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U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

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Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#131

Post by [deleted] »

vorpalhex wrote: post #49
fuckcensorship wrote: post #42

Suicide hotlines, on the surface, seem like a good thing. Having a phone number someone can call 24/7 to talk to someone who is trained in helping someone undergoing a mental health crisis seems like an effective way to reduce suicides and benefit mental health overall. However, I think they have the opposite effect in practice. I suffer from pretty severe depression. It runs in my family and it is something I've str…

A lot of suicide attempts describe wanting to be talked out of their attempt. They want someone to help stop them. I've been on the receiving end of a call from someone who wanted to be talked down. I think having a universal number to call if you don't have anyone else is valuable. Will it stop all suicides? No. Will it help reduce suicides in people who are considering but not yet decided? Yes.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#132

Post by tomtheelder »

wyager wrote: post #99
vorpalhex wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Violent crime until recently has been generally steadily dropping since the 70s.

Attributable to rapidly increasing police expenditures. The "baseline" level of crime in the counterfactual scenario where police expenditure had stayed constant is almost certainly increasing.

I don't think anything about what you just said can be assumed to be true. I am not convinced that increased police expenditure has a significant impact on violent crime, and even if it does I don't think it's reasonable at all to assume that violent crime rates would have increased without them.

I suspect that decreasing violent crime rates are caused by a constellation of forces (increased education, aging population, decreased alcohol consumption, more out there stuff like decreased childhood lead exposure, etc.).

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#133

Post by wolverine876 »

fuckcensorship wrote: post #42

Suicide hotlines, on the surface, seem like a good thing. Having a phone number someone can call 24/7 to talk to someone who is trained in helping someone undergoing a mental health crisis seems like an effective way to reduce suicides and benefit mental health overall. However, I think they have the opposite effect in practice. I suffer from pretty severe depression. It runs in my family and it is something I've str…

Usually the top comment in a HN discussion is a takedown of the OP, but I didn't expect that for a suicide prevention hotline!

I'm sorry about your problems and your experiences. While the hotline may not suit you, millions of others do call and find help. Also, imagine a world without one - where a person has nowhere to turn.

> it has become commonplace for social media users to simply paste the suicide hotline number and walk away

That sounds awful; where do you see it? Fortunately, I haven't seen it on HN.

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#134

Post by rascul »

adrianmonk wrote: post #126
kelseyfrog wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for pointing that out. Is it that my idea of when to call is too narrow? I am having a hard time understanding the difference between what I listed and official resources[1] which say things like > 911 is to be used for emergencies only. An emergency is any serious medical problem (chest pain, seizure, bleeding), any type of fire (business, car, building), any life-threatening situation (fights, person with…

This won't solve 100% of cases, but when in doubt (and if life or limb aren't at risk), can't you call 311 and let them tell you, if necessary, to hang up and dial 911 instead?

This is the first time I can recall hearing of 311. Apparently there's a wiki page on it. Looks like it might not be available everywhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-1-1

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#135

Post by PragmaticPulp »

cmg wrote: post #30
Waterluvian wrote: post #21

Policing is in such a horrible state in America that an emergency number that excludes police involvement seems increasingly necessary. I wonder if you can get paramedics through this route or if it just rings and you eventually get a counsellor.

I have experience in this field: I ran technology for one of the only hotlines in the US that didn't engage in non-consensual active rescue [0] [1]. I've written about this a little on this site in the past, when Crisis Text Line was caught sharing data. Many, if not most, of these places give the operator full access to your phone number and whatever geolocation data they can get based on that. They also have polici…

> There's also a relatively common experience I've heard where people who aren't actively suicidal call these lines, and the operator (I won't say counselor) is completely dismissive: "if you're not going to hurt yourself, what do you want me to do?"

That would get you dismissed from any reasonably-run suicide hotline program ASAP.

I have a friend who volunteers for a suicide hotline program here in the US. He says it's actually well run and they keep close tabs on the volunteers. Everyone who volunteers is doing it because they care. It wouldn't make sense for someone to volunteer for such a program just to be dismissive and rude to people who call in. However, I could see this happening at poorly-managed programs that use low-paid employees without proper training and supervision.

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#136

Post by wolverine876 »

mathogre wrote: post #74
cpill wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

fuckcensorship: "During depressive episodes, I have no interest in connecting with other people. This includes friends, therapists, family, etc. So the idea that I would ever pick up the phone and call a suicide hotline to talk to someone on the phone about my depression is borderline laughable." cpill: "yeah, but clearly you haven't committed suicide yet, so maybe you don't really know what is like to _really_ want…

The GP is just awful. I hope the author reconsiders that comment and removes it.

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#137

Post by wolverine876 »

TexanFeller wrote: post #80

I’ve heard people advise not to call such hotlines because their intervention is not limited to just talking to you. It’s said they often cal the police who stop you by force and often make your life even worse than it was.

We're spreading FUD about even a suicide prevention hotline? This is going way too far. Someone who needs help might not get it.

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#138

Post by least »

myself248 wrote: post #109
TexanFeller wrote: post #80

I’ve heard people advise not to call such hotlines because their intervention is not limited to just talking to you. It’s said they often cal the police who stop you by force and often make your life even worse than it was.

Yup. A friend related a similar story to me. Having some counselors stop by or something, might be cool, but the police are basically the opposite of that, at least today, at least in most places. I can't imagine a worse sequence of events to kick off.

By most accounts, the sequence of committing suicide has much worse outcomes for the individual than forceful intervention by police.

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#139

Post by yomkippur »

newaccount2021 wrote: post #41
prvit wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does this get downvoted? There are many similar numbers operated by orgs that won’t call the cops on you.

in addition to the red-flagging that will follow you around perhaps for the rest of your life

No post body was provided.

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#140

Post by wolverine876 »

freeflight wrote: post #116
vorpalhex wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case anyone was wondering, most SWAT teams do 8-16 callouts a year. Major metropolitan teams might see 50ish on a busy year. The vast majority of these are hostage situations, but bomb situations and active shooters land in there too. https://www.ksl.com/article/46295693/when-swat-teams-are-use...

> most SWAT teams do 8-16 callouts a year Which might not seem like a lot, but this scales up quickly considering there are more than 17,000 swat units in the US [0]. If we average the callouts to 12 per yer, per units, that's still 204.000 callouts per year on a nation-wide scale. A number that does not seem too unrealistic judging from past data I could find [1]. [0] https://www.theiacp.org/resources/document/natio…

But it demonstrates that SWAT teams are not being sent to people at risk of suicide.
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