Been volunteering with them for about six months on the Crisis texting line. So basically people text in when they are having issues and we are supposed to try to get them calmed down and hopefully some strategies towards managing their situation.

1) Basically anyone in crisis who is between 16-24 just threatens to kill themselves. I don't know when suicidality became almost like a trendy thing but 98% of the time it's done for attention. A ton of kids are also on meds and already have therapists.

The protocols don't help because even in situations where the person clearly isn't anywhere close to thinking about suicide, you have to check if they are. Every time. Just this morning I was told I need to clarify almost five times when a person was thinking about suicide because "this morning before I texted in" wasn't good enough.

2) Mental Health support networks like this one are massively useless. Instead of trying to actually help the person and suggest how to solve problems, you are supposed to coddle, give emotional support and suggest strength words so that the person feels better and then do a "warm close" and send them away. Every resource is around basic coping strategies like "go for a walk" or "listen to music". And if you actually suggest strategies beyond that a supervisor jumps in and tells you not to.

3) Lots of teenagers and young adults are simply not capable of basic functioning. I don't know how a lot of these people expect to ever hold a job or raise a family when the slightest bit of stress makes them incapable of leaving their house. The amount of university students in September I dealt with who were literally afraid to go to class because of emotional issues made me cringe. Guys who were afraid and hiding in their rooms who didn't want to even meet their roommates.

4) It's only going to get worse generationally when these people try to raise their own kids. Parents are to blame for mental health issues I'd say a majority of the time because they are either abusive, addicts or not present. In those cases I feel for the kids involved but wish there were ways to build mental resiliency for them to help themselves somehow.

The white man.....he is a.....

I could post a lot about this, but I just don't have the time right now.

But you can NOT dismiss suicidality in teens and young adults as being merely a cry for attention.

You should IMO validate their feelings as real and encourage them to allow plenty of time for it to pass.

Think stomach flu. When you are puking it sucks so bad. But if you have been through it before you know that it will stop and eventually you will be okay again.

These suicide feels and thoughts that are tearing you up? Coddle yourself just as if you had the flu. Do whatever you can to feel a little bit less bad and wait for it to pass.

Just on my morning news today- story about a fit 20 year old girl in college who seemed to have a bright future ahead, but ended her life.Link:
https://www.fox4news.com/video/1156691

This one gets to me. Hearing a lot of people are scared to do simple tasks like going to the grocery store and driving through rush hour traffic, even yeah people who can't talk to people they are close to, is very concerning. It sounds pathetic some people can't do it but you have to think of what factors in a person's upbringing usually lead to that. Imo and it's been beaten to death a hundred times now, but our internet -heavy culture is ****in people up hard. Everyone does everything from their couch or computer chair these days, no real endeavors or struggles take place.

People are too comfortable to the point where everyone is neurotic and doesn't know what they should be doing with their lives. Like op pointed out almost all of these people are not really suicidal, they are just latching on to something like the thought of suicide because it could be seen as a release from a banal, useless existence.

I agree with you somewhat, but I also believe that most people who actually intend to commit suicide for real you would rarely know about it. Having dealt with it directly myself, you don't see it coming.

My issue with the help line is that they focus on it intensely and often if you can distract people from those thoughts, they will pass better than if you force people to think about it over and over again.

mental health resources is lacking, but even then, it's debatable as to whether therapy actually helps in the long term because it's not measurable (or hasn't really been measured). Not to mention costly. So it's easier to put these kids on meds and call it a day. emotional support and kind words is only a band-aid fix and while important, is largely useless without a practical solution because they just relapse to the default which is depression. most struggle with being super anxious, freeze up mentally and are unable to take any action to change the situation. alot of this is their upbringing which can be difficult to undo.

was actually watching a video on AI and one of the things that could be automated is psychotherapy. basically, the AI would learn through scouring the internet and putting together strings of words and ideas. probably a long way from becoming feasible but I see this becoming the future. scary part is that it will probably give more reliable results than any humans can.

Bro, you can use that bot right now. It's called Chat GPT and that's exactly how it works.

https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/%5C/

Some brahs input SAT questions for it to answer and it scored a 1020. Srs.

first off all you are doing is providing a service which is literally to just calm people down. So yes you may work for a suicide hotline or crisis intervention call center but that is the RARE cases, the vast majority and for 100% of your "clientele" you are performing the service of calming chat. You are being paid to be a calming chatter. People are willing to pay for that and it helps people feel better so that just is what it is.

Second thing is most of this is because kids are sheltered away from confronting adversity by themselves now. Parents, teachers, and other people hand hold everyone through every life event so that they have NO coping skills and toughness to deal with and CONFRONT difficult or challenging situations in life. People try too hard to prevent every negative outcome from every happening but we HAVE to go through negative life events to become strong people and soft parents and controlling parents dont understand that.

No disagreement here. I think that is a faulty system.

I'm personally hoping that mental healthcare will make some big leaps forward.

Something called trauma aware therapy has already clued in to the idea that sitting an ruminating on negative past events *with out any active treatment* can essentially re-traumatize a person. IMO you need to achieve self-awareness and process whatever you are stuck on, but ruminating endlessly isn't helpful.

I understand the purpose of suicide risk screening, but also believe that it has limited usefulness because in most cases there isn't any real help on offer with fixing whatever has got you so far down. You could get some empathy, or you could just have a flag added to your medical records, or perhaps worst case you could be temporarily committed.

At this point I tend to believe that most mental illness is:

- genetic
- physiological
- situational
- lack of parenting, or parenting that was toxic/not good enough
- programming from previous trauma

Most of the current treatment protocols are of limited helpfulness, and some appear to be outright harmful.

Maybe someday we will move beyond our pointless separation of mental illness from "real illness".

I saw a recent video about the topic which made a good point- you wouldn't blame a person diagnosed with brain cancer for their reduced functionality and death, but we still stigmatize people who succumb to suicidal depression as weak.

99% of the time people threaten suicide verbally, it's pure bullchit for attention. The main exception to that may be if someone tells a psychiatrist or someone like that about it when asked, and only if they do so in a non-dramatic, simple matter-of-fact "these are the thoughts they claim they've had" fashion.

About 2.5 years ago, a cousin of mine who is a known longtime trainwreck (in his 30's at this point) told his mother he was suicidal. Wound up hearing from my work and being begged to call him and talk him off the ledge. I did, and spoke with him multiple times after that. The amount of lying and gaslighting he put me through was insane. Quit talking to him earlier this year because it's always the same BPD style bullchit. It gets old af real quick.

The uptick in this correlates EXACTlY with the beginning of social media and increases with the increased use and options of social media.

lol, it's not bad but I think it is unreliable. i think it does a lot better with mathematics or anything to do with coding. it can get some questions completely wrong at times and gives you different answers randomly. humans still do many functions better but that could change. including the psychotherapy world

inb4 sex dolls programmed with ChatGPT AI software to have them blow you on command