alt.hn

4/22/2026 at 4:07:56 PM

Youth Suicides Declined After Creation of National Hotline

 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/science/988-youth-suicides-decline.html

by marojejian

4/22/2026 at 6:56:40 PM

A while ago I was seriously sick + in a hospital (for a few months). The doctors told me that I won't be able to resume my regular job (software engineer). At the same time I was in a lot of pain – unable to sit, walk, stand. It was not really clear how it all would end.

I got deeply depressed and just wanted to die. The pain was just too much - even with controlled pain medication in a hospital setup.

I called the German crisis hotline almost every night and they were usually very very helpful. They listened - sometimes for 1-2 hours. In 90% of my calls I felt way better after calling them. They really are well trained and some of the personalities I talked to were pretty impressive and interesting… They have seen a lot…

by umpalumpaaa

4/22/2026 at 11:17:48 PM

I hope that you feel better now. And I am very happy that you got help.

Mental help is never a cost for society, it is an investment.

by Frieren

4/23/2026 at 8:39:06 AM

> it is an investment.

Everything is a capital metaphor.

by keybored

4/23/2026 at 12:11:11 AM

> Mental help is never a cost for society

At the risk of going “No True Scotsman” on this assertion, I would point out that providing such services has been increasingly lucrative and it is a growth industry where new providers are arising constantly, and existing ones are expanding vigorously.

That means that the space for fraud, waste, and abuse is gigantic. I have, on occasion, perused the FOIA lists of de-licensed providers, and this list reads like a watchlist of dangerous religious cults, because that is literally what they are.

Imagine if the state and taxpayers could fund a variety of new religious movements in efforts that would be lauded as “health care”. It is absolutely amazing.

Many unlicensed or unscrupulous recovery facilities have been scooping addicts off the streets, because you taxpayers are funding “housing” and “treatment” that is so attractive to client and provider alike. Drug-addled Indigenous men willingly hop into unmarked vans that cross state lines to drop them into homes (literally looking like private homes in residential neighborhoods) where they supposedly get treatment “for free”.

Those outpatient facilities that are invisible only need to get a patient hooked so they keep coming back every month, and that’s a guaranteed paycheck. Everyone you see living under bridges and in sewers, they represent billable hours for outpatient clinics. They are far more valuable than they appear because of the taxpayer dollars that support their ongoing “treatment” and “recovery”. It’s probably not worthwhile to get them off the streets, because of how valuable they already are!

Reagan moved to close the asylums after One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but if you drive through the cities today knowing what to look for, you’ll see enormous BH facilities going up like mu$$$hrooms, literally.

Not to mention the unspoken costs to sanity of the workers themselves. BH is always hiring and there are always job openings, even for the mentally ill themselves to be “peer support”, so often your treatment will involve one or more people with mental illness already. Nurses and doctors burn out. Have you ever seen Harry Potter and how many teachers for Defence Against the Dark Arts he had? It’s exactly like that.

In fact, the new national crisis line is established as a funnel, to funnel new and existing clients back into the “treatment and recovery” systems, because there is so much profit in keeping them there.

by ButlerianJihad

4/23/2026 at 4:49:46 AM

The vultures circling taxpayer money are active in all areas where there's blind spending without oversight. This has been known since forever.

by 0rbiter

4/23/2026 at 9:58:00 AM

There is a unique character to grifting and fraud in the BH industry. Look at other entitlements such as housing. With HUD/Section 8 they pay for rent, and it goes to housing or it doesn't. It may go for low-quality housing or overpriced housing, but typically it puts a roof over one's head. Or SNAP: it pays for food. Fraudsters may find a way to trade it and use it illicitly, or purchase nothing but tri-tip steak, candy and Sprite, but that's food and it goes in your belly. Any cash-based entitlements that go into a citizen's pocket, they have qualified and applied and run the gauntlet of paperwork for that; generally they spend that money on well-being, but that's personal money in the bank, and will not fund institutionalized fraud.

With BH treatment, what is paid for? What efficacy does it have? How does it work? Nobody really knows. Is more better? What are the best methods? Nobody really knows. BH success comes down to obedience and compliance.

Furthermore, we've discussed mass shootings in here a bit, and I just want to mention how the BH system encourages and increases mass shootings. There is nothing like a melange of psychoactive drugs in someone's system to give them S.I. and H.I. We saw it as early as Charles Whitman and we saw it again at Columbine. Listen to the news: anytime an active shooter "had a history of mental illness" they were probably hopped up on drugs to do the deed. There's a Broken Window Fallacy at work, only it's about broken lives, human violence, and hospitalization. So think about that when you call for more funding, more legislation, more treatment: it's an ourobouros that would make Trent Reznor suffer.

Clinics, as I said, are new religious movements. HUD and SNAP cannot fund the establishment of new religions. What could possibly be more ripe for exploitation than vulnerable religious adherents and cult members (who firmly believe that they are medical paitients!) and juicy tax dollars that pay for amorphous "services"?

by ButlerianJihad

4/23/2026 at 10:28:43 AM

My partner in the USA texted a state-wide hotline for mental health. What she got was a simple not-even-chatGPT chatbot that ignored everything she said and, quite frankly, made it worse. It makes me absolutely furious.

I think that the people inside the US healthcare system mean well, but unfortunately the system itself is setup purely to generate exponential profits off illness. I think that the range of therapy, and sometimes medication that we have available to us is a fucking godsend and I'm glad that it's improving, but the number of gates in front of getting any of it are often completely impossible for someone who is in physical or mental peril.

Both me and my wife have been homeless, and there is -no support- for this. There's "support" on paper, but the reality of it is that most shelters have turn you away because they're underfunded and overfilled. Receiving support is a difficult thing to navigate when you're doing well, which makes a lot of the hurdles impossible to navigate when you're not doing well.

It would be cheaper and vastly more effective to simply give people UBI, a place to stay (there are hundreds of thousands of places with no homeowner and actively rotting in the UK, because they've been bought up by a conglomerate and neglected), and addiction support/mental health support. The research even supports the efficacy of doing this, and various pilot programs show that it's vastly more effective and cheaper. But hah! It doesn't seem like it should work because of the lies that have been told about the homeless, and it's not convenient to the narrative of "you just gotta work harder. I guess it's your fault you're poor" so I guess we're not getting it anytime soon.

by fao_

4/22/2026 at 7:00:09 PM

I’m glad that it helped and that it worked for such a seemingly somatic issue. I wouldn’t have thought that.

by keybored

4/22/2026 at 7:49:49 PM

That's understandable. I went through a period of chronic pain and, had it continued, I likely wouldn't be alive today.

The mechanisms protecting us from non-existence by millions of years of evolution can be eroded by pain. It's not something you realize you even have to lose until you've experienced it firsthand. I certainly never expected it, and it's hard for me to imagine what I'd intended while going through it.

by washadjeffmad

4/22/2026 at 9:20:24 PM

I just listened to a fascinating podcast episode of Armchair Expert on pain psychology that went into such topics [0].

May not be some folks’ cup of tea, but I was sucked in and want to study more.

[0] https://armchairexpertpod.com/pods/rachel-zoffness

by jodacola

4/22/2026 at 11:34:14 PM

In the US they try to get you off the phone after 5 min and you can hear it in their voice, I know there is a lot of traffic but still it doesn’t help

by b3ing

4/23/2026 at 12:01:15 AM

Imagine if you and 1,000 of your neighbors called the 9-1-1 dispatch for a little heart-to-heart.

This number in the USA is designated for people in crisis, and a crisis responder is going to be under time pressure to resolve your crisis or hand off the situation to some other team as it de-escalates.

My county also has a “Warm Line” that everyone is encouraged to call, but they do set timers. Once your timer runs out, they tell you how long to wait, and then you can call back.

If your case is so involved that it requires extensive discussion, then they can refer you to a clinic or local professional who can help, you know, during normal business hours.

