Coping Resources

[Bella]

Bella, thanks for your advice. I lost a loved one not too long ago, and reading what you wrote helps me.

Thank you for reading this, Billyjean. I am so glad it could give you some help. This is how I have tried to help myself.

[Carol and Mikey]

I want to thank WWELOVER and Bella for their detailed posts and information. Very helpful as this is an issue on this site and we are not professional counselors. I feel these posts should be put in a spot with no other posts following as the information gets pushed down as Mac says.
I am not a nurse, but I am a physical therapist. I have no education on suicide and it makes me very uncomfortable. Very sad actually.
Carol

[Celera]

I agree that the numbers for local helplines, as in mac's post, should be moved as a separate, stickied thread. In fact this might be more effective than putting anything in the banner to the site, which as has been noted may not be consistently visible on very platform.

It's impossible to know the effect our words might have on any individual. A message of sympathy might be helpful to one person, and a message of "suck it up and carry on with life" might be what a different person needs to hear. I suggest that this is why counseling is best offered in person by those with training to assess the mental state of an individual in distress. Even professionals sometimes lose patients to suicide.

On the forum we may discuss our experiences and knowledge and questions about depression, despair or grief. Nobody is going to say anything here that will make a person suicidal, and if someone reads words here that somehow tip the scale to harming themselves, then I don't think that is the fault of people making comments in good faith. It seems to me that while we should be (and I think the site has been) responsible about the message getting out there, we should not imagine that we have more power than we really do -- which is both a burden and a relief.

[vic smyth]

Just wondering if anyone with a health background can add to this thread. I know Vic has worked somewhat in the counselling field, and Carol is a nurse. Any other ideas would be good to add.

I was only a volunteer at a crisis hotline, but we were all trained by a professional social worker. When a person called in and said they were considering suicide (or if we sensed that they were suicidal), the first thing we did was to ask them if the had a plan how they were going to kill themselves. If they had a well thought out plan and the means to carry out the plan (a gun, a bottle of pills, a razor blade) we usually tried to get the person to put the means in another room to give us a chance to talk. Then we would talk using mostly listening skills. We rarely gave advice, only occasionally tried to guilt or scare them out of committing suicide. Most people who called in did not have a plan or a means available and they were simply calling for help. Generally a talk on the phone would get them through the night. Mostly they just wanted to be listened to. We would try to get a commitment out of them that they would get followup help (we provided resources) and ask them to call back to let us know how things went. If they had the means and would not put the means away we would generally trace the call and send the police. The always ended up getting very angry and feeling betrayed by us. But at least it got them through the night.

But that's a telephone hotline. You can't do that on a forum. The only thing that you can do is let them know that they can dial 911, or check themselves into a hospital emergency room, or call a suicide hotline.


With Lovingkindness (metta),
vic

[mac]

As a layperson I've mostly stayed out of the logistics of the provision of emergency help but it's also important to have phone numbers for other English-speaking countries. Although this website is predominantly North American based there are members in other countries too.

It's important not to be parochial.

[WWE LOVER]

As a layperson I've mostly stayed out of the logistics of the provision of emergency help but it's also important to have phone numbers for other English-speaking countries. Although this website is predominantly North American based there are members in other countries too.

It's important not to be parochial.

Good stuff, mac.

If you have any numbers for your area, feel free to put them up. You would know more about your area than I would.

Also, these ideas could be modified along the way to make the info better organized, like a thread or area of the site where the help options are prominently displayed.

[WWE LOVER]

I was only a volunteer at a crisis hotline, but we were all trained by a professional social worker. When a person called in and said they were considering suicide (or if we sensed that they were suicidal), the first thing we did was to ask them if the had a plan how they were going to kill themselves. If they had a well thought out plan and the means to carry out the plan (a gun, a bottle of pills, a razor blade) we usually tried to get the person to put the means in another room to give us a chance to talk. Then we would talk using mostly listening skills. We rarely gave advice, only occasionally tried to guilt or scare them out of committing suicide. Most people who called in did not have a plan or a means available and they were simply calling for help. Generally a talk on the phone would get them through the night. Mostly they just wanted to be listened to. We would try to get a commitment out of them that they would get followup help (we provided resources) and ask them to call back to let us know how things went. If they had the means and would not put the means away we would generally trace the call and send the police. The always ended up getting very angry and feeling betrayed by us. But at least it got them through the night.

But that's a telephone hotline. You can't do that on a forum. The only thing that you can do is let them know that they can dial 911, or check themselves into a hospital emergency room, or call a suicide hotline.

With Lovingkindness (metta),
vic

I'd like to thank you for all the work you have done regarding helping those who are depressed and suicidal.

[WWE LOVER]

I'd like to remind everyone that this info is not only for those who are suicidal, but even for those who are severely depressed and just struggling with day-to-day life.

Remember that you are not a worthless person, even if you feel that way. I know I have felt that way quite often.

[vic smyth]

As a layperson I've mostly stayed out of the logistics of the provision of emergency help but it's also important to have phone numbers for other English-speaking countries. Although this website is predominantly North American based there are members in other countries too.

It's important not to be parochial.

Good point. I wonder if there is an international agency like the Red Cross that has a resources page for suicide that would list all the international options, or maybe link to a local option based on location of the web user.

With Lovingkindness (metta),
vic

[vic smyth]

I'd like to thank you for all the work you have done regarding helping those who are depressed and suicidal.

Volunteering at a crisis hotline was an amazing and rewarding experience. After spending 4 hours listening to other people's problems including suicides, battered women, runaway teens, etc. etc. etc., it made your own problems seem very very small. And it is really amazing how people just like to be listened to with an empathetic ear.

Brett, likewise I've always valued your contribution on this forum and your devotion to helping those going through a difficult period in their lives.

With Lovingkindness (metta),
vic