Crisis line hold time greater than 25 minutes?

[Justmehere]

Called a crisis line and I've been on hold 25 minutes.

Does this happen in your area of the world?

 

[LuckiLee]

I have no idea. Did you get through to them? And more importantly did they help you? We're here if you need to talk.

 

[Eagle3]

I've tried the National crisis number online chat feature, and have only gotten to talk to a person....once, after a 90 minute wait. I've also waited some 1-2 hours just for the chatbox to never really activate. I don't talk on phones, so I don't know how the actual phone conversations work, but I've talked with off-duty crisis workers and they tell me business is non-stop lately. Short-staffed and more volume equals longer wait times. Sucks for those of us who need the services, I know. Hope you finally got through and it helped!

 

[Tinyflame]

I only tried the Samaritan's e-mail once, and they were quicker than I expected, but I was afraid of what I would say/ revealing too much. Could it be covid-related/ a staffing issue?

I hope you are ok.

 

[Justmehere]

@Eagle3 - 90 minutes? Yeesh.

It's probably pandemic related staffing issues, and general funding/state of the world issues. It was hard to stay on, knowing the need was so high and the resources so low. I did stay on, and after about 40 minutes, someone came on. They sounded sick, they said they were working from home, kids in the background. It was kind of useless. They asked symptoms, safety issues, what prompted the call. I gave frank, honest, 1-2 sentence answers. They validated I had an overwhelming number of things hitting me today and then informed me time was up and hung up.

PFFT.

I found another way to address the safety issues and etc. Not a great day or night. Helped to know it wasn't unique of an experience to wait so long.

 

[Movingforward10]

Yep. In the UK here and tried three different ones over a few days, couldn't get through on any of them until a few days later.
Admittedly I didn't wait, I was in the frame of "I need someone now and if not now I will just freaze and feel even more low".
I tried calling, I also tried online chat.

But eventually I got through

Keep trying.

 

[arfie]

i haven't called any of the hotlines, but the foster and pediatric care support is in a serious mess.

opportunistic infections are on the rise, but if it ain't covid, it don't count.

 

[Justmehere]

I've been around the block with these thoughts so many times. It's been awhile but now here I am again. Options even fewer. It's getting worse. I called the hospital and they were frank it would be days waiting in an ER - with covid in the air - to even be evaluated because of staffing. It's not death I'm afraid of but the suffering part of covid and being alive. I keep trying to handle it all alone. But that's backfiring. So I tried reaching out to a few friends and didn't talk about this just what is happening that is filling up my stress cup but for a variety of reasons they were not there for me, one offered to hopon FaceTime and they were playing a video game the whole time, so ya know, I didn't say much but small talk. I told him it was gone to play the game and didn't make needs known. I didn't have anything left to try. I don't have it in me to do another day alone. I broke down outside a cell phone store because one of the staff members recognized me and was kind. That's all it took. I keep thinking to myself I need to just make some changes and hang on through this and things will be less bad. Next moment I'm a flood of various level of suicidal and h have to leave my home and stay away from other spaces to try to stay alive. Counseling options are continuing on long wait lists. Or seeing a new intern Monday. That's my best option. The last counseling intern I saw I ended seeing in December after 4 sessions because she was so inexperienced it was backfiring.

What to do when options seem to be none.

 

[Movingforward10]

I'm sorry it is so tough right now @Justmehere .
Feeling hopeless and helpless is unbearable.
I really hope it passes for you soon.

When you have felt like this before, what has helped you?
Are there things like building in something to help, like a routine of something? Music? Exercise?

It sounds as though it is that human interaction that you need. Is there a support group near you that you can join?
Is there a way of saying to the friend "I'm finding it really hard to open up when you're playing the computer game" (maybe they didn't realise the gravity of what you wanted to talk about? I also would not open up if someone was focused on something else and only half listening).

 

[Friday]

What to do when options seem to be none.

For many years my fallback was to go check into a hotel, and let someone else take care of my “everything” for awhile. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, bills to keep the lights on, things to do, etc. all sorted for me by someone else… so I could concentrate on swimming in the pool, and eating/drinking/sleeping, and other “Let’s climb Everest, today!” tasks… until they weren’t Everest anymore, and I had re-centered. Even just a few days of not having to “do” anything hit the relief valve on a helluva lot of stress. A few weeks and I’d usually be kicking ass and taking names getting my routines renormalised. One of those: from on the edge to in the green.

If I hadn’t quite lost my mind, before I bailed to Room Service? I usually scheduled some kind of home repair where my insurance covered part or all of the relocation fees, or job, etc. A lot of the time, though, I just bailed. Incapable of doing anything else aside from “I need to be taken care of” checking in & faceplanting.