Mental health care often involves long conversations, but the mentally ill can also chew up enormous airtime by talking, and talking to the wrong person. The crisis operators are not therapists and they’re not paid to establish relationships.

by ButlerianJihad

4/23/2026 at 12:16:23 AM

I wonder what they can really achieve in 5 minutes beyond sending the police to do a mental health hold on you? I always thought these lines in the USA were just ways to rat yourself out to get a mental hold (imprisoned, at your own astronomical cost) and then your civil rights (guns) revoked.

Having been imprisoned at a hospital, though not for mental health (falsely accused as drug smuggler by insane cops), I think I'd rather risk suicide if I were in such a state, rather than alert someone who would send the authorities.

by mothballed

4/23/2026 at 1:17:33 AM

it would be interesting to see if there was increase in involuntary hospitalisation and that’s what actually made the difference

by cybercatgurrl

4/23/2026 at 1:27:26 AM

No, I don't think that the establishment of crisis lines or putting more resources to work, will result in such an increase. It is a question of moving the funnel and allocating better resources.

The MH Crisis Line may prevent unfair arrests and jailings. It may prevent certain altercations with law enforcement. It may prevent, or at least accurately predict, domestic violence incidents and so forth. The problem with 9-1-1 is that calling for an Emergency resulted in the dispatch of armed police and/or paramedics and firefighters who were poorly equipped to deal with the autistic ADHD non-verbal manchild having a meltdown. Also, many communities are filled with hatred for cops and other first responders in uniform. Sending them can cause secondary incidents and violence.

So if you've got a Crisis Line with people equipped for mental health stuff, then you can send the correct responders. Many municipalities have already established teams like in a "Care Van" who can connect with citizens, establish rapport, and get them referred to services, non-violently, but really urgently.

That will make all the difference. Perhaps it will result in more, or fewer, involuntary hospitalizations, but it represents a solid funnel into those services and allocates more resources to deal with incidents that would only be exacerbated by armed and militarized police/fire/EMTs.

by ButlerianJihad

4/22/2026 at 9:02:32 PM

[flagged]

by dyauspitr

4/22/2026 at 9:12:01 PM

At least you’re honest. And I don’t think it’s rare. I know some Bay Area high end escorts and they say overworked programmers are the bread and butter.

by kridsdale1

4/22/2026 at 4:07:56 PM

gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/science/988-youth-suicide...

I bet there is so much more we could do to reduce suicides, which are a massively big problem. I wish we paid as much attention to suicide as we do to very rare mass shootings, which kill a tiny fraction of the people.

by marojejian

4/22/2026 at 4:46:35 PM

It's important to remember that the majority of gun deaths are suicides.

It's also important to remember that any blocker between a potential suicide victim and the weapon of choice reduces rates greatly. A gun locked in a safe where the potential suicide knows the code - reduces rates.

by bombcar

4/22/2026 at 6:53:37 PM

> It's also important to remember that any blocker between a potential suicide victim and the weapon of choice reduces rates greatly. A gun locked in a safe where the potential suicide knows the code - reduces rates.

RAND found that minimum age requirements and child-access prevention laws reduced suicides and unintentional injuries/deaths and violent crime:

* https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/child-acce...

* https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/minimum-ag...

* https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy.html

by throw0101d

4/22/2026 at 4:58:35 PM

https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/data.html

the data from CDC agrees with you, and agrees that a firearm is most common method.

but also indicates age correlate with freq of suicde by firearm.

guess who the least frequent group is, kids.

now that might fly in the face of stats, but suicide is an "intentional" thing. [that rides on the idea that you are competent to form intent when suicidal]

so yes if you keep your guns secure, and gun proof your kids to mitigate accidents that should improve things, for kids.

however take at least as much care for your grandparents, they are apparently at extreme risk, of forming intent and, acting especially grandpa.

by rolph

4/22/2026 at 5:13:05 PM

The point of the second part is that grandpa locking up his gun reduces his risk of suicide. Anything that adds a "checkpoint" that activates even some small other part of the brain seems to help.

by bombcar

4/22/2026 at 5:19:24 PM

yeah you got it, the reasons why it seems to be the better choice are somewhat glum. terminal illness with no quick relief in sight, an estate now the best contribution to be made vs impending medical expenses.

it might work for spur of the moment almost reflex decisions, but its a different story when the choice is made over a few years, reinforced by physical reasons.

by rolph

4/22/2026 at 6:17:15 PM

> however take at least as much care for your grandparents, they are apparently at extreme risk, of forming intent and, acting especially grandpa.

What if allowing suicide is taking care of one's grandparents? After all, if I was diagnosed with a awful condition like Alzheimer's, ALS, etc.. I am absolutely going out that way once I start having more bad days than good days.

by hirvi74

4/22/2026 at 8:51:33 PM

That’s why we have laws protecting end of life rights in Oregon - which are much preferred over millions of firearms in the hands of ‘rEsPoNsIbLe gun oWnErS’, impulsive and impaired decision making, and someone walking into a traumatic mess coming back home.

by dlev_pika

4/22/2026 at 9:45:07 PM

Most of the rest of states use hospice as a way to kill people with morphine. Basically they give the patient as much as they want, and usually stops their heart.

Naturally, medically assisted suicide is illegal in most states. But its wink wink nudge nudge "pain management".

by mystraline

4/22/2026 at 10:08:09 PM

I hear you - as usual, people will do what they need to do in the way they can.

Personally, I wish we collectively recognized that this ‘pain management’ is a disservice to all dealing with those situations, much like handing out medical marihuana cards to recreational users was for actual patients, or women addressing family planning issues in some less than acceptable settings. Alas…

by dlev_pika

4/22/2026 at 11:31:07 PM

Yeah. We focus so much on suicide without sorting out whether it's temporary despair or declining health where there is no good answer.

We should be trying to help/prevent the former, for the latter I think we should only be trying to be sure they're not the former. But the data always lumps them and I get very suspicious when data lumps two very different cases.

by LorenPechtel

4/22/2026 at 5:41:28 PM

Interesting. What causes this? Could it have to do with the type of person to keep a gun in a safe (has kids, is more cautious in general, etc) or have studies shown that this minor friction is actually enough?

by skylerwiernik

4/22/2026 at 5:46:55 PM

Suicide tends to be impulsive. Any friction, even brief, can give an opportunity to think twice.

by ceejayoz

4/22/2026 at 5:49:09 PM

That was the general conclusion as I recall it. Originally it was thought to be "someone else has the key" kind of things - which of course, does limit it - but even controlling for "I have to walk downstairs and find the key" reduces it.

by bombcar

4/22/2026 at 5:29:46 PM

the Israeli military did a study about ~15 years ago where they looked at soldier suicide rates after they had enacted a policy of leaving the weapons at base over the weekend and if I recall correctly it cut the rate of suicides by 40-50%.

by Barrin92

4/22/2026 at 7:02:07 PM

And on the flip side, the US Sec Def recently allowed US soldiers to carry loaded weapons on base (when not in a role that required it, which was previously disallowed). I expect this will increase suicides on US military bases. All for some "rah rah, 2A, mah rights!!!" bullshit political posturing.

by alistairSH

4/22/2026 at 7:26:17 PM

That policy has long been a kinda funny "gee, why don't they allow it if more 'good guys with guns' make us safer?" example.

I guess at least this removes that bit of rhetorical inconsistency... at, guaranteed, a notable cost in lives.

by lamasery

4/22/2026 at 5:40:09 PM

The US Veteran's Affairs agency makes a free app to help with insomnia; it has all the usual advice that would apply to anyone - plus advising veterans not to keep a loaded gun by the bed, even if it makes them feel safer going to sleep.

by ajb

4/22/2026 at 8:00:55 PM

I bet that has as much to do with where and when alcohol is consumed as it does guns.

by cucumber3732842

4/22/2026 at 6:19:59 PM

this is a really weird comparison to make given that the US has basically made no material progress on policy that could prevent mass shootings.

they're both really really bad things. they both deserve as much attention as we can afford (which is more than they get).

not to just jump down your throat -- i agree with you about more needing to be done to prevent suicides though. i think it's a good thing that hotlines are available but it's clear that putting the onus on people who are considering suicide to reach out for help is not enough. we gotta get better at reaching out and checking on our friends, loved ones, coworkers etc and help them carry the load more than we're culturally accustomed to.

by GuinansEyebrows

4/22/2026 at 6:47:39 PM

> the US has basically made no material progress on policy that could prevent mass shootings

Mass shootings vary significantly state to state, in part —I think—due to different gun and mental health laws [1].

