[HN Gopher] U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline b...
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U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday
Author : fortran77
Score : 143 points
Date : 2022-07-16 18:13 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hhs.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hhs.gov)
| DigiDigiorno wrote:
| I'm not sure how these lines work. I wonder how they balance
| public safety against the disincentive of involuntary commitment
| and the stigmas attached to it. I imagine if you feel there is a
| risk you will have your rights taken away (including the ability
| to end your life), you are less likely to seek help.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| For suicidal crisis we have the Samaritans in the UK. But also
| Citizens Advice, Childline etc. We also have a dizzying array
| of non-emergency agencies, British Transport Police, PortWatch,
| RNLI, and so on.... Each is staffed by specialists with
| training in their own area.
|
| Many (most?) are anonymous and won't ask for your name, but can
| obviously trace a cellular phone in an emergency unless you
| take active steps to avoid that.
|
| Whether they are 'joined up' is a good question. Do they know
| of each other's services and are they able to patch a caller
| through to another specialist, quickly and at no cost? Much may
| depend on the operator you get. People are people, and some are
| less well trained, perceptive, or able to act on initiative.
|
| Most organisations are also funded by charity/donations and get
| less public money with each government. In the UK We've had to
| adapt to a patchwork of independent services because central
| government has been making cuts since the Thatcher era. For
| example, the last government shut down most of the coast-guard
| stations, and a week later a crew of fishermen drowned within a
| stones throw of a closed lookout station. That caused a scandal
| that led to a new organisation (CoastWatch) staffed by
| volunteer civilians and funded by private donations. The people
| literally took over the abandoned stations and started
| operating them on a grass-roots basis.
| tadfisher wrote:
| Sure, but you have to weigh this option with the alternative,
| which is no option. Is it worth $0.5 billion to add a
| convenient number? Debatable. Will some people use it, and in
| turn prevent death and injury? Absolutely.
| fassssst wrote:
| More info here:
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/07/15/1111316...
| charcircuit wrote:
| >I imagine if you feel there is a risk you will have your
| rights taken away
|
| If this is possible imagine if people "swatted" you with this
| to get you locked up somewhere.
| DigiDigiorno wrote:
| I would guess it is not only possible, but one of the
| intentions behind it. A percent breakdown of calls to
| involuntary commitments would be useful. I found something
| about a Florida Department of Family & Children suicide line
| having a 19% rate of involuntary commitment after a follow-
| up. (https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-
| care/article26351131...)
|
| It is scary to think about, but I think both swatting and
| this would be solved by authorities looking at the scene
| without blindly taking irreversible action. (In Florida, once
| the Baker Act involuntary commitment begins, it is required
| to continue for a couple days. Police examine the suspect
| before formally doing it, because it is a pretty big deal.)
|
| That is not to say I agree (or disagree) with these calls
| being used for involuntary commitment, I just think the
| swatting problem is the symptom of an unrelated issue.
| fuckcensorship wrote:
| 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 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.
|
| 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.
| watwut wrote:
| > 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 a
|
| Average person has no idea what to say or how to help you.
| Their impulse will be clumsily say something contraproductive
| and not having any idea they blamed you or whatever.
| godelski wrote:
| As someone else who has battled depression most of my life I
| have to make it clear that depression is a broad diagnosis.
| Robert Sapolsky discusses this in depth and why this makes it
| such a difficult disease to treat[0]. Hotlines will help some
| people but not for others. Diet and exercise helps some but not
| others. Medication helps some but not others. There is no
| singular solution to depression and framing it that way is one
| of the worst things we can do. We shouldn't be teaching people
| that depression looks a certain way because it doesn't. It's
| why people were surprised by Robin Williams and Anthony
| Bourdain, despite all the signs being there.
|
| Also, we should also be clear that you are talking about toxic
| behavior. You isolating yourself when depressed probably isn't
| the best move.
|
| But I do agree with you about how people react on social media.
| But I think this is because of the issues above. We discuss
| depression like it is sadness. So the average person feels
| empathy at their neighbor struggling but don't know how to
| help. But I'm not convinced this is criticism for the hotlines,
| but this should be criticism at how we talk about depression.
|
| So let me talk about depression. For me it can be like a filter
| is over the world. Everything is just more dull (Anhedonia). It
| can be difficult to start doing anything, including getting out
| of bed or things I like (Psychomotor retardation). It's not
| sadness. It can be a loss of appetite. It can be getting angry
| and frustrated over things I know don't matter. My friend don't
| notice unless I tell them. I tend to isolate myself too, but
| this isn't helpful to my mental health.
|
| If your friends suffer from depression be there. Listen to
| them. Maybe don't let them isolate themselves if this isn't
| helpful to them. But it's hard to give good advice because
| depression is personal and what helps a specific person is also
| frequently personal. Still, I think hotlines can help. They
| don't have to help everyone, just some.
|
| [0] https://www.robertsapolskyrocks.com/depression.html
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > Also, we should also be clear that you are talking about
| toxic behavior. You isolating yourself when depressed
| probably isn't the best move.
|
| "Well", said the rich person to the beggar, "being poor
| really isn't the best move."
| vorpalhex wrote:
| 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.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Will it help reduce suicides in people who are considering
| but not yet decided? Yes.
|
| Is this a made-up statistic? Do we have any good studies that
| show that a suicide hotline that could loop in emergency
| services, possibly get you involuntarily committed, and
| possibly be something that employers and insurers could find
| out the for the rest of your life reduces mortality, or is
| that just the kind "common sense" that's so obvious that we
| don't have to do science?
