I got deeply depressed and just wanted to die. The pain was just too much - even with controlled pain medication in a hospital setup.
I called the German crisis hotline almost every night and they were usually very very helpful. They listened - sometimes for 1-2 hours. In 90% of my calls I felt way better after calling them. They really are well trained and some of the personalities I talked to were pretty impressive and interesting… They have seen a lot…
The mechanisms protecting us from non-existence by millions of years of evolution can be eroded by pain. It's not something you realize you even have to lose until you've experienced it firsthand. I certainly never expected it, and it's hard for me to imagine what I'd intended while going through it.
I bet there is so much more we could do to reduce suicides, which are a massively big problem. I wish we paid as much attention to suicide as we do to very rare mass shootings, which kill a tiny fraction of the people.
It's also important to remember that any blocker between a potential suicide victim and the weapon of choice reduces rates greatly. A gun locked in a safe where the potential suicide knows the code - reduces rates.
the data from CDC agrees with you, and agrees that a firearm is most common method.
but also indicates age correlate with freq of suicde by firearm.
guess who the least frequent group is, kids.
now that might fly in the face of stats, but suicide is an "intentional" thing. [that rides on the idea that you are competent to form intent when suicidal]
so yes if you keep your guns secure, and gun proof your kids to mitigate accidents that should improve things, for kids.
however take at least as much care for your grandparents, they are apparently at extreme risk, of forming intent and, acting especially grandpa.
What if allowing suicide is taking care of one's grandparents? After all, if I was diagnosed with a awful condition like Alzheimer's, ALS, etc.. I am absolutely going out that way once I start having more bad days than good days.
RAND found that minimum age requirements and child-access prevention laws reduced suicides and unintentional injuries/deaths and violent crime:
* https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/child-acce...
* https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/minimum-ag...
they're both really really bad things. they both deserve as much attention as we can afford (which is more than they get).
not to just jump down your throat -- i agree with you about more needing to be done to prevent suicides though. i think it's a good thing that hotlines are available but it's clear that putting the onus on people who are considering suicide to reach out for help is not enough. we gotta get better at reaching out and checking on our friends, loved ones, coworkers etc and help them carry the load more than we're culturally accustomed to.
Mass shootings vary significantly state to state, in part —I think—due to different gun and mental health laws [1].
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/mass-shooting-rat...
* if so, my policy is that all guns be vaporized overnight. also, my policy would include the end of lobbying entirely, including but not limited to the small arms industry and the NRA along with police guilds and other organizations supporting the small arms race in this country
I am absolutely certain that is the case, however, society operates with such demands from individuals that a majority of necessary changes would be adamantly fought against by those which stand to benefit from the suffering.
Having been through the whole mental health treatment gamut in the USA, I am convinced the only goal of the system is to patch people up just enough that they can be churned back into the capitalist machine. What makes things even sicker, is that one's health insurance is often tied to their employment, so in order to receive basically any treatment, one is typically required to be employed and working.
Active shootings in the US kill like 100 people a year (as of 2024 I guess: https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/reports-and-publications...)
Suicides is more like 50,000/yr
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...
It's a sick society when you have one for nearly every single day of the year. But hey this is the result of neoliberal economics so why should we get too upset at the societal rot when corporatists are increasing shareholder value?
Choosing to end thyself IS the penultimate "my body, my choice".
We have immediate "no money, lost job, destitute" (insert temporary issue). And we have chronic, everpresent, or terminal problem.
We could fix the first one, but socially we choose not to. Either way, we should have the right of bodily autonomy.
I guess the american answer is, for a suicide help call, show up with pigs with guns, and shoot them for disorderly conduct?
But what I'm seeing is 60% of the people here in the USA are not functionally sustainable economically wise. And that is completely a fixable problem. But given how corrupted our government is, its likely not going to be fixed in the reasonable future (say, 20y).