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/mass-shooting-rat...

by JumpCrisscross

4/22/2026 at 6:33:51 PM

in your opinion, what policy should be made because whatever policy you make won't do much as long as guns exist?

by fhn

4/22/2026 at 11:40:05 PM

Australian policy on guns (princially unifying existing gun regulation across all of Australia including Queensland, Tasmania, and the Territories) had a significant impact on mass shooting, individual shooting, gun suicides, etc throughout the 30 years following the Port Arthur massacre.

During the period legitimate gun ownership (people with guns) has sharply declined in larger urban areas, remained about the same in "working with guns" population demographics, and total numbers of guns in Australia have increased.

No large scale mass shootings since, no "mass shootings" (four or more dead / injured (?? - I can't recall the low bar threshold)) at all for nearly 30 years, three or four such events total overall rather than the practically one a day numbers in the USofA.

No policy or constitution is perfect, of course, Australia is currently in a period of revising some of that policy.

by defrost

4/23/2026 at 12:30:35 AM

18 casualties at Croydon park (2025), 57 at Bondi Beech (2025), and a rough survey[] looks like the period proximal before Port Arthur doesn't look much different than after.

The largest one before Port Arthur was Milperra, armed motorcycle gangs, which Australia is speedrunning into resurrecting through their boneheaded cigarette taxes that haved turned half of cigarette vendors into nodes of the black market.

Much fewer than USA, but the Port Arthur changes don't seem to have had much effect.

[] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_Aust...

by mothballed

4/23/2026 at 12:43:03 AM

As noted, no poilcy is perfect or works forever .. hence the need to adapt as time passes.

Yes, we had decades without mass shootings and suppressed casual crime gun usage to near zero.

> which Australia is speedrunning into resurrecting through their boneheaded cigarette taxes that haved turned half of cigarette vendors into nodes of the black market.

Yeah, the taxes were smart and worked, continuosly increasing them to chase diminishing returns was not smart and once a threshold was crossed it spawned an entire new criminal network that had old school motorcycle gangs shaking their heads for crossing various prior "lines" ( family retribution, etc ).

> but the Port Arthur changes don't seem to have had much effect.

Aside from substantially less gun crime, deaths, injuries per capita than the US.

by defrost

4/23/2026 at 1:04:00 AM

The USA is an invalid control group for comparing the before/after of Port Arthur era gun law changes of the sorts of events you noted in Australia.

by mothballed

4/23/2026 at 1:16:23 AM

Australia doesn't have the Second Amendment.

In the US, any gun legislation that could possibly be effective at eliminating gun violence would also by definition be unconstitutional, since there is no way to prevent gun violence to any significant degree without infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

And a Constitutional amendment to repeal or change the 2A is existentially impossible as it would require the cooperation of Southern states and would threaten the billion dollar gun lobby.

by krapp

4/23/2026 at 1:42:10 AM

Nor does the UK, nor most of the 190+ countries about the globe.

This is tangential to whether gun policy can work or not.

> In the US, any gun legislation that could possibly be effective at eliminating gun violence would also by definition be unconstitutional,

And yet many US states already have gun legislation ... and arguably more regulations and fiddly shit than Australia does.

What the US lacks is the ability to have clean, simple, uniform gun laws across all states AND uniform _enforcement_ of such laws.

by defrost

4/23/2026 at 1:48:13 AM

>What the US lacks is the ability to have clean, simple, uniform gun laws across all states AND uniform _enforcement_ of such laws.

Yes. that is what would be unconstitutional. States can have their own gun laws but the Federal government is restrained by the Second Amendment. Mostly it has to abuse the Commerce Clause to justify its ability to regulate guns as interstate commerce.

by krapp

4/23/2026 at 2:13:19 AM

So, it's a failure of the US ability to implement policy, not a failure of enacted policy to be able to make a difference.

Luckily, it's an Ammedment that is subject to interpretation, change, and/or removal.

Recall that US history has examples of Ammendments being both added and removed, that recently the Federalists saw fruit of a 30 year long campaign to stack the judicial pipeline, and the US landed on the moon.

The country is capable of difficult things, it's a matter of finding the will and making the grind.

by defrost

4/22/2026 at 10:19:49 PM

Policy still matters even if guns exist. After all, murder is still illegal even though murderers exist. Building a bomb is still illegal even though bombs exist.

The tricky part with the US is the already vast supply of firearms circulating. Can't do much about that.

But, I would think, stopping or reducing the sale of guns right now would still have an effect. We already somewhat regularly try to reduce the sale of guns via policy, mostly to people we think are potentially dangerous.

But, I don't know exactly how much that has helped, or will help. What I do know is there is definitely variance in gun violence. Both across nations, but also across states in the US. So, something is behind it.

by array_key_first

4/22/2026 at 6:47:53 PM

are you asking me, a numbskull with an associate's degree, to propose public policy*? i think we're allowed to want qualified people to do better in the positions we've elected them to :)

* if so, my policy is that all guns be vaporized overnight. also, my policy would include the end of lobbying entirely, including but not limited to the small arms industry and the NRA along with police guilds and other organizations supporting the small arms race in this country

by GuinansEyebrows

4/22/2026 at 6:11:14 PM

> I bet there is so much more we could do to reduce suicides

I am absolutely certain that is the case, however, society operates with such demands from individuals that a majority of necessary changes would be adamantly fought against by those which stand to benefit from the suffering.

Having been through the whole mental health treatment gamut in the USA, I am convinced the only goal of the system is to patch people up just enough that they can be churned back into the capitalist machine. What makes things even sicker, is that one's health insurance is often tied to their employment, so in order to receive basically any treatment, one is typically required to be employed and working.

by hirvi74

4/22/2026 at 5:18:41 PM

It doesn't have to be a competition, and similar things, like making it harder to get a gun, introducing/enforcing laws around locking up your weapon, making mental healthcare more available (including a hotline), etc., will greatly reduce both.

by dfxm12

4/22/2026 at 5:35:11 PM

[flagged]

by mondomondo

4/22/2026 at 6:11:00 PM

I mean... important by what metric?

Active shootings in the US kill like 100 people a year (as of 2024 I guess: https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/reports-and-publications...)

Suicides is more like 50,000/yr

by dmoy

4/22/2026 at 6:21:08 PM

Yeah when you redefine the term to be "active shooter" I guess, something tells me that the American public still doesn't want to die in a mass shooting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...

It's a sick society when you have one for nearly every single day of the year. But hey this is the result of neoliberal economics so why should we get too upset at the societal rot when corporatists are increasing shareholder value?

by shimman

4/22/2026 at 6:23:02 PM

Ok sure, mass shooting (400) vs active shooting (100). It is still the same order of magnitude, and two orders of magnitude off of suicides (50,000).

I'm not sure how that changes the point I was making, which is that suicides don't seem obviously less important.

by dmoy

4/22/2026 at 8:14:49 PM

The terminology was specifically to counter the slight of hand you just did.

Over time the definition of "mass shooting" kept getting watered down to include a lot of "normal criminals with normal criminal goals they are trying to further by killing" shootings by people who wanted the number to be bigger to mislead the public into thinking indiscriminately targeted, killing for the sake of killing type shootings perpetrated by people who are mentally ill are much more common than they are in order to push various policies.

So then the people concerned with studying the latter had to come up with a new term that only encompassed people going off the deep end and did not include normal crime hence "active shooting"

by cucumber3732842

4/22/2026 at 6:20:24 PM

That account has a -10 karma. It is just a gibberish bot.

by fhdkweig

4/22/2026 at 6:55:53 PM

So yeah, why not?

Choosing to end thyself IS the penultimate "my body, my choice".

We have immediate "no money, lost job, destitute" (insert temporary issue). And we have chronic, everpresent, or terminal problem.

We could fix the first one, but socially we choose not to. Either way, we should have the right of bodily autonomy.

