I realize I probably came off as very grumpy in that post. Eh, I was reliving a very grumpy memory. I wish I knew what suicide hotline this was (most likely I had googled “suicide hotline” to get the number and just picked the first one that popped up in 2001 search results). I also wish I had thought to get this woman’s name to report her. Or had have not called at all- heh, I guess there are a lot of things I did wrong that night, and in that year in general.
I do hate how the cops automatically believed this woman from the hotline over me- you know, because I was a wild-eyed, suicidally crazy girl and all. Erg.
Seeing as there are responses to this posts from people who have worked in these centers and was doing it correctly, I can grudgingly admit that what happened to me was atypical and nobody should be soured to hotlines in general.
Fortunately, it’s a non-issue for me now. I sleep better these days 
Wish I did (ah - insomnia). I’m glad you’re doing well.
Seconded.
Unfortunately, most crisis lines are volunteer so you get the luck of the draw. Many people are strongly motivated to volunteer as phone workers, possibly because of personal struggles with suicidal thoughts or the loss of someone in their family. I was in the latter group: my brother took his own life at age 23.
I am of the opinion that it is these people who can really make a difference, because not only do they care, but when they interact with callers, the individual on the like hopefully can feel the sincerity and take comfort in that.
With that said, I always heard from people who would tell me how nasty some of the other folks were, and I felt bad about that (I snickered when they told me who they spoke with, since even though we all had fake names we knew which phone worker went by “Sue” or “Chuck” or “Ann” or whatever).
One more point: even of the good phone workers, each person will click with only a subset of all callers, and when that chemistry is right the caller will feel better after the call. Sometimes it just doesn’t work and the caller hangs up in disgust, of no fault of the phone worker. I had this happen from time to time and it was discouraging, but then someone else would call and I would make their day a little better and forget about feeling bad.