Live in poverty, no medical, no vacation, scraping by every day on what amounts of hope? I can understand why people want out. HN people are in a massive bubble. Most of us are fine. Average folks? Nope. Rural? Nope. Inner city? Nope. Homeless? Obviously not. Underage LGBTQ people with hateful/christian families? One of the highest suicide rates.
Sure, I would absolutely rather help people through what seems to be insurmountable problems. Most of them aren't. But seriously, this country doesnt give a fuck. I'm pretty sure this country only cares about suicide at all is because it reduces lifetime tax revenue (for, primarily blowing up brown and middle eastern people).
Thankfully, 1FA is still in the USS, mostly. So sites like ://sanctionedsuicide.site, even if theyre indexed to hell and back by Google and Bing.
Id rather help people get past why they think suicide is the answer. But I also understand why someone is just tired and done.
- an ambulance will not be dispatched unless you physically witness someone trying to kill themselves
- otherwise, they send the police
- the police arrive without training and severely escalate the situation
- the person having an emergency will be taken into custody and stripped of rights until being medically evaluated (not arrested)
This is the program of an allegedly progressive state. After 2 experiences like this, adding trauma to already traumatic situations, I would never recommend these hotlines.
I have called this line in particular during a sever major depression episode. I tried calling my fraternities mental wellness hotline first but it went unanswered which I thought was quite funny at the time.
The rep was able to talk me down through my spiraling thoughts. Told me that "no your therapist was not egging you on when he said well why don't you commit suicide what's holding you back". He was instead trying to figure out my reasons for living.
They do not automatically call the police and telling people they do is harmful. My anecdotal evidence has been a much better experience, and others I know who have called have said the same.
I'm not sure what would cause them to send the police but having a safe line to call when you have nothing else is important. Maybe the change that should happen here is having social workers or other mental health representatives respond, not getting rid of the phoneline.
None of them resulted in police intervention. Our county has a mobile crisis team of social workers who show up and get you connected to services.
All the lip service they make to that force is not the answer. It's lies, cheats and deception on their part, nothing more. Once on a forced youth services vacation I locked, with an entire group, a social services worker into a room. She became instantly educated why locking the rooms was a bad idea, why not even having a lock on the inside was an incredible mistake, and why youth workers ignoring screaming in the facility was an incredibly bad idea. All these people want is to be the big man (yes, including the 19 year old women who join), and you cannot explain it to them. After she eventually got out, we never saw her again, and the others were a LOT more flexible.
And that wasn't even close to the worst that happened.
These things is what social services calls "protection". They purposefully create situations where Gandhi would eventually beat up his own mother, and call it protection. Don't do this to people.
I suspect this varies enormously from country to country, state to state, county to county, and per provider.
edit: OP changed their post substantially, and I'm now not quite sure what it's asserting at all.
These hotlines are for providing support. They are trained not to escalate to sending someone unless they absolutely deem it necessary (and the caller agrees). My wife has been working the hotline as a volunteer for 6 years and has not once escalated to sending someone.
As others noted, my California county has a dedicated team to respond to this.
People with guns are still people. Having anyone there will reduce harm in more cases than it escalates. Suicide is usually an impulse a lonely person who is otherwise perfectly sane carries out in the absence of intervention.
The cops in my country do work that is not about catching criminals, like leading search and rescure operations. Apparently not a problem. Apparently now these particular police have started carrying weapons as a matter of course. So that’s a bad development for a regular, peaceful presence. But overall we seem okay with the regime.
So I don’t have some personal feeling that violence is about to erupt because the police are nearby.
But I don’t see how this helps for those particular locales where the population (or segments of it) only associate active police involvement with escalation.
No one is questioning that police are people.
> Having anyone there will reduce harm in more cases than it escalates
That was never the point I was arguing against. I was arguing against which people are there.
> Suicide is usually an impulse a lonely person who is otherwise perfectly sane carries out in the absence of intervention.
