| 8/30/2006 |
CALL ME WHEN YOU'RE SOBER
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I'm cleaning out my closets. It's a clearance sale and EVERYTHING MUST GO!!!
My "story" closet that is. There have been things over the past few years that I've been blogging that I would've loved to write about at the time. Yet, because of not wanting to berak confidentiality at a past job, or because I was worried a feeling or two might get hurt. The people involved are either A) no longer involved 2) no longer under unwritten rules about talking about their job on the internet III) no longer people I care about what they think.
I'm not planning on burning any bridges or stepping on any toes. I think the statute of limitations has expired on some of my tales and they are free to roam the pastures of the internet.
So in the spirit of entertaining stories...
I used to work at The Girls & Boys Town National Hotline. (Yeah... I know there is some subtle irony about a gay man working at a strict Catholic organization. It's not lost on me. That's a story for another time.) Perhaps, you've heard of the group home? We got calls ranging from people on the brink of committing suicide to parents having problems with their kids to senior citizens who were just lonely and needed someone to talk to at 4am. It may sound depressing, but it was actually the best job I ever had.
I loved the immediate response and reaction of either people able to help someone or get them help. Working at a crisis hotline, people can come in with what we nicknamed "Superman Sydrome". They wanted to save the world. When the reality of the type of calls that they would be answering sat in, they would become frustrated.
You (hopefully) learn early that not everyone wants to be helped. Some people prefer to just complain about their problems for the attention. So people don't realize they needed help. Those were the ones that left the biggest impression on me.
There were three main shifts. Day. Evening. Overnight. Each with their own type of calls. Daytime calls were parents calling for information about how to enroll their child in G&BT. Evening calls were teenagers calling with various issues, suicides, any number of issues. This was not the busiest time, but certainly the most variety of calls came in during this time. I worked overnight. This was when the wackiest calls would come in. There was a variety of calls, but of a complete different nature. Suicides. Seriously mental ill. Lonely senior citizens. Perverts. Pranksters.
I took to the phones right away after training. I picked up on how to talk to people and get to the heart of the matter pretty quickly. My inability to maintain a casual small talk conversation in real life worked well for phone counseling where you had to cut to the chase.
There was always the pressure of when you'd get your first suicidal caller and how you handle it. The first person who says they've taken pills. The first person who says they want to jump of something. The first person who 'says'... anything is so much less pressure than the first person who has 'done' something.
"I've cut my wrists." "I've taken pills." "I've got a gun."
Oddly enough, the suicide calls were much easier to handle than a typical parenting call. With a suicide call there is a protocol to follow. People to contact for just such an emergency. Everyone knows there role. With a parent calling about their child, the issue may be broad and the solution elusive... if there even is one.
It wasn't my first suicidal caller, but it was the one I would remember the most. I had only been working at the hotline about 6 months at this point. "John", 25 years old, (obviously not his real name) had called at a little after two in the morning. He was upset because he was certain that he had fucked up his life beyond hope. Drugs. Alcohol. Possible jail time. He said he had a gun, and he wanted to use it on himself.
Guns always ramped up the seriousness of a call, for reason that I don't think really need to explained in much detail.
John had called with thoughts of suicide. He was semi-religious. Or just religious enough to be able to quote scripture. Not being religious myself, I found it hard to keep up such a topic. John wanted someone who could sympathize with his issues. (Who doesn't?) He wanted someone to make all his problems go away. While it wasn't going to happen overnight, the conversation took on two facets. Explain how he could make things better, and to sustain the call. Keep him talking 'til help arrived.
My supervising counselor was alerted to the situation and began monitoring my needs on the call in order to send help. Location. Demographics of the caller. Method of harm. Passing any information she could to the proper authorities.
John and I continued to talk. Talking to him about anything and everything. Trying to keep him focused on the call, but also keep his focus off the gun he had. This went on for the first hour with moderate sucess. The police were having trouble locating him. Just my luck.
It's always the 'serious' calls that the person is calling from some podunk in the middle of nowhere, that the sherrif has to be woke from a sound sleep to go investigate on the other side of the county. That sounds harsh, but it's just Murphy's Law playing out to it's fullest.
It turns out the identifying information that John was giving was false. Which is understandable. It happened quite often and really... I can't blame the callers for not being forth right with where they lived and real names and such things.
Hour #2 was spent trying to really figure out where he was. The subtle approach wasn't working. The direct approach was needed. "Where do you live, John. I want to send you some help."
"Don't send any f*&%ing cops to my house. I'll shoot them as them come in my door." Which then lead to the SWAT team being called in and Hour #3 of my call with John. This hour was devoted to keeping him calm that the police only wanted to help him. It was probably the most difficult period. Trying to keep an already paranoid suicidal caller on the line when the idea of police had been suggested really involved some pleading on my part.
We talked about everything. I'm sure I repeated my questions a few times. I know I heard about his ex-girlfriend a few times. I heard about his dishonorable discharge a couple times as well.
During Hour #4 (yes... four hours talking to the same caller. When the typical call lasted maybe an hour if it was serious.) there was a lot of pleading on my part to my supervisor. "Where are the police?"
Because of the nature of the call and John's statements about shooting anyone who came in. They had surrounded his apartment building, barracaded off the block, and had a SWAT team standing by. They weren't about to just barge on in.
There was a knock at his door that I could hear. "Thank God, the police are there," I thought. John quickly said he had to go and hung up the phone.
End of story? I wish... The police had suggested I call him back and continue to keep him on the line while they... I don't know what they were hoping woud happen at this point. I managed to get ahold of him (now it's a little before 6 in the morning) and he said it was his neighbor at the door to ask if he knew why the apartment building was surrounded by cops.
As I fessed up and explained the situation and what we had done to try and make sure he was safe and didn't harm himself or anyone else... he hung up. Can you blame him?
I was spent. I took a few moments to do the most mundane things. Go to the bathroom. Get a drink of water. Have a donut. Then I sat down to write my call report.
The police had decided to move in shortly there after he hung up with me. Later, as I was typing up my report the police had called back to inform us that not only was he claiming to have never called the hotline. He was never in the military. There was no ex-girlfriend. The searched the apartment thoroughly and never found a gun of any kind. John had been drinking, a lot, from the various recently emptied containers scattered about. He was not wanted by the police for any crime they were aware of. The majority of what he had told me was false.
Say you want to kill yourself? I know what to do. Lie to me about it for four hours while I try to help you? I lose it.
I finished my report, made my way to an empty conference room down the hall, and lost it... I cried out of frustration. Out of feeling deceived. Out of spending myself emotionally and knowing it was all for nothing.
Remember that Superman Syndrome I mentioned? I just found out that I coudn't fly. I didn't have heat vision. I couldn't run faster than a VW Beetle with transmission problems, let alone a bullet.
I turned a corner at that point. How much of myself could I give? How much of myself *should* I give? Looking back on the call later, I could see where I could have gotten a better grip on where the conversation went. Not felt so out of control. Not felt like I had no ability to help. My skin thickened a little bit that morning. I still cared about the people that were calling with honest-to-goodness issues. Even those who called in and were faking it... I still cared about. But they had different issues.
That call was atypical for the type of calls I got, but not for the type of calls that were recieved by the hotline in general.
There are plenty of people out there that need help. Luckily there are plenty of people willing to help, if you let them. Honesty. Straight-forwardness. Courage to look an issue in the 'eyes' and say you won't let it overcome you. Inner strength to ask for help.
I miss that job. |
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I posted this @ 8/30/2006 12:51:00 PM.............Need a link?..........
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