I guess the american answer is, for a suicide help call, show up with pigs with guns, and shoot them for disorderly conduct?

by mystraline

4/22/2026 at 7:03:26 PM

The phrase "suicide by cop" didn't create itself out of thin air.

by alistairSH

4/22/2026 at 11:33:53 PM

Yup. It's IIRC about a third where there's reason to think suicide was the intent and many others where it wasn't directly suicide but people who decide dying is better than whatever sentence likely awaits.

by LorenPechtel

4/22/2026 at 7:42:36 PM

Well, thats usually relegated by someone who wants to die but is too scared to do it. So they find people who legally can, usually by waving an empty gun around.

But what I'm seeing is 60% of the people here in the USA are not functionally sustainable economically wise. And that is completely a fixable problem. But given how corrupted our government is, its likely not going to be fixed in the reasonable future (say, 20y).

Live in poverty, no medical, no vacation, scraping by every day on what amounts of hope? I can understand why people want out. HN people are in a massive bubble. Most of us are fine. Average folks? Nope. Rural? Nope. Inner city? Nope. Homeless? Obviously not. Underage LGBTQ people with hateful/christian families? One of the highest suicide rates.

Sure, I would absolutely rather help people through what seems to be insurmountable problems. Most of them aren't. But seriously, this country doesnt give a fuck. I'm pretty sure this country only cares about suicide at all is because it reduces lifetime tax revenue (for, primarily blowing up brown and middle eastern people).

Thankfully, 1FA is still in the USA, mostly. So sites like https://sanctionedsuicide.site, even if theyre indexed to hell and back by Google and Bing.

Id rather help people get past why they think suicide is the answer. But I also understand why someone is just tired and done.

by mystraline

4/22/2026 at 11:45:39 PM

And it's the hate victims that are one of groups I think we should be trying hardest with. Hate is an external problem, not an internal problem. The situation often can be fixed.

by LorenPechtel

4/23/2026 at 7:37:20 AM

> Choosing to end thyself IS the penultimate "my body, my choice".

If that’s the penultimate, what’s the ultimate?

by sokoloff

4/22/2026 at 5:51:39 PM

I don’t see how. Have you ever tried calling one of these lines in a suicide emergency? Things I’ve learned in California:

- an ambulance will not be dispatched unless you physically witness someone trying to kill themselves

- otherwise, they send the police

- the police arrive without training and severely escalate the situation

- the person having an emergency will be taken into custody and stripped of rights until being medically evaluated (not arrested)

This is the program of an allegedly progressive state. After 2 experiences like this, adding trauma to already traumatic situations, I would never recommend these hotlines.

by nyanmatt

4/22/2026 at 7:29:31 PM

Very much disagree and I am in California.

I have called this line in particular during a sever major depression episode. I tried calling my fraternities mental wellness hotline first but it went unanswered which I thought was quite funny at the time.

The rep was able to talk me down through my spiraling thoughts. Told me that "no your therapist was not egging you on when he said well why don't you commit suicide what's holding you back". He was instead trying to figure out my reasons for living.

They do not automatically call the police and telling people they do is harmful. My anecdotal evidence has been a much better experience, and others I know who have called have said the same.

I'm not sure what would cause them to send the police but having a safe line to call when you have nothing else is important. Maybe the change that should happen here is having social workers or other mental health representatives respond, not getting rid of the phoneline.

by daheza

4/22/2026 at 6:00:51 PM

I have a loved one who used the 988 hotline several times.

None of them resulted in police intervention. Our county has a mobile crisis team of social workers who show up and get you connected to services.

by ceejayoz

4/22/2026 at 7:37:07 PM

... services that use force against individuals. Never ever, ever tell a social worker of any kind that you think of suicide, or that anyone else does. ESPECIALLY not if you're young. Help, or social worker's kind of help, does not help. And getting rid of social workers ... I almost killed one before that happened.

All the lip service they make to that force is not the answer. It's lies, cheats and deception on their part, nothing more. Once on a forced youth services vacation I locked, with an entire group, a social services worker into a room. She became instantly educated why locking the rooms was a bad idea, why not even having a lock on the inside was an incredible mistake, and why youth workers ignoring screaming in the facility was an incredibly bad idea. All these people want is to be the big man (yes, including the 19 year old women who join), and you cannot explain it to them. After she eventually got out, we never saw her again, and the others were a LOT more flexible.

And that wasn't even close to the worst that happened.

These things is what social services calls "protection". They purposefully create situations where Gandhi would eventually beat up his own mother, and call it protection. Don't do this to people.

by spwa4

4/22/2026 at 7:43:15 PM

Consider the possibility that both your experience and those you worked with are not universal. The experience our family had was night and day different from yours.

I suspect this varies enormously from country to country, state to state, county to county, and per provider.

edit: OP changed their post substantially, and I'm now not quite sure what it's asserting at all.

by ceejayoz

4/22/2026 at 9:06:18 PM

I don't claim they are. And even if my experience is a 1% case, you still need to make people aware they're a possibility.

And it's far more than 1%.

by spwa4

4/22/2026 at 9:11:18 PM

You didn't say possibility, though. You said things like "Never ever, ever" and "It's lies, cheats and deception on their part, nothing more".

I have no doubt that forcible confinement is unfun. I also have no doubt that it's sometimes warranted and the best thing for someone to be able to heal. That you once menaced a social worker into quitting is not, I think, evidence against that.

by ceejayoz

4/22/2026 at 9:56:15 PM

The social worker in question forced confinement on children, when I was one, and got to experience her own tactics firsthand. Her reaction to her own tactics was indeed to quit the job entirely, the second she got loose. Of course, the same courtesy was NOT afforded to the children there. They got locked up, yelled and screamed for hours, then were simply locked up again. There was no exit, other than violence. Which, of course, led to extreme violence and constant escalation.

These assholes and idiots that call themselves social workers themselves can't themselves deal with the tactics they use on children. In fact they can't deal with 1% of the intensity of the tactics they use on children, because I assure you not having an exit for weeks after a few hours screaming out your lungs in a small room really 10x the stress. Then, 5 minutes later, seeing one kid using a knife on another, again just to get out of there, ANOTHER good way to 10x the stress.

As for "the best thing for someone to be able to heal", you mean forcing kids into an environment with constant violence? Both among kids, a bunch of adults using violence against kids, occasionally extreme violence from kids against those adults, and violence from the situation/facility itself? (or how else would you describe confinement?)

That's some social workers' way to deal with psychic vulnerability, and the potential consequence of asking for help with your vulnerability as a child, or, as in my case, a teacher "getting help" for a vulnerable child. Is that "the best thing for someone to be able to heal"? It certainly didn't prevent suicide or suicidal thoughts, and had the complete opposite of the "intended" effect when it was used on drug addicts, and anorexic patients.

(oh and extreme violence WAS the way out. Once these social workers really did totally lose control, they'd "solve" the problem by sending the kid home. In fact, some they literally shoved onto the sidewalk. And of course, the second advantage of going out that way was that you would never be "asked" to return)

by spwa4

4/22/2026 at 9:58:45 PM

> The social worker in question forced confinement on children…

Sure. Because they needed it. (And there are a lot of social workers at much lower acuities than forensic psych wards for violent kids.)

Kids don't like getting vaccinations, either, but stabbing the pediatrician in revenge is clearly not the solution to that. The pediatrician doesn't need a polio booster.

by ceejayoz

4/23/2026 at 8:53:00 AM

This is not a forensic psych ward. The only way to get into those is to commit an actual serious crime, which is pretty hard to do before you're 18 years old.

This environment is referred to as "closed", sometimes even "semi-closed". There's also "open" and "semi-open", but almost everyone runs away. You see, social workers' theories ... don't work. Don't help. And kids realize this pretty quickly. The only kids you see there are the ones they've suddenly kidnapped for 2 weeks to "closed", scared into behaving for a while. This works the first time, and kids that have nowhere to go at all (whom they kick to the sidewalk on their 18th birthday. Best hope you don't have your final school exams after your birthday ... because how will you ever do that?). The vast majority of kids are there (in open or closed) because they refuse social worker's help. This can mean getting placed by a judge in foster care and running away. This can mean systematically not turning up for "help sessions" at school (that was my "crime"). This can mean avoiding "in-house" help. In general kids get locked up because they make a social workers' job impossible. Which is ironic, because that is also the only way out.

