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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

#331

Post by dionidium »

morelisp wrote: post #319
dionidium wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that something like 8% of Americans didn't have health insurance at any point last year. About 35 percent of Americans receive government-funded health insurance (Medicare or Medicaid). Our system isn't great, but it is the system we have and most people participate in it. Source: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/demo/p60-27...

> Keep in mind that something like 8% of Americans didn't have health insurance at any point last year. Again, I cannot stress enough how insane this sounds to someone from most other first-world countries.

That’s fine. 8% is a lot and it’s worth worrying about, so long as one avoids slipping, as so often happens in this discussion, into characterizing a lack of health insurance as the typical American experience. It is not that.

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

#332

Post by specialist »

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.

SWAT showed up to my house, looking for a suicidal person, who may have had a gun. Wrong address.

Fortunately, I only had to walk out into the middle of my street in my PJs. Sadly, my biggest concern was some trigger happy lunatic would kill my new dog, imaging a hyperactive doodle puppy as a vicious cop killing hellhound.

I'm still a little fuzzy on why a health check requires a paramilitary response. Wouldn't it be safer and cheaper to have some sweet little old lady with a clip board knock on my door?

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

#333

Post by morelisp »

dionidium wrote: post #331
morelisp wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keep in mind that something like 8% of Americans didn't have health insurance at any point last year. Again, I cannot stress enough how insane this sounds to someone from most other first-world countries.

That’s fine. 8% is a lot and it’s worth worrying about, so long as one avoids slipping, as so often happens in this discussion, into characterizing a lack of health insurance as the typical American experience. It is not that.

The statistics you're citing aren't as strong as your claim ("not typical"). 8% of Americans have no insurance at all, ever, the entire year. But it's common for the working class and even much of the middle class to have a significant period lacking insurance during the course of their lives.

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

#334

Post by throwntoday »

swores wrote: post #312
throwntoday wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with a loving community, there are those that just want to check out. Often they have trauma that is insurmountable. I am totally against suicide, but I thank God I'm not in a position today where it feels like my best choice. I've been on that ledge, but what it would do to my family, and fear of divine retribution kept me here long enough to realize my problems had solutions. Religion does have its merits, nam…

Are you missing a 'not' or are you indeed "totally against [all] suicide"? The 'but' immediately after makes it seem likely. I'm glad it helped you turn around how you felt and come back from the metaphorical ledge. But can you be sure that there are more people for whom religions helped persuade them to find solutions rather than commit suicide, than people who never found release from their suffering and ensured ma…

No I am totally against it. I was qualifying the statement because I couldn't speak to the mindset of someone trapped in that downward spiral.

Religion has had effects in either direction, I wouldn't make any definitive claim on its overall impact. I just think it has a place.

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

#335

Post by parineum »

ezrast wrote: post #297
bombcar wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the case, and if it were as common as described, there would be many many examples available. The cops are likely not even to roll out for "someone getting high" unless they're really bored or something else is happening.

Tens of thousands of people in the USA are currently incarcerated for possession.

And if you become a cop, you can choose not to arrest those people.

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

#336

Post by toast0 »

dangrossman wrote: post #90
vorpalhex wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your view of 911 is incorrect. You should attend a safety briefing from your responders (or if in a smaller region, call their office number). To loosely rephrase: "911 is if you need assistance now. Non-emergency is for the paperwork the next day."

There is no global rule about when 911 vs a non-emergency number is correct. I've lived in a city where 911 is the only way to reach police dispatch, and police dispatch is the only way to get a police report taken, even if it's just for insurance reasons the day after a fire or something. I learned this by calling the city's non-emergency line, and they told me to call 911. What's the non-emergency line for then? St…

> I've lived in a city where 911 is the only way to reach police dispatch

My current city is like this, but more. If you need to reach a detective to return a call, you need to call 911 and ask to be transferred. Otoh, CenturyLink has broken 911 service for days a couple times since I moved here; an alternate number for the county has been provided, which will probably work for emergencies, but maybe not for returning calls.

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

#337

Post by TexanFeller »

zahma wrote: post #330
TexanFeller wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My views are based on personal experience, so they may be biased, but they’re not ignorant. Years ago I was at the height of a decade of misery and spent months convincing myself that God and hell did not exist so that I would have the option of killing myself. I then spent months when I would decide every day whether I wanted to keep living. My life is top 1% awesome now, but if I had to go back knowing what I know…

I respect your position on autonomy and letting people control their bodies. However, I am not sure if I personally am prepared to take it to this extreme. It's not how I was raised, and something is deeply unsettling to me to be a part of such a destructive action. I need to think on it some more. No counselor on CTL will say it's wrong to end his/her life. That's because one of the core values is to treat each pers…

Thank you for the thoughtful reply, I see what you’re aiming for is admirable and something a lot of thought was put into. I think where you might be kidding yourselves is on the passing judgment aspect. You may not verbally express judgment, but what is calling the police without someone’s consent other than passing judgment on what they’re doing?