ETA…Better hotels the concierge can even hook you up with a therapist, although they tend to be pricey. I’ve done that a couple of times for another guest, never occurred to me to do so for myself until I didn’t need one. But better hotels concierges can possibly hook one up with anything short of a seat on the next Mars mission (although I wouldn’t put it entirely out of their reach). Still, I’m not sure that a therapist could even begin to be as helpful as all my needs being taken care of for the duration, wants optional.

 

[Justmehere]

The friend isn't good with emotional or serious stuff and I told him all I needed was human contact. It was within what his forte was which is why I didn't bother to lightheartedly ask to connect when the game was over. He even offered and I said it was fine. It just was the fact that someone who can't really handle stuff was the best option when I had stuff. I don't need him to change I need me to change my life to change.

I looked up various support groups and counseling options and they are either waitlists or closed for a variety of reasons or 5 times my price range. It's been a week of daily closed doors. Daily.

There's an art class I could take next month, that's a thing. Swimming with masters too once I get stronger after a recent injury, just being at the pool rehabbing may help. I keep running errands because at least there is human contact that distracts for a few minutes and I'm away from home.

At the end of the day to change the rest I have to do a lot of work alone at home and that's where I am sinking. Just sinking.

Even the options to try to medicate myself - doc prescribed or not - already have built up a tolerance too in a week and doesn't really work. So that all ends today.

When I'm home it's a mix of avoidance and overwhelm and I want to run! But even to run I have to get shit done.

Sometimes though it is the people and resources that are out of the box that work like staff at a hotel.

I crave routine. I have been working on setting up a home routine. Up, coffee, walk the dog, and then the thoughts rush in and run away with me.

If I can get myself into that routine, escape in healthy ways, I hope I'll reset.

 

[Friday]

If I can get myself into that routine, escape in healthy ways, I hope I'll reset.

One of the things I’ve come to realize is that part of WHY I’m so good in a crisis is that I’ve got a “drop everything” button. It doesn’t even occur to me to try and continue like normal, there’s no internal fight, no “but what IF…” or “but I just…”. I adapt to emergencies like a fish in water.

Which is both part of WHY routines and rituals are so central/vital to my thriving at normal life AND why they’re so. damn. hard. to maintain or start when my stress levels are up. My system override wants to drop everything and manage the crisis. But there is no crisis. And THAT is where the dithering internal fight I’ve witnessed so many people having as I’m shouting at them and grabbing them up to get them moving… enters MY life.

Which also means it’s no f*cking wonder that my SI jumps into massive overdrive when I’m fighting myself like this. No crisis? No crisis?!? Matter of f*cking life or death, it is, too!!!

I have a lot of different kinds of SI. Moooooooost of them, as f*cked up as it is, appear to be my brain trying to “help”. It just has an extreme series of solutions. Tired? Kill yourself. You won’t be tired anymore. Hurt/Angry/Sad/etc.? Kill yourself. You won’t feel this way anymore. Which box of cereal isn’t a matter of life or death, so you can’t focus on it? Cheers! We know how to fix this! Let’s make it a matter of YOUR life or death if you choose the wrong one! <smug> ….OH FFS BRAIN…. What? I’m helping! You’re not helping! Am, too. Am, not-I’m arguing with myself again. So sane. So healthy. If you kill your self sanity and fitness isn’t somehing corpses worry about. Shut up. Seriously. STFU.

The version I get into when my routines are attempting to EJECT BUTTON, however? Is different. More at a gut level, than a thinking level.

Which makes sense.

And also makes sense why building those routines works… because it’s like breathing through a panic attack. Sensorymotor superseding the autonomic. Conscious control overpowering unconscious control.

But survival mechanisms (like ditching routines to adapt fluidly to a rapidly changing situation) are a lot like children. Being being big/loud/scary might work in short bursts, BEHAVE! but most of the time? That just scatters them. Or sets them to getting sneakier about how they accomplish what them want. Getting children/survival mechanisms all working all in the same direction? Instead of pullin* me in 6 different directions, causing generalized mayhem, and “oops… I broke it”? Requires patience (that I’m short on), a sense of humor (last seen singing trios with my wits & motivation in a tavern 3 countries back), and repetition, repetition, repetition. The more FUN, the better. (I’m sorry, nothing has been fun for… IDFK how long, and I’m supposed to make this some kind of game? Aaaaaaargh.).

Like breathing through a panic attack.
Like breathing through a panic attack.
Like breathing through a panic attack.