And social workers lie. They are judged by how many kids they "helped" and so if the situation becomes truly untenable they send you home. You see, they lie you're cured. The advantage is that it's pretty hard to get punished for doing things wrong there. So you eventually realize that making the situation totally untenable is the way to get out. First thing I tried was to simply fight directly. I started fighting sports at age 3, and they tried to attack. I knocked 3 of them out and they decided to wait me out, which succeeded after more than a day. Next I decided the best tactic is to simply wait for a situation to turn violent. You won't have to wait long. And then figure out how to prevent social workers from helping each other, from fixing the situation, making everything go as bad as possible, without being even remotely responsible. Stand in the way. Make them trip. Close the right door at exactly the wrong time. For that they started to try to bribe me (e.g. a key, access to the "library" (a few dozen comicbooks and one programming book I brought. Of course no computer. I still know that book by hard) including at night, access to the kitchen). Then I figured out how to disappear, with a girl, for a few days. Just because these buildings are closed doesn't mean there are no places to hide. Social workers are total morons. We came back when we ran out of food. I was home before dinner.

The only case I heard of where a kid was sent to forensic psych from this was one that put a plastic utensil (he broke it in two and used the sharp edge) through the throat of a fresh intern. She lived, btw. For that, he was sent there for 2 weeks. They made some excuse for sending him home after 2 weeks, something to the tune of "it's not meants as a punishment and should not be used like that".

All social workers' help is a punishment.

Oh, and that's not because they don't want to keep kids in forensic psych. But the whole point of social workers' infrastructure is to provide maximum comfortable jobs for social workers. The whole system doesn't work. I've never met anyone who was actually helped (of course everyone lies to get out, or even to get back in as a social worker themselves). Forensic psych is ridiculously expensive per kid (> 200k per kid per year), and so kills jobs for social workers. Oh, and because you can imagine how violent that is, nobody wants to work in a place with kids that were probably pretty bad before social workers inflicted their torture on them (sorry "help them"). Even in "closed", kids learn to attack, first psychologically, then physically social workers literally before they've said a word to them. Because otherwise ...

I'm pretty used to "opinions" like yours. People have no idea how social workers actually do things, and they don't want to. If you have a discussion like this, nearly always people don't even realize this even exists.

by spwa4

4/23/2026 at 10:59:37 AM

> I started fighting sports at age 3

You’re on the very high acuity end of things. I’m not sure you even realize it.

> I'm pretty used to "opinions" like yours. People have no idea how social workers actually do things, and they don't want to.

There’s a whole world of social work that isn’t desperately trying to regulate people who were in Toddler Fight Club out there.

by ceejayoz

4/23/2026 at 7:00:16 PM

> There’s a whole world of social work that isn’t desperately trying to regulate people who were in Toddler Fight Club out there.

1) You have a very weird idea of fighting sports. Fight club is just drunkards hitting each other like girls. Real fighting is an art.

2) No there isn't. There's just social workers who desperately try to tell themselves they're not part of this.

Or if you prefer the academic approach, here is the biggest study ever of social work: https://mitsloan.mit.edu/shared/ods/documents?PublicationDoc...

TLDR: kids do better abused at home than well taken care of in the best youth help has to offer: foster care by family. Every other form of help is worse than that. And the more "help" children receive from social workers, the more crimes they commit later, the more they commit suicide, the less they read, ... etc.

by spwa4

4/23/2026 at 7:51:33 PM

That's a study of foster care. Frequently performed by non-social-workers.

by ceejayoz

4/22/2026 at 6:16:30 PM

If you want an ambulance dial 911.

These hotlines are for providing support. They are trained not to escalate to sending someone unless they absolutely deem it necessary (and the caller agrees). My wife has been working the hotline as a volunteer for 6 years and has not once escalated to sending someone.

As others noted, my California county has a dedicated team to respond to this.

by nkingsy

4/22/2026 at 9:25:53 PM

Well that's just not true. You're supposed to call 911 if you witness someone else in crisis, not the crisis hotline. The police will be sent because they have baseline training in de-escalation, and they have officers with specialized training in crisis negotiation. An ambulance is relevant only if someone is already hurt. They're medical professionals. Even in that situation, police officers are usually dispatched to investigate and to keep the ambulance personnel safe in a potentially unpredictable environment. And you're correct, protective custody exists and it's there to keep the person in crisis safe.

by uyzstvqs

4/22/2026 at 9:53:08 PM

>The police will be sent because they have baseline training in de-escalation

There are something like 30,000+ police agencies across the United States, and a proportional number within California (if we're talking about that place in particular and not more generally). To say "they have baseline training in de-escalation" is, at best, wishful thinking. While no doubt some departments make that a part of their training and within those departments most patrol officers will have undergone the training (enough that your statement wouldn't be especially incorrect if you were to specify one of those departments), it is beyond fallacious to assume that this holds true for all of them in general.

Even when the training does exist and the officer has completed it, it consists of a one or two day seminar. They are not evaluated in a way that some pass and some fail. We do not know who took it seriously, and who thought it was some jackass bleeding-heart bullshit that they could ignore. We do not know if those anyone gains by it... if some are good at it afterward and others are bad at de-escalation afterward, has that percentage shifted upwards compared to whatever their pre-training scores would suggest?

I do not believe you when you fallaciously assert "they have baseline training". No one else should believe you either, if the answer actually matters to them. I do not know why you assert this, and the speculation ranges from "not a good reason" to "even worse reasons".

by NoMoreNicksLeft

4/22/2026 at 6:03:17 PM

And yet the data shows that they did decline. I'm sure they could be much better, and the response will vary from state to state.

by wakamoleguy

4/22/2026 at 6:20:34 PM

I find something darkly depressing and comedic about how we try to prevent people from shooting themselves by sending people with guns to help them.

by hirvi74

4/22/2026 at 6:40:08 PM

> how we try to prevent people from shooting themselves by sending people with guns to help them

People with guns are still people. Having anyone there will reduce harm in more cases than it escalates. Suicide is usually an impulse a lonely person who is otherwise perfectly sane carries out in the absence of intervention.

by JumpCrisscross

4/22/2026 at 6:47:35 PM

Replace the phrase "people with guns" with "institutional violence" because that's what the police are. When police are called to the scene, the intention of the caller is violence, not to help. If the intention was help, then actual helpers would be called instead.

by ryandrake

4/23/2026 at 12:46:31 AM

If you watched random police encounters for 6 hours a day (pretty much everything is bodycam'ed nowadays), every day for the rest of your life, you would see about 1 police killing video per decade, and probably never see a police murder.

Don't let headlines and internet rage detach you from reality.

by WarmWash

4/23/2026 at 6:07:11 PM

Not all police abuse results in murder, but that still doesn't make it okay just because it could be worse.

by AngryData

4/22/2026 at 6:59:22 PM

> the intention of the caller is violence, not to help

This is mostly nonsense. Most cases where wellness checks result in a tragic outcome did not stem from the caller having violent intentions.

> If the intention was help, then actual helpers would be called instead

I believe clinician-led wellness checks are more effective than police-led ones [1]. But it’s untrue that police-led interventions are unhelpful. Not every person or community has a healthcare contact who will personally conduct a check. If the choice is between no check and a cop, you’ll save lives with the latter.

[1] https://www.proquest.com/openview/5504a2f3d69ee782daddda0ce1...

by JumpCrisscross

4/22/2026 at 8:25:53 PM

>This is mostly nonsense. Most cases where wellness checks result in a tragic outcome did not stem from the caller having violent intentions.

No, it's not. What's the point of the police? They bark orders that are backed by violence.

The caller doesn't "mean" to add violence to a situation in the same way my racist grandma doesn't "mean" to be racist simply through her choice of vocabulary.

This is completely tangential to suicide by cop. Even if the cops themselves smart enough not to escalate straight to a shootout they will apply increasing violence until you comply or die. It's literally their job.

