to help you but if you don't follow what they are doing they just call the cops on you, how is that help? I just wish we had a better system in place that could actually help those who reach out and want the help instead of this.

 

[Roseate]

Thing is they can't do much about it. I started to take a course and the entire lessons were BS about not inserting personal thoughts. The only suicidal prevention anything can work is if those people relate to how we feel, give us real solutions and truly help make a change. I think the point is to keep you distracted and talking until the thought of killing yourself pass at least for the day. It's infuriating how little they help and how stupid half the lessons are. They talk about sounding neutrals and talking a specific way, not suggestive or judgy but like it just sounds robotic and cold. They don't care enough or they would find a real solutions.

 

[Final_Choice]

Thing is they can't do much about it. I started to take a course and the entire lessons were BS about not inserting personal thoughts. The only suicidal prevention anything can work is if those people relate to how we feel, give us real solutions and truly help make a change. I think the point is to keep you distracted and talking until the thought of killing yourself pass at least for the day. It's infuriating how little they help and how stupid half the lessons are. They talk about sounding neutrals and talking a specific way, not suggestive or judgy but like it just sounds robotic and cold. They don't care enough or they would find a real solutions.

You're right. I guess I'm just frustrated with how praised and funded such a system is if all the end of the day all it does is distract you, which for some people it works, especially if you're not actively planning on CTB. I feel like it doesn't even help some people who legitimately want help sometimes, but like you said, they don't care enough to find a real solution if this at least can seem like it's helping people, regardless of whether it is or isn't.

 

[LaVieEnRose]

Crisistextline is definitely mediocre overall and is full of hordes of students who want to pad their resumes, like you said. They're so desperate for volunteers that they'll lower their standards more than they should.

But even though emergency services are called, they'll at least warn texter to vouch for their "safety" before they call them.

 

[barely_afloat]

I completely agree. It's just a "resource" for people to shove down people's throats and then to pretend like they saved someone and gave them "the help they needed".

I remember my own experience where they just sent me a link to a site to "learn how to cope". It's so absurd and asanine that it's kinda funny.
I completely agree. It's just a "resource" for people to shove down people's throats and then to pretend like they saved someone and gave them "the help they needed".

I remember my own experience where they just sent me a link to a site to "learn how to cope". It's so absurd and asinine that it's kinda funny

 

[Unsure and alone]

If you get someone who cares it can help you through a hot moment.

But yeah .
So many don't give a damn about you.
They just follow the script.

And there doesn't seem to be much of anything useful for once you get past the hot moment.

They definitely don't seem to know what to do
If you specifically reach out just wanting help managing a specific symptom of emotional distress.

What good is trying to get you to come up with things to keep you safe and then saying yeah that will help you ?

If what we knew was enough right then
We wouldn't have reached out asking about other ways to ease the suffering.

 

[UKscotty]

There is not much the services can do though.

People attack medical staff way too much. We can't expect doctors or volunteers to magically fix a depressed mind with a phonecall or text message.

The blame solely lies with governments who fail to invest in suicide prevention and on pharmaceutical companies for not developing treatment methods.