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Originally Posted by Rose76
Being "very wary" sounds like real good advice to me. That's actually something that comes up for discussion a lot here at PC. Lots of us have learned the hard way that you have to pick who you confide in.
Oh, you mentioned crisis hotline people at the top of the thread. Some of those lines are manned by volunteers who can vary a lot in their capacities. Many are wonderful. A real problem on those lines, IMO, are paid non-professionals. I had a horrid experience talking to such a person on a very bad night. Communities sometimes contract with a health care organization to provide a hot line. In my area, the HCO staffed it with paid non-professionals whom they gave some sort of training. They were the most awful, cynical characters you could ever talk to. You have to assess the person you are confiding in before you say much.
Even employees in a psychiatric facility are not, all of them, what you would hope. Ultimately you have to protect yourself.
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Yes, this is very very good advice. Thank you. I used crisis hotlines in December and got a few good people. I got a few others who seemed barely trained and in a few instances got people who were borderline rude. Talking to hotline people kind of got me out of my head space and that was a good thing but I have now refrained from using those hotlines because I do not want to have a bad experience like you did, especially on on bad night. So I don't want to push my luck.
Depression is so isolating. That is the nature of it. It also may even point to the fact that life itself is so isolating. It is not only mental illness that isolates...but terminal illness as well. My mother, for instance, was a highly social person and extremely active as a professional and volunteer. But when she became ill I saw her social circle get smaller and smaller. It was sad.
I was young and couldn't really understand it because it seemed so cruel. Even family members - certain of her children - pulled away. I was there with her to the end...and truth be told I learned a lot by being with her through her suffering. She knew she could confide in me. After awhile my presence was enough. But the point is when I saw how alone and lonely my mother was at the end it was unbelievable because she had been there for so many people. And they all turned up at the funeral with their great stories about my Mom. But where were they when she could have used someone to sit by her bed and hold her hand? Absent.