The degree to which police led interventions are helpful is mostly a reflection of officers and departments understanding that they need to behave like EMTs on those calls rather than cops and the people who they are being called on being compliant.

by cucumber3732842

4/22/2026 at 7:07:52 PM

Armed cops actively escalating the situation will help someone suicidal?

The cops in my country do work that is not about catching criminals, like leading search and rescure operations. Apparently not a problem. Apparently now these particular police have started carrying weapons as a matter of course. So that’s a bad development for a regular, peaceful presence. But overall we seem okay with the regime.

So I don’t have some personal feeling that violence is about to erupt because the police are nearby.

But I don’t see how this helps for those particular locales where the population (or segments of it) only associate active police involvement with escalation.

by keybored

4/22/2026 at 6:59:41 PM

> People with guns are still people

No one is questioning that police are people.

> Having anyone there will reduce harm in more cases than it escalates

That was never the point I was arguing against. I was arguing against which people are there.

> Suicide is usually an impulse a lonely person who is otherwise perfectly sane carries out in the absence of intervention.

I do not believe that in the slightest. There is an array of causes from physical illnesses, mental illnesses, spiritual beliefs, political beliefs, to even cultural beliefs. Sure, loneliness can contribute in some cases, but it does not hold a candle to conditions like mood disorders, psychotic disorders, substance abuse, etc..

by hirvi74

4/23/2026 at 8:16:47 AM

> There is an array of causes from physical illnesses, mental illnesses, spiritual beliefs, political beliefs, to even cultural beliefs. Sure, loneliness can contribute in some cases

Sorry, I was unclear. I meant that loneliness is often a major proximate cause of suicide. An interruption–even something as jarring as the cops at the door–can snap someone out of a pattern which, if left alone, can end in tragedy.

A mental-health professional, or friend or family member, checking in would be ideal. But that isn't always possible. In the absence of better options, a cop checking in is better than nothing.

by JumpCrisscross

4/23/2026 at 8:26:27 AM

What does loneliness have to do with being physically close to a person? Lonely people walk among other people all the time.

Someone asking if they would like a receipt, and “have a good day”, ought to snap someone out of it just the same with this logic.

by keybored

4/22/2026 at 6:08:04 PM

They're crisis services, not emergency services. Anyone who is an immediate danger to themselves or others needs to be attended to by the first available emergency services. The attending services should be trained to deescalate, definitely, but I don't think this is an indictment of the crisis lines themselves. Less than 1% of calls to the crisis line result in any sort of emergency service dispatch.

by fontain

4/22/2026 at 6:34:33 PM

A fact I've noticed is that suicide rates are higher in areas with lower population density. For example, Alaska's suicide rate is 4x what New York's rate is.

Perhaps just human connection, even momentarily, is enough to break the pattern of behavior that has lead to the ideation.

Also worth noting that suicide rates among the elderly are higher than they are for anyone other than teens. If you have someone you love that doesn't get out much, make sure you give them a call now and again.

by themafia

4/22/2026 at 8:48:32 PM

The more likely explanation is guns. Gun ownership tends to be higher in rural areas because of a mixture of culture, politics, utility and laws. Only 14% of adults in New York State have guns compared to 59% in Alaska. Having a quick, easy and painless way to end your life right on your nightstand makes it a lot more likely that a bolt of suicidal urges turn into action.

https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/gun-ownership.html

by pibaker

4/23/2026 at 5:13:40 AM

Then overlay a map of gun ownership rates over the suicide rates and see if you see the same correlation.

This isn't an intuitive point. There's actual data showing the correlation I've described.

Something you'll also want to explain is why the suicide rate for teens is 3x higher than for adults and why elderly is 2x higher than adults. Or why more than 1/3 of suicides don't involve a gun at all. Or why Japan's suicide rate is so much higher despite having no gun ownership rights.

by themafia

4/22/2026 at 6:51:55 PM

An alternative explanation is that cold places with long winters are depressing, and because they are depressing fewer people want to live there.

Alaskan winters are hard regardless of how many friends you have.

by euleriancon

4/22/2026 at 7:11:38 PM

If you take a chart of population density, and overlay the chart of suicide rate, you'll see an exceedingly strong correlation. It does not follow weather patterns. Utah has 3x the problem relative to California, for example.

by themafia

4/22/2026 at 7:30:14 PM

Yeah if you go to CDC WISQARS you can do fatal injury reports filtered by intent (suicide) and aggregated by urban/non urban geography. These differences are not small, they vary by factors or orders of magnitude in every state. It's not the weather.

by jeffbee

4/22/2026 at 7:14:10 PM

One sad fact I learned about adolescent suicide (12 to 18 years of age) is that it's seasonal. It picks up during the school year and drops precipitously during summer and winter vacations.

Being in school has a profound impact on whether or not a child wants to kill themselves.

http://basilhalperin.com/essays/school-and-teen-suicide.html

by declan_roberts

4/22/2026 at 7:28:36 PM

I wasn't suicidal when I was in high school, but I absolutely understand people's depression around the school year.

I actually don't hate school as much as an adult, but I really did view school like a prison when I was a teenager. I didn't like homework, I didn't like most of my teachers, I liked learning but due to the fact that schools have to go at a pace slow enough for the dumbest person they want to pass, I would get very bored during class, and so high school in general was existentially dreadful every day. Even when I got home, I would dread the fact that in about ~15 hours, I would have to go back to school again.

It didn't help that there was a dread with grades in general; I wasn't abused or anything, and I think my parents in general were pretty ok at parenting, but as report card season came nearer and nearer, I would get more and more depressed, because when I would inevitably get middling-to-bad grades, I would get a lecture and/or grounded by my parents. This meant no computer, no games, I wasn't allowed to hang out with my friends, and they hoped that it would force me to study more. It's not dumb logic, but it just didn't work. I would just be sad and angry and still wouldn't do the homework.

No doubt a large chunk of this was just hormonal, but I really think that the typical American school system is not a good fit for a lot of people, myself included. I don't think anyone has ever seriously called me stupid, but I would be in camp that endlessly frustrated teachers: I would do well on the tests, I would do well on the AP exams, no one disputed that I understood the course material well enough, but I just didn't care enough to do the homework so they would be forced to give me bad grades. I don't blame the teachers for this at all, they're just doing their jobs.

Despite being in AP classes and having skipped two grades in math, I was seriously considering dropping out of high school and just trying for the GED so I wouldn't have to go anymore, and I probably would have done that if I didn't think that my parents would freak out.

I didn't want to kill myself, but very few things brought me more joy in my life than knowing I wouldn't ever have to go back to high school again. I know a lot of people say that these are the best times of their lives, and power to them for that, but they were decidedly not for me.

by tombert

4/22/2026 at 9:00:23 PM

Adults put teenagers together and some of them get miserable. The adults’ response: oh lament the teenage woes, what is to be done. We are just adults with all the power on our side.

I get the feeling that modern Western society and institutions are woefully maladjusted for those particular years.

Those teenage moodswings are somewhat like upvoting/downvoting on HN.

by keybored

4/22/2026 at 7:14:28 PM

Something I read recently really stuck with me: giving people methylphenidate or other stimulants may lower the risk of a second suicide attempt by around 25%.

by ed_balls

4/22/2026 at 4:58:16 PM

About a year ago:

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/trump-shuts-down-lg...

> The Trump administration on Thursday afternoon officially terminated the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ Youth Specialized Services program, which gave callers under age 25 the option to speak with LGBTQ-trained counselors.

As with the USAID cuts, this killed people.

by ceejayoz

4/22/2026 at 9:36:49 PM

That's pure evil.

by bjourne

4/22/2026 at 5:05:25 PM

[flagged]

by Alupis

4/22/2026 at 5:23:19 PM

Trying to engage in good faith: would you likewise say that the notion of sports medicine is irrelevant? That even though professional athletes have unique stresses on parts of their bodies that are not common in a general population, unique levels of societal pressure around accelerating their recovery time, and a need for rapid real-time diagnostics... a generalist physician would be as effective as a specialist?

