Suicide hotline

[u/Any-Syrup3553]

Where I live there is a suicide hotline.

It's only been around for the past 5 years, if I remember correctly. Born in the middle of quarantines. A small group of volunteers run it, they're not state-funded or funded by any big organizations. It's better this way, though of course there are big downsides.

Few people know about the hotline since the volunteers don't have money for marketing campaigns. Their main forms of advertisement is posting on the hotline's facebook page, and word of mouth. About 2 years ago they finally got google to put the hotline as the top result when someone looks up suicide-related things. Very recently they finally got their own website.

Since the hotline is run by volunteers, it's not available 24/7. You can only call from Wednesday to Sunday, from 1 PM to 8:30 PM. So if you suddenly wanted to kill yourself at 9 AM on a sunny Tuesday morning, you would have to wait another 4 hours to get helped. This thought alone had, ironically, helped prevent me from committing many times.