I went into hospital later that day so have been unable to get online since (I’ve escaped for a few hours to get online and to do some necessary shopping). I’m safe, I’m back on mirtazapine which has worked in the past, and my psychiatrist is trying to find some autism support for me as he agrees I’m on the spectrum and apart from the current circumstances that’s the cause of quite a few of my problems.

Calling hotlines isn’t an option for me- I have a phobia of telephones (not that I can hear properly when using them anyhow).

Thank you.

Good point. I’ve had a similar problem, but it would be harder to think of a solution for it. The problem is that when I call a hotline (usually kids help line) I have to give my life history before I can explain what’s wrong now. Especially if I’m having problems about school trauma (which would be a good thing to teach them about regarding disability awareness – I know of several people who comtemplated suicide because of school problems).

Your responses here are interesting………you seem to be very receptive to suggestions and that is quite commendable…….in light of the fact that not too many people in positions of assisting others are so receptive……..rather ironic, but alas, that is the fact on the field at the moment. Perhaps you might start a blog about it? if you feel like doing that……..the internet is an excellent conduit for getting ideas out to others in your field………….

Danni……….I hope you’re at least somewhat better and I am thinking of you.

I’ve been pretty depressed off and on lately. And although I am firm in stating that I doubt I’d try to end my life, I can’t honestly say I don’t think about it. When I do, I try to think about anything positive or just having nothing to do with ending life……..

Ivan

For anyone reading, here’s how it works in Florida, USA:

Anyone who doesn’t want to give us their number or address is free to remain completely anonymous.
If you do give us your number, we will never call without your permission (usually we call to see how you’re doing, let you know someone cares that you’re feeling OK).
If you do give us your address, we will never send a Care TEAM (this only applies at our center, we have a mobile team who can go sit with you if you are desperate or suicidal) without your permission.
If we do call, we will never identify ourselves as the crisis center to someone who is not you without your permission.
We will never share information about you outside of the system of volunteers without your permission.

All of this is subject, however, to the “duty to warn” bit in Florida law: If the volunteer believes that the caller is in imminent danger of killing his or herself, the volunteer MUST send out a care team and not leave unless the person is safe again or goes to the hospital, or send out the cops for Baker Act. If this is the case and they haven’t give us the phone number, we have a call tracing computer we must use. However, at my center, we know that Baker Act is a last resort and try not to use it. I’ve never had to use this option in three years.

There is a similar law about child or elder abuse. Whenever someone is telling me about problems they have with anger towards their children, I warn them about this. Then if child abuse is revealed, our policy is to try very hard to work with the person and have the person report it themselves, which plays out much better in the eyes of protective services.

Finally, the third law says that if we hear of a minor who is suicidal, regardless of imminent risk, we must warn the parent or guardian. I also warn teenagers of this. We only have to do it if we get the phone number, so this one is a little more of a judgment call. If the teen has a poor relationship with the parent and does not seem to have immediate risk, I will often allow the teen to have some say in whether we inform the parents (if they don’t give me their phone number, I have no legal obligation to inform.)

Thank you also for your comment andreashettle. Now I have two topics to discuss with Crisis Center staff, and historically they’ve been very open to volunteer feedback and not at all rigid about how services are provided (probably because there’s only 5 of them, so no beauracratic (sp?) red tape.)

It’s really valuable for me to be able to have this kind of dialogue with people. I’m about to start school to become a psychologist, and it’s very important to me that I don’t lose my ideals about allowing people power over their own lives, not harming people, and working in partnership with people instead of being some kind of Grand Poobah Wizard who knows all and demands respect. I realize the environments are going to be fairly challenging to this attitude, but it’s my life goal to be a constant fighter against dehumanizing aspects of the mental health system.

Happy Easter/Passover, everyone. Sorry for the long posts.