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Yes these studies exist and will come up if you search:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17579545/
|
| If you might kill yourself, involuntary commitment might be
| the right course of action.
|
| Typically these things can't be communicated to employers
| or insurers unless you generate a criminal complaint - eg
| you decide your method of suicide is going to involve
| victims.
|
| Yes people who attempt suicide probably have shorter
| lifespans. I'll leave it to you to puzzle that one yet.
| [deleted]
| coding123 wrote:
| What would be more useful for people to do?
|
| I've noticed this about society too. We often employ the
| "easiest" solution to some major problem. Look at homelessness,
| theft, drugs, mass murders. None of the solutions work. (All of
| the problems are seemingly ALWAYS on the rise - not fall)
|
| I've been wonder if the actual root of the problem is everyone
| becoming an island. Communal interaction has been replaced with
| online interaction (social media).
| confidantlake wrote:
| They don't seem always on the rise to me.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Violent crime until recently has been generally steadily
| dropping since the 70s.
| wyager wrote:
| 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.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| 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.).
| stop50 wrote:
| From what i could see from europe from the news: mental
| illness: call the police mass shooting: thoughts and prayer
| black person lives: kill him
| metadat wrote:
| Is it better to receive the suggestion to call the help line
| phone number than no reply at all?
| awsrocks wrote:
| cpill wrote:
| mathogre wrote:
| 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
| to kill yourself? I knew someone who did do it and they did
| want to connect every time they tried, even the last one."
|
| cpill, it's good your friend wanted to connect on every
| attempt they made. Not all people are like that.
| Additionally, saying that a person who doesn't actually kill
| themself doesn't know what it is like to want to kill
| themself suggests a lack of knowledge on your part. There are
| people who cry out for help; there are also people who simply
| exit.
|
| fuckcensorship, I grok.
| jayd16 wrote:
| One offered a clear example where a service would help,
| while the other extrapolated their own situation to all
| situations.
|
| I don't grok the argument that this service shouldn't exist
| because it can't help everyone.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| The GP is just awful. I hope the author reconsiders that
| comment and removes it.
| lozenge wrote:
| You would never use it, therefore nobody would use it and it's
| useless?
| marcinzm wrote:
| The 2+ million calls per year to the US suicide prevention
| hotline would disagree with you.
| mgdlbp wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/09/us/where-
| the-... (https://archive.ph/rwD7G)
|
| "The site now draws six million page views a month, on
| average -- quadruple that of the National Suicide Prevention
| Lifeline, according to data from Similarweb, a web analytics
| company."
| danachow wrote:
| dang wrote:
| " _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation
| of what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| bowsamic wrote:
| themitigating wrote:
| His initial post is disregards others based his own
| personal experience.
| dang wrote:
| " _Don 't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them
| instead._"
|
| " _Please don 't sneer, including at the rest of the
| community._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| bowsamic wrote:
| Okay, I'll flag it, thanks dang
| metadat wrote:
| Grandparent post is insensitive to others who experience
| depression differently than they do.
|
| GP deserves empathy, of course. At the same time, the
| judgement in their post is quite harsh and negative.
| Fargoan wrote:
| It's not callous at all. Why would anyone expect random
| social media users to do more than post the number? If I
| was the type of person to try and talk people out of
| suicide I wouldn't be doing it on social media, it'd be
| volunteering for that hotline. Obviously the number works
| for many people.
| DigiDigiorno wrote:
| Let me help you with brevity, as it relates to his specific
| points:
|
| "I disagree"
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Suicide is something that just claims a lot of lives. The
| tragic thing is that often these people are not beyond help and
| just get caught up in a desperate moment. So, I can see the
| value of a phone number that is there. Of course suggesting
| that as a solution to somebody that is suicidal is not always
| going to produce the desired outcome. But it's not like that
| that is going to push them over the edge either. And I imagine
| there are people that do call and live. The math is probably in
| favor of that number being there for those who need it.
|
| Of course some people really are determined to end their lives
| but for many this is just a desperate way to solve a seemingly
| desperate situation that objectively isn't actually that
| desperate. People with mental health issues often have trouble
| doing rational things and sometimes just calming them down gets
| them to a stage where they are at least open to being helped.
| That's hard work but it saves lives. Usually that help comes
| initially in the form of extremely heavy sedatives. That
| doesn't solve any of the underlying issues but it does get them
| in a state where they are at least able to be somewhat rational
| again.
|
| I have some relatives and friends with mental health issues
| that went through such a thing. I also remember talking to them
| while they were in the middle of that. It's just horrible to
| witness somebody going through such a thing and realize that
| they are scared of what they might do to themselves and that
| there is literally nothing you can say or do that changes that.
| I'm glad they are still there and managed to find a way past
| that and back to leading a happy life. But of course not
| everybody is lucky enough to hear what they need to hear or get
| the care they need when they need it most.
|
| A common pattern with people that are difficult to help is that
| they reject the whole notion that they need it to begin with.
| Telling such people that they need help is not an easy message
| and it can easily result in people getting upset and angry. But
| not telling them is not an option either. A phone number is not
| a solution to anyone's problems. But somebody will answer that
| call regardless and it might save a life once in a while. The
| absolute worst case is that it doesn't, which I'm sure happens
| as well.
| WalterSear wrote:
| I've been similarly confused, but I believe that the majority
| of suicides are impulsive, and driven by distress rather than
| depression, and those are the people these services are
| intended to support.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I know people who have been helped and perhaps saved by
| suicide hotlines.
|
| A phone call isn't the only tool for help, but it is an
| important one.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| I don't know how the service is used in practice, but maybe a
| lot of people are calling on behalf of someone else?
| wolverine876 wrote:
| 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.
| cj wrote:
| Interesting side effect of this: In my local phone number area
| code, it's no longer possible to dial local numbers without the
| area code. That means all outgoing calls require an area code,
| whereas normally you can dial local numbers without an area code.
|
| In addition, we must also dial "1" before the area code when
| placing outgoing calls to certain neighboring area codes.
|
| It's unclear exactly why - I imagine it has to do with some
| numbers conflicting with the "988" number in some way.
| khuey wrote:
| Area codes that were not already using ten digit dialing and
| where the central office code 988 was already in use (i.e.
| there exist phone numbers in the area code of the form
| 988-NNNN) were required to switch to ten digit dialing for this
| (or renumber the 988-NNNN numbers, which is what area code 701
| in North Dakota did).
| WebbWeaver wrote:
| Maybe we should rebrand it as a mental health hotline and
| directory. Most people dont know what resources for this actually
| exist and what they do. Mental health remediation does not have a
| good track record everywhere.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Honestly a big part of the problem is resources don't exist in
| a timely manner. I'm currently waiting for a neuropsych
| followup for a minor concussion which had to be scheduled six
| months out.
|
| I've had a friend in the middle of a manic episode unable to
| get care with their existing provider for weeks.
|
| The state of mental health service availability is ridiculous.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| Finally. This is excellent. Offloading mental health issues from
| the police is critical to reforming our country.
|
| For some of the doubters on this initiative, NPR had a good
| discussion:
|
| https://www.npr.org/2022/07/16/1111868486/calling-988-in-the...
