I hope that you feel better now. And I am very happy that you got help.

Mental help is never a cost for society, it is an investment.

I’m glad that it helped and that it worked for such a seemingly somatic issue. I wouldn’t have thought that.

It's important to remember that the majority of gun deaths are suicides.

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.

this is a really weird comparison to make given that the US has basically made no material progress on policy that could prevent mass shootings.

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.

So yeah, why not?

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?

It doesn't have to be a competition, and similar things, like making it harder to get a gun, introducing/enforcing laws around locking up your weapon, making mental healthcare more available (including a hotline), etc., will greatly reduce both.

> I bet there is so much more we could do to reduce suicides

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.

Very much disagree and I am in California.

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.

I have a loved one who used the 988 hotline several times.

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.

If you want an ambulance dial 911.

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.

Well that's just not true. You're supposed to call 911 if you witness someone else in crisis, not the crisis hotline. The police will be sent because they have baseline training in de-escalation, and they have officers with specialized training in crisis negotiation. An ambulance is relevant only if someone is already hurt. They're medical professionals. Even in that situation, police officers are usually dispatched to investigate and to keep the ambulance personnel safe in a potentially unpredictable environment. And you're correct, protective custody exists and it's there to keep the person in crisis safe.

And yet the data shows that they did decline. I'm sure they could be much better, and the response will vary from state to state.

I find something darkly depressing and comedic about how we try to prevent people from shooting themselves by sending people with guns to help them.

They're crisis services, not emergency services. Anyone who is an immediate danger to themselves or others needs to be attended to by the first available emergency services. The attending services should be trained to deescalate, definitely, but I don't think this is an indictment of the crisis lines themselves. Less than 1% of calls to the crisis line result in any sort of emergency service dispatch.

A fact I've noticed is that suicide rates are higher in areas with lower population density. For example, Alaska's suicide rate is 4x what New York's rate is.

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.

I wasn't suicidal when I was in high school, but I absolutely understand people's depression around the school year.

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.

Adults put teenagers together and some of them get miserable. The adults’ response: oh lament the teenage woes, what is to be done. We are just adults with all the power on our side.

I get the feeling that modern Western society and institutions are woefully maladjusted for those particular years.

Those teenage moodswings are somewhat like upvoting/downvoting on HN.

> will they encourage struggling kiddos to make the leap and ask for support from an actual person?

Where's the profit in that?

> I think there's genuine value in going to an AI

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?

That's pure evil.

> All I know is that if I call this, they're going to wellness-check me...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/will-988-call-the-police-data-s...

"Many people in mental health crisis fear that if they dial 988, law enforcement might show up or they might be forced to go to the hospital. But getting sent that kind of 'involuntary emergency rescue' happens to around 1% of callers, suggests new data from Vibrant Emotional Health, the administrator of the 988 Lifeline for suicide and mental health crises."

This is a fantastically ridiculously comment.

> 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.

This is bootstraps by another name. “Just (don’t) do it” belongs in nike commercials, not in discussions surrounding behavioral health. If it were that simple then we wouldn’t have these issues at this scale in the first place.

Nancy Reagan “just say no” comes to mind.