I do not believe that in the slightest. There is an array of causes from physical illnesses, mental illnesses, spiritual beliefs, political beliefs, to even cultural beliefs. Sure, loneliness can contribute in some cases, but it does not hold a candle to conditions like mood disorders, psychotic disorders, substance abuse, etc..
Perhaps just human connection, even momentarily, is enough to break the pattern of behavior that has lead to the ideation.
Also worth noting that suicide rates among the elderly are higher than they are for anyone other than teens. If you have someone you love that doesn't get out much, make sure you give them a call now and again.
Alaskan winters are hard regardless of how many friends you have.
Being in school has a profound impact on whether or not a child wants to kill themselves.
http://basilhalperin.com/essays/school-and-teen-suicide.html
I actually don't hate school as much as an adult, but I really did view school like a prison when I was a teenager. I didn't like homework, I didn't like most of my teachers, I liked learning but due to the fact that schools have to go at a pace slow enough for the dumbest person they want to pass, I would get very bored during class, and so high school in general was existentially dreadful every day. Even when I got home, I would dread the fact that in about ~15 hours, I would have to go back to school again.
It didn't help that there was a dread with grades in general; I wasn't abused or anything, and I think my parents in general were pretty ok at parenting, but as report card season came nearer and nearer, I would get more and more depressed, because when I would inevitably get middling-to-bad grades, I would get a lecture and/or grounded by my parents. This meant no computer, no games, I wasn't allowed to hang out with my friends, and they hoped that it would force me to study more. It's not dumb logic, but it just didn't work. I would just be sad and angry and still wouldn't do the homework.
No doubt a large chunk of this was just hormonal, but I really think that the typical American school system is not a good fit for a lot of people, myself included. I don't think anyone has ever seriously called me stupid, but I would be in camp that endlessly frustrated teachers: I would do well on the tests, I would do well on the AP exams, no one disputed that I understood the course material well enough, but I just didn't care enough to do the homework so they would be forced to give me bad grades. I don't blame the teachers for this at all, they're just doing their jobs.
Despite being in AP classes and having skipped two grades in math, I was seriously considering dropping out of high school and just trying for the GED so I wouldn't have to go anymore, and I probably would have done that if I didn't think that my parents would freak out.
I didn't want to kill myself, but very few things brought me more joy in my life than knowing I wouldn't ever have to go back to high school again. I know a lot of people say that these are the best times of their lives, and power to them for that, but they were decidedly not for me.
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/trump-shuts-down-lg...
> The Trump administration on Thursday afternoon officially terminated the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ Youth Specialized Services program, which gave callers under age 25 the option to speak with LGBTQ-trained counselors.
As with the USAID cuts, this killed people.
A national hotline that can handle anyone is clearly the right way.
Now imagine you're running a massive sports team, and you have a budget for medical care. But then a government entity comes and says: regardless of outcomes, you're not allowed to hire specialists or allow your team members to elect to go to specialists, because that could be seen as unfair... regardless of whether statistics point to improved outcomes if you were allowed to have certain specialists.
Looping back to suicide hotlines: even if the administration had increased funding to the hotline to compensate for the ended specialist program (which is highly unlikely, and that this was more likely a net funding loss) - it's a similar restriction on whether a lifeline program can allocate resources to specialists. And the stakes here couldn't be higher.
(And if statistics pointed to other groups benefiting similarly from specialization, I’d want a clinician-led organization to evaluate that research and determine budget allocation towards those specialists, too.)
The data suggest otherwise [1].
Which makes sense. “For LGBTQ youth, risk factors such as bullying, abuse, negative family treatment, as well as negative emotions caused by anti-LGBTQ legislation have also been identified” [2]. If you’re in a community that’s tolerating all of that, your trust in generic institutions will be low.
> any more than Black or Asian or Indian cases
If a population is disproportionately committing suicide, they should be disproportionately resourced. “Native Americans and non-Hispanic White Americans” have “the highest suicide rate in the United States” [3].