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Hope to see much more of this unbundling in the future.
| TexanFeller wrote:
| 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.
| tyingq wrote:
| Some of that is on the FAQ page: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-
| help/988/faqs
|
| _Will 988 calls be referred to 911?
|
| Currently, a small percentage of Lifeline calls require
| activation of the 911 system when there is imminent risk to
| someone's life that cannot be reduced during the Lifeline call.
| In these cases, the crisis counselor shares information with
| 911 that is crucial to saving the caller's life._
|
| So it does sound like that can happen. Though I don't know what
| else they could reasonably do if it sounds like the caller is
| imminently going to do serious self-harm.
| colechristensen wrote:
| This is likewise true of any human interaction. It's not like
| they're going to promise to never refer a situation to
| emergency services.
| Sam_Odio wrote:
| This is an special problem for the uninsured that struggle with
| mental health.
|
| A close friend struggled with bipolar. She was uninsured and
| making close to minimum wage...calls to suicide prevention
| hotlines resulted in thousands of dollars in new bills from ER
| visits and even involuntary psychiatric care.
|
| She was struggling to pay rent. Being discharged in effectively
| the same condition as before but with new debt she wouldn't be
| able to pay off for years...the medical bills for involuntary
| psychiatric care were their own special sort of crazy.
|
| See
| https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.2...
| myself248 wrote:
| 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.
| colechristensen wrote:
| You don't hear about the police interventions that go well.
| least wrote:
| By most accounts, the sequence of committing suicide has much
| worse outcomes for the individual than forceful intervention
| by police.
| autoexec wrote:
| I also wonder what the impacts of having "Placed calls to the
| suicide hotline" in your permanent record will be on people's
| lives if they do choose not to take it.
|
| With the state collecting that data, your phone company
| collecting that data, your cell phone OS collecting that data,
| random apps collecting that data, and who knows who is on the
| other end of that call and what they're doing with your data.
|
| Will you be turned down for jobs because when a company has a
| choice between two equal job candidates and one of them has
| shown suicidal tendencies at any point why should they risk
| that their employee will kill himself and lose money on re-
| hiring/re-training?
|
| Will your health insurance company buy that data? Your life
| insurance company?
|
| Could you lose your right to own a firearm?
|
| Can it cost you custody of your children?
|
| Will it end up leaked or "lost" on a USB drive and find itself
| on the internet?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Practically speaking, none of these things will happen.
|
| This is actually one of the big hurdles to getting some
| people into therapy/treatment/medication that they need: They
| imagine a lot of catastrophic scenarios about what _could
| possibly_ happen if they get the help they need, which
| creates a gridlock that traps them in their situation.
|
| From a pure risk management perspective, the highest risk _by
| far_ in these scenarios is failing to accept help that could
| improve the underlying problems. If someone reaches the point
| of considering suicide, it doesn 't make sense to refuse help
| due to hypothetical fears about some future job obtaining
| phone records and declining someone for a job (which isn't a
| thing that happens, BTW).
|
| Don't let fear of far-reaching hypotheticals get in the way
| of making progress on mental health.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Practically speaking, none of these things will happen.
|
| Practically speaking, these kinds of things are happening
| every day. I would agree that it might be better to take
| the help and live accepting the lifelong consequences of
| your actions in seeking that help. A life where you lose
| your children, lose job offers, or have your deepest
| troubles exposed to the world might easily still be a life
| worth living.
|
| The reality is that we've created and enabled a system that
| hurts people. Our communications are logged forever and we
| have no power to limit the ways that data can be used
| against us. It's only natural for people to take that into
| account before doing something that makes them so very
| vulnerable.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| What "far reaching hypotheticals"?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32122139
|
| I've heard over and over horror stories along those lines.
| Someone having a mental health crisis calls emergency
| services for help (and absolute best case scenario they get
| a very expensive taxi ride to the ER) or goes to the ER
| themselves. The ER pumps them full of drugs or just locks
| them in what amounts to a prison, does nothing to treat
| people or connect them with services but charge tens of
| thousands of dollars, leaving people in the same spot they
| were in before but with mountains of medical debt.
|
| Or, someone is honest with their therapist, the therapist
| prioritizes not getting hit with a malpractice lawsuit so
| they report their patient to the police, and...see above,
| except worse, because the patient isn't expecting it nor
| did they consent to such a sudden and drastic intervention.
| kanbara wrote:
| if you are suicidal or have mental health issues you
| absolutely should not be able to go out and buy a gun until a
| mental evaluation takes place.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > It's said they often cal the police who stop you by force and
| often make your life even worse than it was.
|
| I asked a friend who volunteers for one of these hotlines. He
| says it's actually rare and the guidelines are more about
| people are in imminent danger to themselves or others (e.g.
| threatening suicide by a method that would endanger other
| people in the process, or worse, implying threats of hurting
| other people or inducing suicide by cop).
|
| Definitely not the common or standard outcome, though.
| takenpilot wrote:
| This is true, actually. A good friend of mine disappeared for a
| while because of this. The story he told me about the
| experience afterward was wild.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| We're spreading FUD about even a suicide prevention hotline?
| This is going way too far. Someone who needs help might not get
| it.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| Just in time for the crypto crash.
|
| I kid. I kid.
| [deleted]
| bigbillheck wrote:
| "988" is a perfectly valid 7 digit prefix. Turns out they're
| dealing with that fact by making 10 digit dialing mandatory in
| area codes that have it.
| Sirened wrote:
| Area-codeless dialing has been dead in many places for ages. My
| city has had multiple area codes since at least 2000 and so
| everyone has been providing area codes for well over two
| decades now. Especially too now that we have people keeping the
| same phone number for decades (hell, for life even) regardless
| of where they eventually move, trying to support this feature
| is a losing cause since many people would be forced to figure
| out the unstated area code in order to dial.