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

#338

Post by yellowapple »

Doyce wrote: post #311
yellowapple wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> healthcare reform, gun control, education reform and labor reform One of these things is not like the others. There's no need for gun control once a society has implemented the other three; violence and suidice (with or without access to firearms) is a direct function of socioeconomic inequality - and I'm uncomfortable (to say the least) with disarming the very working class most impacted by said socioeconomic ineq…

I'm not sure how you got it that violence and suicide is all because of socioeconomic inequality. Suicide is a direct function of depressive issues and circumstances that peaks on you at the same time you get that one too many "it's gonna be a bad day" piece of news. I'm a suicide survivor (I say survivor because I didn't attempt anything. I succeeded.) whose only alive because my bulldog lead my youngest brother to…

> I'm not sure how you got it that violence and suicide is all because of socioeconomic inequality.

Because people generally don't kill themselves or others for shits and giggles.

> Suicide is a direct function of depressive issues

Which largely go unnoticed, undiagnosed, and untreated until it's too late, in no small part due to the absolute shitshow that is mental healthcare access here in the US.

> and circumstances that peaks on you at the same time you get that one too many "it's gonna be a bad day" piece of news.

For large swaths of the American population, those pieces of bad news skew heavily toward socioeconomic circumstances. Job loss, debt (incl. medical debt), homelessness, being convicted of crimes because you couldn't afford any better than an already-far-overworked public defender... the list goes on. Even for the things outside that list, they become a lot easier to bear when you can actually afford some degree of treatment.

> giving someone with depression all kinds government reform will do exactly nothing to cure that depression

It will do everything to solve it in the vast majority of cases, and in the remainder of cases will at least prevent "I can't afford it" from being an excuse to get help.

> If you made everyone a millionaire today, there'd still be violence crime

There would be a hell of a lot less of it.

> The best way to cure a lot of the violence is for people to leave each other alone and show some decency to each other.

Which is a lot easier to do when you don't have to resort to crime for basic survival.

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

#339

Post by yellowapple »

nicoburns wrote: post #327
yellowapple wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does that imply you'd support an armed insurrection? That seems pretty extreme! It implies that I support the right to self defense - including against an oppressive regime and the enforcers thereof. Specifically, it implies that I support the exercise of that right among the class of people typically excluded from it. Violence is the last resort, but it is a resort nonetheless. "Under no pretext should arms and am…

> when seconds count, the police are an hour away I can potentially see this in rural areas. Not so much in urban areas, where the police are much nearer and it seems that the guns are the main conveyer of harm. I don't think you can ignore that they are also used in offence, not just defence. I live in the UK and I don't need a gun to defend myself, because any attacker is extremely unlikely to have one either (beca…

> Not so much in urban areas

Unless you have a cop on every street corner (and even then), you wouldn't have enough coverage for cop intervention to be something upon which you can rely for your own safety. At best, they might catch your assailant after you're already dead.

> I live in the UK and I don't need a gun to defend myself, because any attacker is extremely unlikely to have one either

You're ignoring the vast differences in available socioeconomic safety nets between the US and the UK. The UK's still pretty shitty on those metrics (which is why there's no shortage of violent crime), but it's certainly better than here in the US.

> I guess my question is: what are you scared of?

I'm scared of my government deciding that it's time to round up everyone of $ETHNICITY or $RELIGION or $IDEOLOGY or $SEXUALITY or what have you and send them off to internment camps. I'm scared of white supremacists deciding it's time to bring lynch mobs back into fashion. I'm scared of the ownership class using the state to coerce (with increasing severity) the working class into continuing to work despite continuing to get the increasingly short end of the stick. I'm scared of theocrats deciding that "separation of church and state" is no longer necessary and therefore empowering themselves to impose their own religion (or more precisely: a very twisted and corrupted version of it) on every other American. I'm scared of GSRMs losing the rights we had just so recently won.

> isn't it much better to just let the robbery take place (and then claim on insurance)

It would be much better to deter the robbery in the first place. It would be much better than that to give people a safety net such that they don't have to resort to robbery in the first place.

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

#340

Post by dionidium »

morelisp wrote: post #333
dionidium wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s fine. 8% is a lot and it’s worth worrying about, so long as one avoids slipping, as so often happens in this discussion, into characterizing a lack of health insurance as the typical American experience. It is not that.

The statistics you're citing aren't as strong as your claim ("not typical"). 8% of Americans have no insurance at all, ever, the entire year. But it's common for the working class and even much of the middle class to have a significant period lacking insurance during the course of their lives.

Yes, you're right, but I'd push back again by noting that those people will either find work and regain insurance or they'll ultimately be approved for Medicaid, if it comes to that. I was one such person. I was uninsured in 2003 when I was in a serious car accident and hospitalized for 18 days. What happened is that I was immediately approved for Medicaid and most of my bills -- totaling in the hundreds of thousands -- were covered.
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