U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday
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.<p>I suffer from pretty severe depression. It runs in my family and it is something I've struggled with for a number of years. 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.<p>I also think suicide hotlines have become a convenient and easy way for people to ignore and dismiss sufferers of depression in online discourse while virtue signaling that they care. Rather than offering advice, help, solace, or anything remotely human, it has become commonplace for social media users to simply paste the suicide hotline number and walk away pretending to have helped the situation when in reality they have only helped themselves.