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| Requiring 10 digit dialing was implemented in the affected
| areas 9 months ago. As an aside, I haven't dialed a 7 digit
| number in about 20 years. Then again, I live in NYC with 7
| different area codes.
| bjt2n3904 wrote:
| Numbers that I'll never dial if I'm in a sort of crisis.
| prvit wrote:
| Why does this get downvoted? There are many similar numbers
| operated by orgs that won't call the cops on you.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| in addition to the red-flagging that will follow you around
| perhaps for the rest of your life
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| That red-flagging was a whole mini-scandal in Canada. Turns
| out when you travel to the US, there is data sharing
| between customs and border patrol so if you've ever
| called/been involved with the police, that info is shared.
| So whoopsie, what should be considered private health
| information was shared with officials in another country
| without asking for consent first.
| yomkippur wrote:
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Presumably it's for those around you to dial when you're in
| crisis.
| yomkippur wrote:
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| This is a classic regulatory capture. Now that there is a
| standard number that has to be serviced there will be more demand
| for the companies providing these services. They in turn get more
| volume of data to sell off to the brokers.
| belltaco wrote:
| That's not what regulatory capture is, much less classic.
| dekobon wrote:
| Data from these numbers is protected by HIPAA and callers can
| voluntarily be anonymous.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Don't be so sure about that:
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2022/02/24/suic.
| ..
|
| You can't anonymize your phone number which is all a data
| broker needs to connect to your identity.
| prvit wrote:
| Callers need to exercise a fairly high level OPSEC to
| maintain anonymity. If you aren't using some VOIP service,
| there's a good chance your call will be traced and the cops
| will be at your door anyway.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| 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.
| nimbius wrote:
| call me a cynnic but as an american...this is theater.
|
| people already avoid a call to 911 because the subsequent
| ambulance service is unaffordable and can land you in
| collections. they avoid the ER for the same reason. 988 assumes
| anyone who needs crisis care will be able to get it, or even
| afford it and the ecosystem of services and medications that
| may ensue.
|
| 988 gives, as amber alert did, a can for politicians to kick
| down the road and cheerlead.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I don't disagree. But I'm not sure what alternative I have to
| hoping this might be the start of something.
|
| In Ontario an ambulance trip is about $40. But in the US it
| can be crippling.
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| An ambulance to come get me after I slipped on the ice and
| broke my leg took me about 3/4 of a mile to the hospital,
| providing no additional care en route, cost $975 about a
| decade ago here in NYC.
| nimbius wrote:
| healthcare reform, gun control, education reform and labor
| reform. these are all very hard, but adding a telco service
| is relatively easy.
|
| btw many is cities can barely keep their dispatch for 911
| staffed.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| They are all very expensive, and so it is a political
| football of how to minimally fund them while also being
| able to say society is "offering" them.
| pigtailgirl wrote:
| -- An ambulance in Ontario is $40 if you have OHIP - I know
| plenty of non-OHIP folks who have gotten hit with $200+
| ambulance bills - myself included --
| kyrra wrote:
| I paid $1400 for an 8 mile ambulance ride this year in
| Colorado. I think this was applied to my high deductible
| health plan, but I got to pay the full amount (and they
| don't provide any kind of discounts to insurance
| companies).
| Waterluvian wrote:
| That's still orders of magnitude less than many American
| ambulance visits.
| morelisp wrote:
| My last ambulance trip in the US was billed at $12000.
| With my (good!) insurance I still had to pay $500.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| $500 for a specialized vehicle on demand 24/7 with
| somewhat trained workers who have to deal with
| undesirable work seems pretty good.
|
| Assuming that was under the deductible, so the ambulance
| provider did not get paid anything else, and $500 was the
| negotiated pricing for members of your insurance plan.
| freeflight wrote:
| Would you also calculate the economics of privatized
| firefighters like that?
|
| Or are you at some point willing to admit that not
| everything should be a private, purely for
| profit/shareholder value, venture?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I did not claim anything about what should or should not
| be subsidized by taxpayers. My comment was simply about
| the actual cost of providing ambulance services.
|
| The fact that the insurance company can negotiate the
| bill to $500 indicates what the real price is. The $12k
| number is just fantasy numbers that healthcare providers
| throw out to start the negotiation.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > Assuming that was under the deductible, so the
| ambulance provider did not get paid anything else
|
| Hm? The insurer would've paid the difference (minus some
| additional discounts depending on the size of the insurer
| and its bargaining power). That the patient paid $500
| does not in the slightest bit indicate that the insurer
| negotiated the rate down to that pricepoint.
|
| Even at $500 (and let's assume that was an hour-long
| ride, for easy math that's maximally generous to your
| argument), EMTs on average make around $20/hour at best,
| and maybe double that for a nurse - so a fully staffed
| ambulance would run around $80/hour for labor. Round it
| up to $100 to be generous and that still leaves $400 for
| the ambulance itself. Ambulance itself costs up to
| $150,000, so earmarking another $100 would pay it off
| after 1,500 hours of service - so less than a year, even
| if it's only running for 40 hours a week. Maybe it's
| _really_ fuel-inefficient and breaks down frequently, so
| we 'll say another $100 for fuel and maintenance. Throw
| in another $100 to pay off $150,000 worth of equipment
| and medical supplies.
|
| So of that $500 price the patient pays, we're left with
| $100. At the price billed to the insurer, that's an eye-
| watering $11,600 of what appears to be pure profit. Maybe
| there's some excuse for that, but to me it's pretty
| obvious that something's way out of whack. $500 or even a
| bit more than that would be reasonable if EMTs and nurses
| were being paid better, but they largely ain't.
| mindslight wrote:
| $500 could be a reasonable fee if it were generally
| predictable, but you're completely ignoring the
| fraudulent $12,000 bill and the fact that OP had to sign
| up for "good" "insurance" to access the real price.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| My intention was the opposite. By pointing out the $500
| being reasonable, meaning that the insurance company
| negotiated a decent price.
|
| Obviously, the $12k is ludicrous, proven by them being
| willing to accept $500 for people who belong to an
| insurance plan.
|
| Health insurance in the US is not just insurance against
| a one time high cost event. One aspect of it is paying a
| business to gain access to lower pricing due to volume
| that you would be unable to get as an individual, which
| seemingly this person's insurance plan did.
| oops wrote:
| The $40 in Ontario sounds even better tho right? Just as
| the billed imaginary $12k figure that only exists to make
| "$500 seem pretty good" sounds absurd.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I did not write that the ambulance should not be
| subsidized by the government, merely that the negotiated
| price between the ambulance business and the insurance
| company seems reasonable considering the services
| provided.
|
| I would have made the same statement if the government
| had paid the ambulance company $500, or if the
| government's cost for providing that instance of
| ambulance service was $500.
| morelisp wrote:
| You sound like a total psychopath.
