Anyone ever talk to a suicide hotline? Do they help? Be honest.?

Question

Anyone ever talk to a suicide hotline? Do they help? Be honest.?

Answer 1

I talked to one in the past, and to be honest they were no help whatsoever. They tried to keep the topic to whether i would off myself or not (understandable, given their job)...convo kept roughly to this:

Me: "I am depressed, because....."

Hotline: "Do you feel suicidal?"

Me: "Well sometimes i get thoughts because...." (hoping to get some feedback for the cause)

Hotline: "Do you have a plan to harm yourself?"

Me: "Could you please just give me some feedback on [...] because i have no one to talk to and am feeling desperate"

Hotline: "Well, that is something you will need to bring up with your therapist. Do you have a therapist?"

And on and on....it was the most frustrating, unproductive conversation i've ever had in my life.....though what else could they do lol

Answer 2

i havent i think it would you can call someone and tell them what bugs you and you know they wont judge you wont tell someone else and you can say anything you want. i think if you think about suicide you should call give it a try its not like you have anything to loose

Answer 3

I have ... because of someone else I was worried about.

Yes, the person on the phone was very helpful.  She knew exactly what to ask ... she wanted to (at first) make sure it wasn't ME who was in danger.

She asked some very to-the-point questions.  Believe me, the people who staff those hotlines can get to the essence of a problem in about 2 minutes.

If you think you should call, then you probably should.  The people there are trained to help you.

Sometimes it's very hard to think clearly, and you might need another person's point of view.  If you think you're in that situation, please DO call ... they can help you.

Answer 4

I directed a suicide/mental health/child abuse hot line for a number of years. 24 hours, never closed. Staffed by highly trained people and graduate social workers.

Having a suicide/mental health/crisis hot-line is required for a mental health center to receive federal mental health funding, so there is such a hot-line available to everyone in the USA.

And yes, we helped thousands of people who called about taking their own lives, hurting themselves or others, etc. Our hot line was staffed with very well-trained phone counselors.

For the most part, those who called about suicide really wanted to talk to someone about how unhappy they were, the problems they were having, some crisis going on in their life at the time, etc.

So yes...they help...honest!

-- Dr. Bob

Answer 5

well of course someone has been there. i havent tho, not planning to and wont go wat so ever.  

Answer 6

I've never chatted with them, but everyone else who I know that has said they do not help at all, they actually make them feel worse and more annoyed.

It's some stranger on the other line trying to talk to you about things you don't want to talk about and trying to convince you that you're wrong for wanting to die.  It's pretty lame because you know they don't know you from Adam and the person rarely feels like the strange voice cares or even understands.

However, I suppose it may be a different experience if the person who is calling is actually just seeking out someone to talk to about it and wants to talk with them.  Most of the people I know that talked to the hotline were kinda forced into it.