mental health hotline

Most of the time, the mental health hotline cannot help you solve your real-life dilemma immediately, but it can steadily support your downward fall the second before your emotions fall off the cliff - this is the core meaning of its existence.

I worked as a volunteer operator at a municipal psychological assistance hotline for 8 months. The most memorable thing I received was a call I received at 2 a.m. Opposite me was a junior girl who was squatting on the balcony of her dormitory. Her voice shook like leaves in the autumn wind. She said that she had just leaned half of her body out. She accidentally dialed the hotline number posted in the hallway. She had no other request but wanted to find a stranger to listen to her cry for ten minutes. I didn't say anything, so I put on headphones and listened to her cry. After she cried, she sobbed and said, "It's strange. After crying, I feel like what happened just now is not that difficult." Before hanging up, she whispered thank you. I still remember that voice.

Interestingly, there has actually been debate in the industry over the role of mental health hotlines. Many counselors with a psychoanalytic orientation feel that this kind of instant hotline is too "short and quick" and does not have a stable counseling relationship as a basis. They do not even understand the most basic growth history of the client, and cannot touch the deep emotional roots at all. At best, it is a temporary emotional catharsis, which cannot solve the long-term psychological distress. ； However, practitioners in the field of cognitive behavioral and crisis intervention attach great importance to the "immediacy" of the hotline - many impulsive self-injury and suicidal thoughts appear in the ten or twenty minutes when the mood peaks. Someone catches the despair in the moment. When the hormone levels drop and rationality comes back online, most of the clients can make more rational choices on their own, which is more useful than ten long-term consultations afterwards. Both statements are supported by clinical data. There is no right or wrong, but the applicable scenarios are different.

Don’t think that only those who have been diagnosed with mental illness or have encountered something big are qualified to call the hotline. We did internal statistics at the time and found that nearly 60% of the complaints that came in were not considered "psychological problems" at all: they were probably because they were one point behind in the postgraduate entrance examination and then entered the re-examination, so they didn't dare to tell their parents for fear of disappointing them. ； Maybe I just finished an argument with my partner, and I looked through my address book and couldn’t find anyone who could listen to my complaints in the middle of the night. ； There was even an aunt in her 70s who called and said that her husband had passed away half a year ago and today was his birthday. She wanted to find someone to say "Happy birthday, you have done a great job" to her. Really, the operator will never judge whether your complaint is "serious" enough. If you are willing to call and express your emotions, it is enough. This thing is like a big basin of dirty water swimming around in your heart. It is usually blocked and cannot be poured out. Find someone you don't know to talk to it. Only when the water is emptied can your hands be free to take on a new life.

Of course, today’s mental health hotlines are not omnipotent, and there are actually quite a lot of problems. I have encountered callers complaining before, saying that they had called another hotline and just said they were heartbroken and didn't want to live anymore. The operator came up and lectured, "It doesn't matter what you do, think about your parents." After hanging up the phone, it became even more uncomfortable. This is a typical operator who has not received systematic crisis intervention training and applies his or her own values ​​​​to the caller, which in turn causes secondary harm. There are also lines that are busy during peak hours, hotline resources in third- and fourth-tier cities are insufficient, and some public welfare hotline operators are too mobile and service levels are uneven. These are old problems that have not been solved in the industry and there is no need to avoid them.

Half a month before I left my job, I received a package from an unknown address. Inside was a pack of wedding candies and a small note, saying that I was the girl who called me six months ago to cry about her fiancé running away from marriage. Now I have opened a small flower shop and I just met a new boyfriend. "I cried with you for forty minutes. When I hung up the phone, I felt like the sky was falling. Now that I think about it, if it hadn't been for that phone call, I might not have been able to survive that period."

You see, in fact, many times, what people want is never a standard answer, but someone willing to accompany you quietly in those few minutes when you are most embarrassed. And the mental health hotline is a place that leaves that light for you.