| stop50 wrote:
| Despite me knowing the american system, it still freaks
| me out seeing the numbers. the last time i had to pay
| anything for anything medical was the deductible of 5EUR
| (minimum 5EUR maximum 10EUR 10% of the price for
| everything you buy in one go, except generica which are
| free from deductions)
| morelisp wrote:
| I've lived in Europe for a decade now and I have a
| similar reaction when my family still in the US talks
| about medical expenses or I think back to how I weighed
| financial vs. medical decisions during those years. It's
| inhumane, and seemingly impossible to impress on middle-
| class Americans how unnecessary and pervasive the cruelty
| is. Living or even thinking within its frame leaves one a
| broken person.
| prvit wrote:
| There are thousands of stories of people calling this number
| and having a SWAT team show up at their home.
|
| E: hard to even imagine what kind of an utterly horrible person
| would downvote this
| [deleted]
| vorpalhex wrote:
| 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...
| freeflight wrote:
| > 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/national-
| special-...
|
| [1] https://theweek.com/articles/531458/troubling-rise-
| swat-team...
| wolverine876 wrote:
| But it demonstrates that SWAT teams are not being sent to
| people at risk of suicide.
| prvit wrote:
| https://theweek.com/articles/531458/troubling-rise-swat-
| team...
|
| This 2015 article claims 80k deployments per year
|
| And I guess it makes little difference whether it's the
| SWAT team that shoots you or just regular cops.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Your articles source for that 80k figure is literally a
| guess by a criminologist who gives the range "50k to 80k"
| based on literally no data. The only data they are using
| is PG county MD which has one of the highest murder rates
| in the country.
|
| In 2021 there were ~1,000 police shootings. 85% of shot
| suspects were armed with a deadly weapon. That's in a
| nation with a population of 334,000,000 people.
| pessimizer wrote:
| This is either an intentional lie or a typo. There were
| 1000 police _killings_ , not 1000 police shootings.
|
| edit: and I'm even accidentally being deceptive. There
| were over 1000 people shot dead by police. There were
| more people killed by police.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| "Deadly shootings" is the phrase used by WaPo where I
| sourced the number.
|
| There are 1,136 total killed by police in 2021. 1,055 of
| them were shot.
|
| There is a rough estimate that there were about 800 non-
| deadly police shootings, but that's a rough guess without
| much data.
| cmg wrote:
| 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 policies where the
| operator is allowed/encouraged to call emergency services on
| you without your ongoing consent, or even without telling you.
| In my experience talking with others who have been affected by
| those kinds of policies, this can lead to police breaking down
| your door while you're naked and crying, or worse. A person in
| deep crisis is not likely to respond well to armed officers
| showing up, as the police are more likely to come into the
| situation looking for conflict.
|
| Sometimes, you can call a local dispatch and just get medical
| services, or maybe a fire department sent first. But that's
| entirely up to the discretion of the dispatcher and local
| protocol.
|
| 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?"
|
| Not to mention the stories I've heard where call centers just
| have passwords for their internal systems on sticky notes
| laying around on monitors...
|
| The general field is so bleak that some other folks with peer
| support experience and I have started a nonprofit where one of
| the things we're doing is building open-source software that
| will let anyone create their own support line. Security and
| privacy are our primary concerns, ensuring that operators and
| callers never see each other's numbers or any kind of
| information.
|
| [0] non-consensual active rescue is the practice of calling
| emergency services on someone without their OK
|
| [1] The line was Trans Lifeline, which I cannot recommend
| supporting for other reasons at this point
| [deleted]
| Kye wrote:
| I see people recommend Trans Lifeline all the time. Are you
| able to offer specifics on this?
| cmg wrote:
| I'm hesitant to answer this because a lot of what I'd have
| to say can't be corroborated except for people who work or
| worked there. I'll summarize, with the understanding that I
| left a month after the 2020 election (I gave my notice in
| October 2020 and stayed on to get the organization through
| potential security issues around the election).
|
| - A culture of internal anti-Blackness. During the uprising
| of 2020, staff and volunteers wanted the leadership team to
| address real issues with race inside the organization. As a
| member of the leadership team at the Director level, I
| pushed for many of the staff-led changes, but most of the
| team wanted to just talk about things instead of
| implementing policies.
|
| - I had a bug in some software I wrote - applications for a
| service were supposed to be distributed based on race. A
| few more white people than they wanted got through. I fixed
| the bug immediately (it was a concurrency issue), explained
| it, and was met with absolute hostility - shouted at in
| meetings, labeled a white supremacist and removed from
| leadership. A plan was developed to have mediation, but
| after months nothing happened.
|
| - From what I understand, they have basically gotten rid of
| their QA program that would review calls to make sure
| operators are properly trained and handling calls
| appropriately.
|
| - A former staff member went missing during a mental health
| crisis. They said they were going to provide FMLA but fired
| her instead, leaving her partner and children without any
| financial support.
|
| - Piss-poor answer rate. After they fired their Hotline
| Program Director last year, basically no one stepped up to
| run the hotline. Folks I've heard from have reported that
| many volunteers (the backbone of the hotline department)
| left, new volunteers weren't being processed properly.
| Kye wrote:
| Thanks for the response. I know it's hard to take
| questions like that as sincere in a place like this.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| pessimizer wrote:
| What unrelated subjects do people not on your side have
| the right to talk about?
| jamiek88 wrote:
| What side are you referring to?
|
| I don't believe I'm on a side other than that of
| democracy?
|
| Is that controversial?
| heartbreak wrote:
| [deleted]
| cmg wrote:
| I'm on the EB but I don't get paid for that. Why?
| heartbreak wrote:
| Because I know pro-Russian propaganda when I see it.
| marvin wrote:
| Can you provide more details on what you're thinking
| here?