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30109965/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_among_LGBTQ_people
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States#S...
> (a) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Congress that—
> (1) youth who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (referred to in this section as ‘‘LGBTQ’’) are more than 4 times more likely to contemplate suicide than their peers, with 1 in 5 LGBTQ youth and more than 1 in 3 transgender youth reporting attempting suicide;
> (2) American Indian and Alaska Natives have the highest rate of suicide of any racial or ethnic group in the United States with a suicide rate over 3.5 times higher than the racial or ethnic group with the lowest rate, with the suicide rate increasing, since 1999, by 139 percent for American Indian women and 71 percent for men;
> (3) between 2001 and 2015, the suicide death rate in rural counties in the United States was 17.32 per 100,000 individuals, which is significantly greater than the national average, and the data shows that between that same time period, suicide rates increased for all age groups across all counties in the United States, with the highest rates and the greatest increases being in more rural counties; and
> (4) the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration must be equipped to provide specialized resources to these and other high-risk populations.
Full text of the law is at https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/266...
Are LGBTQ people at a higher risk for suicide? Could hotline staff reduce suicide attempts with special training? Seems like you could measure this.
Thinking about other groups with a higher risk--veterans, abuse survivors, gambling addicts--are there suicide prevention programs for these groups and are they effective?
There was actually a study done on this [0] that found LGBTQ youth are around four times as likely to attempt suicide compared to their non-LGBTQ peers.
For veterans in the US, at least, there are specific programs targeting them since they do have a disproportionately high level of suicides and suicide attempts compared to the general population.
Why? The struggles different groups generally face are not the same. For a hotline for veterans, wouldn't it make sense to have counselors who are either veterans themselves or have worked extensively with veterans and their specific patterns of issues?
> A national hotline that can handle anyone is clearly the right way.
Absolutely. That describes this setup. You call the number. You get help. Sometimes that means a person trained in, say, talking to rape victims. (If you go to the ER, they'll have a nurse trained in it too!)
Per the article: "Also known as the 'Press 3 option,' the program gave 988 callers the option to 'press 3' to connect with a counselor trained to assist lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youths and young adults (they could also text 988 with the word 'PRIDE'). Nearly 1.5 million contacts were routed to the LGBTQ service since its launch, according to data available on the SAMHSA website."
Same hotline, just a phone tree option in it.
Those are physical differences. Which isn’t to say that you’re wrong, but we could easily have different things for physical differences and not for mental differences. Should we have different prisons for gays? Same logic, no?
If this were 10 years ago, this would be an understandable assumption, but today there is absolutely zero reason to reach this conclusion.
The words of our own elected representatives make it very clear why these specialists were cut: because of hatred for the LGBTQ+ community.
It puts some responsibility on those who receive such calls, because the caller may be in a state where any additional negative input could push that caller over the edge, due to their current state of mind. So this kind of requires more training even of casual people, just as people are expected to know the basic steps necessary for first aid (on a fresh accident site, for instance). It seems pretty clear that those on the national hotline, must have had professional training too. So if there is a decline of suicides, this is most likely - and logically - due to the work by those who take up the phones.
> my assumption was that suicidal thoughts originate from one's own brain and way of thinking - adjust that and these issues would go away. Unfortunately, while this can work (for me it worked extremely well, though I should also say, I don't have suicidal thoughts to begin with
You're, in this comment and the part I quoted, saying that adjusting your thinking worked well for you (with the implication that it worked well in dealing with suicidal thoughts), but you say you don't have the problem (suicidal thoughts or ideation) under discussion. This is like saying, "I've heard that you can walk it off when you break your leg, and that's worked for me, but I've never actually had a broken leg." Complete nonsense.
Nancy Reagan “just say no” comes to mind.
Where's the profit in that?
What's it going to do, help them avoid passive voice in their suicide note? Encourage them to carry it out? Hype them up about suicide? Tell them they're absolutely correct?