Now imagine you're running a massive sports team, and you have a budget for medical care. But then a government entity comes and says: regardless of outcomes, you're not allowed to hire specialists or allow your team members to elect to go to specialists, because that could be seen as unfair... regardless of whether statistics point to improved outcomes if you were allowed to have certain specialists.

Looping back to suicide hotlines: even if the administration had increased funding to the hotline to compensate for the ended specialist program (which is highly unlikely, and that this was more likely a net funding loss) - it's a similar restriction on whether a lifeline program can allocate resources to specialists. And the stakes here couldn't be higher.

(And if statistics pointed to other groups benefiting similarly from specialization, I’d want a clinician-led organization to evaluate that research and determine budget allocation towards those specialists, too.)

by btown

4/22/2026 at 6:52:36 PM

> A national hotline that can handle anyone is clearly the right way

The data suggest otherwise [1].

Which makes sense. “For LGBTQ youth, risk factors such as bullying, abuse, negative family treatment, as well as negative emotions caused by anti-LGBTQ legislation have also been identified” [2]. If you’re in a community that’s tolerating all of that, your trust in generic institutions will be low.

> any more than Black or Asian or Indian cases

If a population is disproportionately committing suicide, they should be disproportionately resourced. “Native Americans and non-Hispanic White Americans” have “the highest suicide rate in the United States” [3].

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30109965/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_among_LGBTQ_people

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States#S...

by JumpCrisscross

4/22/2026 at 7:37:33 PM

The law that created the hotline even specifically mentions those two groups, along with rural Americans:

> (a) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Congress that—

> (1) youth who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (referred to in this section as ‘‘LGBTQ’’) are more than 4 times more likely to contemplate suicide than their peers, with 1 in 5 LGBTQ youth and more than 1 in 3 transgender youth reporting attempting suicide;

> (2) American Indian and Alaska Natives have the highest rate of suicide of any racial or ethnic group in the United States with a suicide rate over 3.5 times higher than the racial or ethnic group with the lowest rate, with the suicide rate increasing, since 1999, by 139 percent for American Indian women and 71 percent for men;

> (3) between 2001 and 2015, the suicide death rate in rural counties in the United States was 17.32 per 100,000 individuals, which is significantly greater than the national average, and the data shows that between that same time period, suicide rates increased for all age groups across all counties in the United States, with the highest rates and the greatest increases being in more rural counties; and

> (4) the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration must be equipped to provide specialized resources to these and other high-risk populations.

Full text of the law is at https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/266...

by tzs

4/22/2026 at 5:14:57 PM

Different people face different challenges, and helping them requires different strategies. You really don't think that there's anything unique about the challenges LGBTQ people face?

by nicbou

4/22/2026 at 6:12:07 PM

> There doesn't need to be a specialist for every group, or worse - some groups.

Why? The struggles different groups generally face are not the same. For a hotline for veterans, wouldn't it make sense to have counselors who are either veterans themselves or have worked extensively with veterans and their specific patterns of issues?

by nkrisc

4/22/2026 at 5:40:40 PM

What is this assumption based on? It sounds political.

Are LGBTQ people at a higher risk for suicide? Could hotline staff reduce suicide attempts with special training? Seems like you could measure this.

Thinking about other groups with a higher risk--veterans, abuse survivors, gambling addicts--are there suicide prevention programs for these groups and are they effective?

by sandy_coyote

4/22/2026 at 5:54:25 PM

> Are LGBTQ people at a higher risk for suicide?

There was actually a study done on this [0] that found LGBTQ youth are around four times as likely to attempt suicide compared to their non-LGBTQ peers.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/su/su6901a3.htm

by zeech

4/22/2026 at 6:52:28 PM

> Thinking about other groups with a higher risk--veterans, abuse survivors, gambling addicts--are there suicide prevention programs for these groups and are they effective?

For veterans in the US, at least, there are specific programs targeting them since they do have a disproportionately high level of suicides and suicide attempts compared to the general population.

by Jtsummers

4/22/2026 at 9:09:34 PM

If a trans kid calls the suicide hotline and the volunteer suggests they stop wearing dresses to school so people won't bully them, I'm pretty sure the outcome will be far worse than anyone intended. There should be specialists who know how to handle specific kinds of callers.

by ashleyn

4/22/2026 at 5:06:38 PM

By that logic, pediatricians and gynecologists shouldn't exist.

> A national hotline that can handle anyone is clearly the right way.

Absolutely. That describes this setup. You call the number. You get help. Sometimes that means a person trained in, say, talking to rape victims. (If you go to the ER, they'll have a nurse trained in it too!)

Per the article: "Also known as the 'Press 3 option,' the program gave 988 callers the option to 'press 3' to connect with a counselor trained to assist lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youths and young adults (they could also text 988 with the word 'PRIDE'). Nearly 1.5 million contacts were routed to the LGBTQ service since its launch, according to data available on the SAMHSA website."

Same hotline, just a phone tree option in it.

by ceejayoz

4/22/2026 at 5:21:04 PM

> pediatricians and gynecologists

Those are physical differences. Which isn’t to say that you’re wrong, but we could easily have different things for physical differences and not for mental differences. Should we have different prisons for gays? Same logic, no?

by pfannkuchen

4/22/2026 at 5:30:51 PM

The leading theories for the biological underpinnings of same-sex attraction are also physical—some combination of genes, prenatal environment, and biochemistry—so this argument fails both ways.

It’s moot in any case because the whole point is identifying groups of people who benefit from help tailored at their situation so it’d make sense to specialize even if it was a choice. If we saw tons football fans more likely to contemplate suicide after the Super Bowl we’d want to support them even though that’s unambiguously social. Helping people is what makes civilization worth having.

by acdha

4/22/2026 at 6:14:10 PM

You're right, maybe we should have the same counselors handling calls from 13 year olds girls and veterans, after all, what's the difference?

by nkrisc

4/22/2026 at 5:29:24 PM

> Those are physical differences.

Good; we agree differences in a patient/customer may require special training/handling.

> Should we have different prisons for gays?

Again, this wasn't a different hotline. Just a phone tree option.

I suspect prisons, at times, have to manage things specific to gay inmates. Seems like it could cause roommate situations to be accounted for, as an example.

by ceejayoz

4/22/2026 at 6:12:25 PM

> I suspect prisons, at times, have to manage things specific to gay inmates.

doubtful. There's no customer service in prison nor the ability to speak with the manager.

by chasd00

4/22/2026 at 6:14:39 PM

Of course there is.

https://doccs.ny.gov/file-complaint

> Incarcerated Individuals can contact OSI directly by dialing 444 from any incarcerated individual phone Monday through Friday between the hours of 8:00 am and 5:00 pm.

https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/inmate-g...

> Every jail must develop a clear and responsive prisoner grievance procedure, including a formal means of delivering complaints and concerns from a prisoner to the administration and the procedures by which the prisoner receives a written response. However, the prisoner should not be able to use the procedures to avoid institutional rules and regulations.

by ceejayoz

4/22/2026 at 6:28:59 PM

I've never been to prison but i have spent a night in the pokey a couple times. Those may be legit websites but it's not my experience.

by chasd00

4/22/2026 at 6:34:54 PM

> I've never been to prison

> it's not my experience

Good talk.

by ceejayoz

4/22/2026 at 9:13:13 PM

I see you all over HN and I appreciate how well you engage!

by Schiendelman

4/22/2026 at 6:02:36 PM

Psychologists and therapists have different specialties too, for mental differences. This is generally considered a good thing.

by Calazon

4/22/2026 at 5:54:28 PM

[dead]

by jasonmp85

4/22/2026 at 8:41:57 PM

Specialization is useful in pretty much all human endeavors. It would be extremely strange if this was an exception.

by wat10000

4/22/2026 at 5:46:23 PM

That decision should be left to the people who study and understand psychology, not laymen, podcast hosts, and politicians.

by seattle_spring

4/22/2026 at 6:56:40 PM

Everyone is paying for these resources. It’s fair for everyone to understand why they’re worth it.

by JumpCrisscross

4/22/2026 at 7:03:25 PM

Is it? Does this same deal apply to, say, Area 51? Esoteric physics research? The details of mRNA vaccine production?