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| The Kremlin's following the strategy of "help America
| tear itself apart" by fomenting racial and political
| divisions, so maybe the race bit set their sensors off. I
| think the sensitivity should be decreased though. :p
| morelisp wrote:
| "Russian-Hating Dream of Brzezinski Clan Nears
| Fulfillment as Poland Agrees to Host Permanent U.S. Base
| and Turn Baltic Sea into NATO Lake" seems, uh, self-
| explanatory.
| cmg wrote:
| I'm not particularly interested in having to defend
| myself on this forum, on a completely unrelated post.
| heartbreak will likely respond, and that's fine, but it's
| very interesting that they decided to look into my
| (public) associations here.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| > if you're not going to hurt yourself, what do you want me
| to do?"
|
| My brother is going through some stuff and got this exact
| response in the UK.
|
| If you aren't immediately about to harm yourself there's
| basically no state provided resources.
| cmg wrote:
| I'm so sorry to hear about your brother, Jamie. I hope he
| can find the support he needs. This is too common of a
| story.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > 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.
| cmg wrote:
| I'm glad to hear that. There is a place for these hotlines
| and I have a lot of respect for the folks who volunteer at
| them - I hope it didn't come off differently. My comments
| weren't meant to be blanket "everything is like this" but
| rather pointing out trends & common experiences.
| freeflight wrote:
| _> the police are more likely to come into the situation
| looking for conflict_
|
| "We don't have time for this" [0] comes to mind.
|
| [0] https://www.insider.com/cop-said-i-dont-have-time-
| shooting-k...
| fdhfdjkfhdkj wrote:
| zahma wrote:
| > 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 policies where the
| operator is allowed/encouraged to call emergency services on
| you without your ongoing consent, or even without telling
| you. In my experience talking with others who have been
| affected by those kinds of policies, this can lead to police
| breaking down your door while you're naked and crying, or
| worse. A person in deep crisis is not likely to respond well
| to armed officers showing up, as the police are more likely
| to come into the situation looking for conflict.
|
| Hi, CTL volunteer here. I have some gripes with a few of your
| assertions.
|
| It's true that CTL was caught sharing data. They have
| retracted that policy, and it remains unclear to me how much
| of the data was being shared to which level of granularity.
| Since then, data can be manually deleted after a conversation
| is concluded. I have seen this happen, and I welcome you to
| try again if you would like to test the system. That is
| welcomed.
|
| Each counselor is required to treat each texter with empathy
| and the gravity that a mental health crisis requires. I do
| not know of anyone on the platform who would disparage a
| texter because his/her/their crisis isn't significant enough.
| If you text CTL, it is for a reason, and we want to help you
| through that moment no matter your background.
|
| Another important distinction is that we are trained to risk
| assess each and every texter, irrespective of our intuition
| about their mental state. That means I treat someone testing
| the system like I would someone who has been flagged as an
| imminent suicide risk.
|
| Supervisors monitor this evolution of the conversation
| closely.
|
| The assessment is important because ultimately the decision
| to call emergency services comes after that rigorous
| assessment of the person's suicidal ideation, followed by
| their plan and access to means, as well as their timeline. If
| all those criteria are met, I contact my supervisor, and then
| we work on separation from means. If those criteria are not
| met, we continue the conversation accordingly.
|
| I have personally walked numerous people back from the edge
| simply by talking to them and hearing them out; often times,
| texters deemed imminent risks are capable of staying safe
| that night after we have come up with a safety plan for them
| together. Calling EMS is truly a last resort and not an
| attempt to cast off responsibility.
|
| In the cases when we do call emergency services, it is after
| we have exhausted all other options. It should be noted that
| access to geolocation is strictly limited to these
| supervisors, and in all likelihood is limited to a texter's
| phone number alone. It's not like they have a backdoor into
| AT&T, and the supervisor must make a call to emergency
| services directly. From what I can tell, very little
| information is given back to CTL. On occasion, I can see a
| timeline that EMS was dispatched but rarely do I ever learn
| about the outcome.
|
| The success of the platform is that we can work with people
| to find them their own solutions. CTL was not a viable
| intermediary for calling 911.
|
| All in all, I recommend other readers to treat the post above
| with a grain of salt. Please be aware that platforms such as
| CTL are frequently volunteer-staffed, and, while we all do
| receive 20 hours of mandatory training, we aren't
| psychologists and we are not allowed to act in a medical
| capacity in the slightest. Each counselor is expected to work
| within a strict purview with clear objectives. Lots of well-
| intentioned people are there for whoever needs support. As
| far as volunteering goes, this is some of the most
| emotionally-involved I've ever had to do, and it pains me to
| read reviews of CTL that paint it is a data profiteering lab
| of pseudo-psychologists and dismissive blowhards.
|
| Lastly, should data privacy be a cornerstone to these
| services? Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. But I am glad that
| this service exists, and we should not miss the forest for
| the trees. Many of our colleagues, friends, relatives, and
| countrywomen are suffering right now more than ever. We
| should not profit on their misery, but we have an opportunity
| to connect with them and change their lives. To my mind, that
| is worth every byte of data.
| cmg wrote:
| Hi Zhama, I'm not able to fully respond to your comments
| right now but I read and appreciate them even if I don't
| fully agree. And thank you for what you do at CTL.
|
| My post was general, not specific to CTL.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Policing in the US is shit in part because other social
| services are under developed that the police have to double for
| everything. Frankly it's crisis too because doing social
| services and policing is a shit job that isn't going to attract
| the best and brightest. Add to that it's a job for Iraq and
| Afghanistan vets probably suffering from their share of PTSD,
| and you get a pretty volatile combo
| pessimizer wrote:
| > policing is a shit job that isn't going to attract the best
| and brightest.
|
| It's not that it's a shit job, it's that it's a job that
| requires you to commit reprehensible acts, so good people
| can't join in good conscience. If our laws, law enforcement
| methods and justice system weren't horrifying, cops would be
| better, no matter how shit the pay or demanding the
| expectations.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| The reason social services are underdeveloped is because
| police spending has swollen to consume massive portions of
| municipal, state, and federal budgets. This is thanks to
| decades of conservative politicians beating the drums of
| "wasteful" welfare spending and "fighting crime by spending
| more on police."
|
| Forty percent of Uvalde's budget was going to the police -
| $4.3M for 15,000 residents, or $2900/person. That doesn't
| include the half a million dollars for their school police
| force.
|
| New York City has a budget of about $100BN, and $11BN goes to
| NYPD - $1300 for every single person in the city.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Don't overindex on anecdotes. Policing has problems but in
| general where police in America have retreated, crime has gone
| up.
| kvetching wrote:
| It's the number to get thousands in medical bills.
| prvit wrote:
| Why does this get downvoted? Involuntary commitment is not free
| in the US.
| kupopuffs wrote:
| does a phone call here really lead to involuntary commitment?
| prvit wrote:
| Not necessarily, but it's not particularly unlikely.
| Depends entirely on how lucky you get with the operator.
| prvit wrote:
| yomkippur wrote:
| piker wrote:
| Don't understand this idea. In UK there's a dozen or so magic
| numbers with one for each special crisis that you're supposed to
| memorize. Some are straightforward: 111 (non emergency health),
| 999 (emergency), but then there's 101, 112, 105? and you're
| supposed to dial them in certain circumstances. It seems this
| takes some triage load off, but it also seems like the path from
| "what's your emergency?" "this is not an emergency" to switching
| the line should be straightforward in 2022. Doing that would
| enable citizens to have a single point of contact for any kind of
| interaction with the state from crisis to reporting a power
| outage to paying a parking ticket.
| hericium wrote:
| Have you seen "0118 999 881 999 119 725 3"[1] in IT Crowd?