Rachel Hibberd

In the first case (understanding what was likely to lead to hospitalization, and what would not), I might call if I felt what I was likely to talk about wouldn’t get me locked up, or if I were interested in being hospitalized. In the second case, knowing that it happened, but not knowing why, I’d never call a hotline, not being able to trust them. So while mentioning that the hotline would tell the police about imminent threats of suicide would discourage people who were calling in imminent suicidal crisis, and saved by hotline workers sending an ambulance to their homes, it would make a lot of other people more willing to trust the hotline. I don’t know enough about your organization’s philosophy or results to know what you’d prefer, but I would definitely favor making people aware of their choices and the consequences as a moral principle.

People do come back from situations like this and regain custody of their kids (I’m assuming this is what happened), get back a sense of self-control, rebuild old and new relationships. People are doing it all the time. Finding what you need to get to a better place may not be simple, but when you do find a place of stability, you’ll be able to demonstrate that and also have an explanation of what went wrong and what you need to keep it better.

I’ll be thinking of you,

Sherri

Thank you for checking into the options at your office.

If you do figure out some way for people with various sorts of communication-related disabilities to call you, at least via text, then I suggest that the next step would be to make sure that people know about it. I know with Deaf people (and I suspect the same is probably true for other people with other disabilities), we tend to assume that things like hotlines and so forth are not accessible unless we see something specifically saying otherwise. Because, after all, most things are NOT accessible — and the few that are, usually say so. Some targeted advertising might help, but at least as important would be to INTEGRATE publicity for the accessible alternatives into ALL mainstream publicity (so, for example, if you have a poster publicizing your service in general, with the regular contact information for the regular hotline, then the SAME POSTER would also have the Internet contact information or whatever relevant information is needed, ideally with a line indicating that this is meant for people who are deaf, or hard of hearing, or who have speech/communication-related disabilities.

I also suggest that, if you really do find a good system, you may also want to explore options for getting appropriate training for staff. A Deaf person calling to vent doesn’t want to have to launch into a Deafology 101 lecture in the middle just because s/he makes a passing reference to something the hotline person doesn’t understand. And for people with, say, aphasia, or autism, or whatever, you don’t want staff misinterpreting an innocent word mix up or echolalia speech pattern, etc., in some psychological way utterly inappropriate for the context. Any training also would have to give the flavor of diversity both ACROSS disability groups (deaf vs autistic vs aphasic vs brain injury etc) and also WITHIN disabilities (for example: not all deaf people necessarily sign or associate themselves with the culturally Deaf community; though, certainly, some do. Two people can share the exact same diagnosis label but have very different needs and preferences in terms of communication and linguistic style, accommodations for their disabilities, etc.)

You raise a good point about relay services. It is hard to open up to a total stranger, especially if you’ve had negative experiences as ballastexistenz has. I’ve often thought that the technology is available for crisis workers to type directly to callers, i.e. through AIM or something. The system just doesn’t exist yet. Hopefully that will be something people continue to think about as the internet gets more integrated into these kinds of systems. I imagine one problem at first would be confidentiality if the internet is used, though I don’t know much about it. I’ll definitely raise the idea next time I’m talking to my supervisors about the computer system they’re going to be putting in the center.

Ballasexistenz: Though obviously I’m not someone you’ve spoken to, I want to apologize on behalf of whatever crisis line you had a negative experience with. People on the lines are legally obligated to warn the police if they believe you are in imminent danger (as in that night) of killing yourself, and most people end up Baker Acted in that situation. I’ve talked to enough people and seen enough CSU’s to know that being baker acted is usually a horrible, abusive experience. However, it sounds like you probably didn’t need it and the person who called 911 was wrong to do so. In any case, they should never have done that without telling you about it first and giving you the chance to go to the hospital yourself. I’m not even going to get into the experience on an inpatient unit, I’m having a hard time dealing with how angry I become when I see the abuse that goes on in many CSU’s.

At the line I work at, people are very well qualified. There is a 90 hour training requirement and people who are not able to cut it in training do not become volunteers. However, I imagine that not all crisis centers have been running as long as ours and I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them allow people who are less qualified to volunteer. I hope if you ever do use these services again, you have a better experience.

PS- I have been enjoying reading your postings. It’s gotten me thinking more about disability rights/ autonomy issues and I’ll be staying tuned! Thank you for this service.

Rachel Hibberd.