We have experts because we can't all possibly understand everything.

by ceejayoz

4/22/2026 at 9:09:14 PM

Deep expertise is not a blank check for funding. There is only so much money to go around and at some point you have to articulate your value to those paying for it (in this case, the tax payers and their representatives).

Yes, this means a high level summary generally focused on ends rather than the gory details of the means.

An expert acting in good faith should be able to provide this or, in the spirit of the Feynman technique, I would argue they aren't much of an expert at all.

by mmcdermott

4/22/2026 at 9:15:51 PM

> Deep expertise is not a blank check for funding.

Sure. But the people vetting your proposals should have useful expertise in assessing it. Individual grant proposals for scientific research should essentially never be something a congressional rep is deciding on.

Someone needs to assess, say, the B-21's radar absorbent coating project, but it'd be a mistake to think some random pediatrician is the right one to do it.

by ceejayoz

4/22/2026 at 9:28:19 PM

> something a congressional rep is deciding on.

Congress does not, by and large, get down to that level. They are typically approving a line time that encompasses a form of lump sum (i.e. "$100 million to NSF across these categories").

You can see the budget request here: https://www.nsf.gov/about/budget/fy2026

Defense spending would typically be a gruesome bidding process.

But either way, your proposal must at some point speak to something a generalist would understand. And that is how it should be - anything else is taxation without representation.

by mmcdermott

4/22/2026 at 9:43:03 PM

> Congress does not, by and large, get down to that level.

Oh, they love to do precisely that.

https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/media/reps/dr-paul-delivers-ope...

https://www.factcheck.org/2017/11/senator-misleads-absurd-sc...

> But either way, your proposal must at some point speak to something a generalist would understand.

A competent generalist, sure. But we've gone and given significant veto power to random Twitter influencers like @libsoftiktok.

by ceejayoz

4/22/2026 at 10:25:57 PM

> Oh, they love to do precisely that.

I think it's been pretty well established that most legislators do not take the time to understand the details of bills prior to voting.

Moreover, these articles refer to an attempt to question how grant money already given (and presumably spent) was used.

Scrutiny is an inherent part of the powers of the purse. I.e. "we gave you $100 million to provide disaster relief, economic development in our sphere of influence, etc - what did you do with it?"

It's fair to want to retain the spending being questioned, but Congress is explicitly responsible for this function.

by mmcdermott

4/22/2026 at 6:05:47 PM

Look, I get that you are approaching this in good faith, assuming that they cut these specialists because it was redundant and inefficient.

If this were 10 years ago, this would be an understandable assumption, but today there is absolutely zero reason to reach this conclusion.

The words of our own elected representatives make it very clear why these specialists were cut: because of hatred for the LGBTQ+ community.

by RIMR

4/23/2026 at 9:29:52 AM

[dead]

by NalNezumi

4/22/2026 at 4:50:55 PM

[flagged]

by miltonlost

4/22/2026 at 5:24:22 PM

Incredibly sad to see and watch.

Do what you can to support marginalized folks out there. When I do any kind of political / charitable donation, my wife gets to make an equal one to any organization of her choice and often chooses the Trevor project which makes me incredibly proud of her.

by daheza

4/22/2026 at 8:07:42 PM

[flagged]

by renewiltord

4/22/2026 at 10:02:42 PM

> All I know is that if I call this, they're going to wellness-check me...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/will-988-call-the-police-data-s...

"Many people in mental health crisis fear that if they dial 988, law enforcement might show up or they might be forced to go to the hospital. But getting sent that kind of 'involuntary emergency rescue' happens to around 1% of callers, suggests new data from Vibrant Emotional Health, the administrator of the 988 Lifeline for suicide and mental health crises."

by ceejayoz

4/22/2026 at 10:16:06 PM

Nah he’s bullshitting. It’s 1% of calls, not callers. If you’re in the 1% you’re not making another call. If you’re in the 99% you get to call again tomorrow.

Listen, if you want to check your wellness be my guest. I won’t be.

by renewiltord

4/22/2026 at 5:41:35 PM

Personally I never called any such hotline; my assumption was that suicidal thoughts originate from one's own brain and way of thinking - adjust that and these issues would go away. Unfortunately, while this can work (for me it worked extremely well, though I should also say, I don't have suicidal thoughts to begin with, even more so as one's lifespan is finite anyway - but I do understand those who have a terminal illness, to not have to go through more suffering when something is uncurable), there are people for whom it can not work, often in the way how their brain works. Just like some people have seizures, brains are different too.

It puts some responsibility on those who receive such calls, because the caller may be in a state where any additional negative input could push that caller over the edge, due to their current state of mind. So this kind of requires more training even of casual people, just as people are expected to know the basic steps necessary for first aid (on a fresh accident site, for instance). It seems pretty clear that those on the national hotline, must have had professional training too. So if there is a decline of suicides, this is most likely - and logically - due to the work by those who take up the phones.

by shevy-java

4/22/2026 at 6:44:50 PM

This is a fantastically ridiculously comment.

> my assumption was that suicidal thoughts originate from one's own brain and way of thinking - adjust that and these issues would go away. Unfortunately, while this can work (for me it worked extremely well, though I should also say, I don't have suicidal thoughts to begin with

You're, in this comment and the part I quoted, saying that adjusting your thinking worked well for you (with the implication that it worked well in dealing with suicidal thoughts), but you say you don't have the problem (suicidal thoughts or ideation) under discussion. This is like saying, "I've heard that you can walk it off when you break your leg, and that's worked for me, but I've never actually had a broken leg." Complete nonsense.

by Jtsummers

4/22/2026 at 8:31:19 PM

> but you say you don't have the problem

I think it's very clear stated that they HAD the problem, but were able to work through it, resulting them in not HAVING the problem.

So, it's more like they broke their leg, it healed, and now they no longer have a broken leg.

edit: I am dumb.

by nomel

4/22/2026 at 8:32:41 PM

> I think it's very clear stated that they HAD the problem, but were able to work through it, resulting them in not HAVING the problem.

From their comment:

>> though I should also say, I don't have suicidal thoughts to begin with

How, from that, can you possibly get to the idea that they ever had suicidal thoughts? It's certainly not "clear stated" that they had the problem of suicidal thoughts.

The comment I responded to is a nonsense comment. They say they solved the problem of suicidal thoughts by adapting the way they think and also say that they never had suicidal thoughts to begin with.

It is possible that they're just a terrible communicator, but, again, nothing is "clear stated" about them having had suicidal thoughts.

by Jtsummers

4/22/2026 at 8:59:31 PM

I re-read their comment. You are correct.

by nomel

4/22/2026 at 5:58:45 PM

This is bootstraps by another name. “Just (don’t) do it” belongs in nike commercials, not in discussions surrounding behavioral health. If it were that simple then we wouldn’t have these issues at this scale in the first place.

Nancy Reagan “just say no” comes to mind.

by Forgeties79

4/22/2026 at 6:18:30 PM

It's good to celebrate this... but, looking forward, it's worrying to think whether kiddos these days are going first to ChatGPT instead, of, well, the hotline (or real people!) I think there's genuine value in going to an AI -- as long as you think of it as "interactive journaling", and not a human relationship. But, will they encourage struggling kiddos to make the leap and ask for support from an actual person?

by nxobject

4/22/2026 at 6:24:57 PM

> will they encourage struggling kiddos to make the leap and ask for support from an actual person?

Where's the profit in that?

by inetknght

4/22/2026 at 6:26:28 PM

> I think there's genuine value in going to an AI

What's it going to do, help them avoid passive voice in their suicide note? Encourage them to carry it out? Hype them up about suicide? Tell them they're absolutely correct?

by malfist

4/22/2026 at 9:22:36 PM

Honestly? As a veteran journaler who’s struggled with depression, I’ve always wanted an “organize everything that I splurted out today while I was overwhelmed” feature.

I guess the question is: can we encourage kids to use AI to help organize their thoughts and reflections, while avoiding just looking for cheap affirmation? I dunno - we’re not prepared to teach AI literacy at that level.

by nxobject