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ
| Sakos wrote:
| I have it memorized for emergencies.
| orwin wrote:
| 112 is the european emergency number. If you have an issue
| while on vacation, only remember this. The Brussel effect made
| it international, and now i think most touristic destination
| use this number. Also, with a European operator, calling 112
| will redirect you to local emergency numbers (let's say 911 if
| you are currently in the US).
| peterlk wrote:
| I thought you all just had one number for everything! 0118 999
| 881 999 119 7253
|
| https://youtu.be/ab8GtuPdrUQ
| dragonwriter wrote:
| (1) it reduces non-emergency load on emergency dispatch (or, if
| you don't route immediately to emergency dispatch, delay in
| emergencies reaching emergency dispatch.)
|
| (2) Emergency dispatch may automatically dispatch
| police/fire/EMS. That may be counterproductive to (and
| discourage calls for) some other events that a ready access
| number is desired for.
| piker wrote:
| (1) "is this an emergency?" yes/no must be close to O(1)
|
| (2) is this done in practice or just hypothetical?
| seoaeu wrote:
| That would add overhead to every call. The first question
| that they ask is: "911. Where is the emergency?"
| mindcrime wrote:
| _The first question that they ask is: "911. Where is the
| emergency?"_
|
| That varies from PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) to
| PSAP. Local policy dictates what the first thing said to
| the caller is. And while I believe it is the case that
| _most_ PSAP 's use "where is your emergency" as their
| first question these days, some still use "what is your
| emergency" instead. This is one of those things that
| people who work in public safety (especially dispatchers)
| love to have religious arguments about.
|
| And just to go back to the point about emergency / non-
| emergency calls: people call 911 for all sorts of shit
| that isn't an emergency. And while I've been gone from
| dispatching for a while, from what I understand, this
| problem has only gotten worse over the years.
| Unfortunately 911 has gone from "the number I call if
| somebody is dying or something is on fire" to "the number
| I call if there is anything going on that I don't
| understand or don't like, and want to demand that
| Somebody Needs To Do Something About It." :-(
|
| Source: former 911 dispatcher and firefighter, and have
| called 911 a handful of times over the years.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| You can already call either 911 or the ten digit suicide
| hotline humber about suicide. 988 is just shorthand for the
| full suicide hotline number.
|
| You won't get in trouble if you call 911 about suicide, but if
| they think it's not urgent they may point you to other
| resources rather than dispatch emergency services. The suicide
| hotline provides non-emergency resources but can't emergency
| dispatch.
|
| Perhaps in the future, more 911 centers will be expanded to
| include non-emergency suicide resources, but most or all don't
| have that right now.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > that you're supposed to memorize
|
| If the situation you are in means that you don't have time,
| ability, means, or mental capacity to Google for the right
| number then the right number to use is 999.
|
| It's a self-solving problem.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| 112 exists because it's the emergency number in some other
| countries. So it's smart to have it in the UK as well so
| foreigners can still call for help even not knowing the local
| convention.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/112_(emergency_telephone_numbe...
| mortenjorck wrote:
| The one aspect that stands out to me is that it offloads
| liability for bad triage to the caller.
| DigiDigiorno wrote:
| Please press 1 if you are a danger to yourself or others,
| Please press 2...
| decremental wrote:
| Press one for english. Presione dos para espanol.
| DigiDigiorno wrote:
| There probably is a IVR (Interactive Voice Response) menu
| for emergency services somewhere, but it seems a bit too
| surreal for me.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| throwaway988 wrote:
| For those who might ever contemplate this, maybe you'd like to
| hear a bit from me. I've been both depressed life-long and have
| probably spent more time in such contemplation than virtually
| anyone else here. (I'm pretty happy now, so no need to worry.)
|
| One of the worst things about this is the feeling that you can't
| talk to anyone about it, as the moment you do, you start having
| to take care of _them_ emotionally, at a time when you just
| can't. If you can afford it, a good therapist is an option--you
| pay them so you don't have to take care of them. How to find one?
| I don't know. Try several.
|
| Here's some first aid. First, no one gets out of life alive.
| Usually, there's no need to hurry your demise, as you'll be dead
| soon enough. And as many have observed, subjective time
| accelerates. If you're 35, your life is more than half done
| anyway.
|
| Second, before you take steps, try to remember a few things you
| always wanted to do. Do them first. I've always been partial to
| waterfalls. Mountains are great. Music festivals can be pretty
| cool. Go eat your favorite foods a few more times.
|
| Third, if everything seems bleak, get wasted. Probably things
| will seem less urgent in the morning.
|
| Longer term, try to find something to do, someone to love, and
| something to look forward to. That's the trifecta, but even one
| goes a long way. Worked for me.
|
| Will your problems pass? Probably, but maybe not. The pain,
| though, will lessen.
|
| What if you're dealing with someone else suicidal? Just listen
| and keep listening, without making yourself an emotional burden.
| If you can, do what a friend would do. There might come a moment,
| appropriate to the relationship, where you can let the person
| know that you'd be devastated if they killed themselves. (I think
| it's okay to exaggerate a bit on this point.)
|
| Godspeed.
|
| (I don't comment on HN, and likely HN prefers it that way. But
| this seems like an unusually important topic.)
| vasco wrote:
| > What if you're dealing with someone else suicidal? Just
| listen and keep listening, without making yourself an emotional
| burden.
|
| Careful with this, it's easy as a partner of someone suffering
| from this to over time get too impacted by the constant
| depression talk and walking on egg shells to not say the wrong
| thing.
|
| My recommendation is to help your friend or partner get
| professional help, if after a couple of months of listening
| you're still just listening to same stuff. Otherwise it'll take
| a toll on you and two depressed people are worse than one.
