I'm curious to see how far it goes...I have had a few friends like it already.

am so sick and tired of seeing this post floating around by people who have no idea what happens when you call a crisis line. Stop posting the suicide hotline number in an attempt to make yourself feel good and show how enlightened you are about mental illness. It's total ********. Try it sometime and tell them you are low. You know the ONLY response you get? You get told to go to the hospital. They don't talk to you. They don't help you. They just tell you to call your doctor or if you can't wait, to go to the ER. Or worse, I know people who have been hung up on by those suicide hotlines. But after you call, and you go to the ER, you know what happens?

You know what happens when you get to the ER? They intake you. Then they forcibly drug you. Then they put you in handcuffs and shackle you while you await a police escort to take you to a psych hospital...if you're lucky the escort may be in an ambulance, but often it's in a police vehicle. So you're depressed. Possibly suicidal. And the way they've been trained to deal with you is like a violent criminal. Do you know what a violation it feels like to be forcibly injected because you don't want to be involuntarily committed and all you wanted was someone to talk to, and yet all your "friends" can do is tell you to call a suicide hotline that only directs you to go the ER, so you can be abused legally.

You want to truly help people who have depression and need help? Stop telling them to call a hotline that provides no real help. Talk to them when they call. Invite them to sleep on your sofa so they'll be safe. Go over and play a board game with them to help distract them from their intrusive depressive thoughts. You don't have to give them advice. You don't have to fix them. Just ****ing be there if you're really a friend. If you really want to help, look up a therapist and help them get an appointment, because they may not be well enough to navigate that maze on their own. Take care of your own and stop fobbing them off on a "support" hotline that only contributes to vulnerable people being committed and abused by doctors who have no clue how to deal with the mentally ill.