The idea is great and I admire those noble members who want to offer such service. I have done this in an unofficial way in another forum. After exchanging personal messging with the person and if there is further need, I have talked to such individuals. One guy was calling from Toronto. He said he already wrote his will and that he informed his wife that he couldn't live with the condition any more and would jump any day. I tell you, it is quite emotionally draining and the call lasted a long while not knowing if you can save such person. My wife had been alerted about such a call before hand and it was from a guy. So she supported it without issue even the long call got her alarmed a bit that if this type of service continue, how would it impact our family life.
There was another call from a lady lasting till 2 AM our time, and that one caused my wife unease and we ended up with a bit of argument over whether I should continue on. Our spouses may understand the need to help people but they may not support an ongoing support which can impact the family life and schedules, and which may have legal consequence. In the other forum when consulting with their admins about what to do with phone support, one admin who is more experienced on offering counseling did warn me about emotional dependency of some members, that they can call you frequently whenever they are in a bad mood whether you are ready or not. So the need and feeling of our immediate family members must be addressed too. I guess if you are single and unattached, it will be much easier to make such a decision.
Yes, the call can be emotionally draining and you are always afraid the wrong words were said that could cause the person to go ahead with doing the unthinkable, therefore causing you a life-time of guilt that you had contributed to their ultimate demise. For example, if the callers are looking for you to reassure that T will go away (otherwise he/she would not be able to live with it), and you give them a straight forward answer that most likely it won't go away but that there are ways to cope. Because they so trust your opinion and they are so desperate, perhaps they don't want a REACTION solution and mentally insist T must go away or else, then your honest answer may push them over the edge. You may offer them medical options if they don't want to wait for habituation, such as taking trobalt. But then are you sure you are in that capacity to advise that drug, when we have no medical training and when the drug isn't even intended for treating T? There are the legal issues that
@Sailboardman mentions that are for real if bad things happen and we can't ignore such reality.
So I think each member should decide what is the best way he/she can serve the T community. Each member comes with the desire to help, but each has different background and circumstances in life. Member should be free to participate or not and not be called out for taking his/her position one way or other.
Perhaps TT should provide a sticky thread at the top of the support board like the Positivity Thread, with guided steps about really suicidal members, such as filtering whether such member has called the doctors or local suicide hot lines, whether they have talked about such suicide ideations to their loved ones, and whether they are emotionally stable enough to participate in a CHAT session. If they do, then invite them to chat and notify members who have volunteered to join in the chat. Collective counseling may be even more powerful and it doesn't have to be depending only on one member's skill of counseling. Didn't we do that recently for a lady who posted a good-bye thread? Also even such chatting should be watched by TT attentively, because some members may be willing to help but may lack the patience.
I vividly remember one member who was trying to help a suicidal member in a support thread on the other forum a while ago. After so many members have counselled, the suicidal members still repeated the same line of argument, as if the advices given were of no value to him, and keeping on stating that his life isn't worth it. Then the unthinkable thing happened - one counselling member just lost the patience and posted 'Then why don't you just go ahead kill yourself'. Wow. I had to immediately inform the forum admin to delete such post. No every one is trained to be a crisis counsellor and do we have a means on TT to filter such member who is eager to help but lacks the skill to deal with a suicidal person?
Anyway, after such chat sessions, then TT should ask the member if he/she needs more private messaging. If so volunteers can be alerted about this. If there is further need for only personal call, then we know this person may be so emotional unstable and truly suicidal, and at least we know a bit about the person's emotional state as well as the detail of his/her T through the filtering process. Then whoever volunteering can focus the call on the specifics of the real problem. This also can limit the duration of the call instead of dragging for hours and more members can afford to do this. I am sure most members can do such call once a while even if it is long and repeated call, but to be an on going service, it needs more structured planning. Just a thought and my humble 2 cents.
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