| throwaway988 wrote:
| You can't save someone if you're drowning yourself. I wasn't
| really thinking of partners here. I guess I was blessed in
| that my partners at the worst moments didn't really care that
| much about me. Getting a partner that has my back was part of
| getting better. Or put another way, even on the worst days I
| just couldn't do it now, because I know she'd be destroyed.
|
| Anyway, I think friends and even just acquaintances can do
| more, even if that seems counterintuitive.
| mmmpop wrote:
| > If you're 35, your life is more than half done anyway.
|
| Not really
| kupopuffs wrote:
| you're missing the point, unless you're a _life begins when
| you 're 65_ kinda guy
| [deleted]
| yellowapple wrote:
| It depends on a lot of factors - some of which are in your
| control, and some of which ain't. In my case, very few men on
| my dad's side of the family lived past 60 (and my dad only
| made it to 54), so in all likelihood my life is indeed
| already half done.
| aluminaient wrote:
| Your life is subjectively half way over at 16. Dont kid
| yourself.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| The average US male life expectancy is 75, so: yes, actually.
| schrodinger wrote:
| I think they meant in terms of the fact that life seems to
| pass more quickly when you're older, and at 36, I'm
| definitely feeling that.
| silisili wrote:
| The preceding line was about subjective time passing. He's
| not saying you'll be dead by 70, he's saying everything after
| 35 feels like it goes by way, way faster than the first 35. I
| certainly feel that way, and may even adjust that number down
| some myself.
| mlsu wrote:
| > Third, if everything seems bleak, get wasted. Probably things
| will seem less urgent in the morning.
|
| Please do not do this. Suicide and being drunk are very
| correlated. If you have a firearm in the house, or even if not,
| this is the single worst thing you can do for your own
| survival.
| bigyikes wrote:
| Better idea: get stoned. You're less likely to engage in
| reckless activities on cannabis compared to alcohol.
|
| At least, that's been my experience in this situation.
| throwaway988 wrote:
| Look, if your two options are get drunk or kill yourself
| right now, in my opinion, do the former. This worked out for
| me--YMMV.
|
| Also, put your engineer hat on. You _absolutely_ do not want
| to kill yourself with a firearm. Yeah, it usually works. But
| if it doesn't, you will learn what true misery is.
| hirundo wrote:
| Create something. Make something, anything. For me it works
| fast, like chocolate against dementors. The more meaningful the
| better, but in a pinch even making a pile of rocks will do. A
| sandcastle. A sculpture of Karl Malden's nose in chopped liver.
| It's like magic.
|
| It's a simple algorithm. Depressed? Build.
| kyledrake wrote:
| The other really important thing here would be requiring
| healthcare to cover therapy. I have many friends that need
| therapy for trauma/cPTSD issues that cannot afford it and thus
| don't seek help. It will more than pay for itself in prevention
| before mental health issues become worse and then require crisis
| intervention. It could substantially improve the overall health
| of America in a lot of ways.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| What constitutes a 988 emergency?
|
| I was raised with a sacrosanct view of 911. Do not call unless it
| is a bona fide emergency. This means something along the lines of
| a situation outside my expertise that poses a threat to life.
| Broadly speaking it ranges from medical, physical, security, and
| probably a host of other things I'm forgetting.
|
| However, I don't have the same instilled ideas about 988. What
| are the sufficient conditions to place a call, for oneself and
| for others?
| vorpalhex wrote:
| 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."
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| 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 weapons, etc.) or to report
| crimes in progress.
|
| 1. https://www.fcva.us/departments/public-safety-
| communications...
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Yes, it's too narrow. The 911 dispatcher on the other side
| is a human being who can handle priorities.
|
| A good example is if you have a disabled vehicle blocking
| an intersection - that's a 911 call.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| 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?
| vorpalhex wrote:
| You can and eventually you will be transferred but you
| will absolutely be met with the: "Sir, next time call
| 911". I speak from experience.
| rascul wrote:
| 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
| dangrossman wrote:
| 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? Stuff like reporting a pothole on your street, a
| dangerous building that needs inspection, illegal dumping, a
| traffic signal's out, etc.
| schrodinger wrote:
| In NY you can call your local precinct directly for that
| kind of thing.
| projektfu wrote:
| If you need the police to come for some reason, even a car
| parked too long on the street, you call 911. There's no bar
| to meet.
|
| Where I live, 911 might not answer, though. I've had that
| experience.
| pbourke wrote:
| It gets even more complicated when some areas have emergency
| and non-emergency converged to 911 like my county in WA does.
| JshWright wrote:
| Even in areas where they still exist as separate numbers,
| they are pretty much always handled by the same calltakers.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| I wonder if emergency calls jump past non-emergency calls
| in the queue. If so, that seems like a reasonable setup,
| and it would be better to call the correct number if
| possible.
|
| I suppose they could even allow an incoming emergency call
| to interrupt a non-emergency conversation (which would be
| put on hold) so that emergency calls never have to wait for
| a non-emergency conversation to finish.
| treis wrote:
| >that emergency calls never have to wait
|
| 911 calls in my major metro relatively frequently ring
| unanswered
| tylergetsay wrote:
| I called 911 once because a large piece of furniture was
| sitting in the middle of the highway; it felt weird
| Lammy wrote:
| Fun fact: In California (presumably other states[0] too, but
| I live in California), calling 911 from a cellular phone
| along a freeway corridor routes the call directly to
| California Highway Patrol's 911 dispatch instead of to the
| adjacent town/county/whatever:
| https://sanramonpolice.com/2016/09/30/using-a-cell-phone-
| to-...
|
| "If a cellular 911 caller is on, or in close proximity, to a
| freeway, there is a high likelihood this call will go to the
| California Highway Patrol dispatch center. The California
| Highway Patrol (CHP) has jurisdiction over state freeways and
| handles emergency calls on these roadways. Cellular calls
| often utilize towers that are located near the freeway.
| Therefore, some cellular calls made from city streets, but
| near a freeway, will be routed to the California Highway
| Patrol."
|
| You definitely did the right thing, though. I've made similar
| calls for mattresses and ladders blocking lanes.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_police_(United_States
| )#S...
| byecomputer wrote:
| One time there was a dizzy-looking stray cat sleeping in a
| puddle near my house and the non-emergency line told me to
| call 911.
| danans wrote:
| It shouldn't feel weird. You did the right thing. Your call
| could have easily saved someone's life or limbs. I've made
| such 911 calls many times.
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