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Has anyone tried these mental health lines?

DigbyDevon

Good morning everyone,

Last night I had a bit of a wobble about a long standing mental health condition and texted the "SHOUT" service. I did not get anyone on the line and gave up after 45 minutes. Looking on Reddit, it seems a lot of other people either did not get through in good time or when they did were left feeling it did not help. 

I am aware these lines are busy, esp on a sunday morning and don't always have the team behind them at such hours, but I was wondering has anyone tried any other lines? 

I tried SHOUT as it was text based and I did not want to be on the phone in a family house at 3am. It seems the other text based services seem to be for teenagers or children because apparently adults can just speak openly about their mental health on the phone in the middle of the night? 

Just to be clear to prevent confusion, I am NOT suicidal but just felt very low last night.

Many thanks for reading. 

Parents

  • SHOUT does seem to be struggling in the last couple of years. I was not doing great around the time it first became available and it was generally quite quick to respond, but I've heard from you as well as others that it's slowed right down. The other trend I've seen with it is that other organisations are having 'text lines' that are actually just the shout number but telling you to use a different initial message (e.g. a longstanding one which I think might actually get you a different team is young minds telling you to text the number YM). I somewhat wonder how much support they are providing to shout to accommodate the increased traffic, or if they are just using shared SHOUT resources.

    It is also true that some of the other long standing text or whatsapp or online message formats are going. And of course when it comes to phone lines I think we lost Papyrus last month. It's a real shame as someone who struggles with phone calls at the best of times, and particularly when I'm not doing well. 

Reply

  • SHOUT does seem to be struggling in the last couple of years. I was not doing great around the time it first became available and it was generally quite quick to respond, but I've heard from you as well as others that it's slowed right down. The other trend I've seen with it is that other organisations are having 'text lines' that are actually just the shout number but telling you to use a different initial message (e.g. a longstanding one which I think might actually get you a different team is young minds telling you to text the number YM). I somewhat wonder how much support they are providing to shout to accommodate the increased traffic, or if they are just using shared SHOUT resources.

    It is also true that some of the other long standing text or whatsapp or online message formats are going. And of course when it comes to phone lines I think we lost Papyrus last month. It's a real shame as someone who struggles with phone calls at the best of times, and particularly when I'm not doing well. 

Children
  • in reply to Fibonacci Squid

    To be honest I heard using SHOUT felt like talking to an AI? It's not AI, it is real people, but the responses are so scripted it might as well have been. 

    I did also see that with Young Minds using the Shout text line. 

    There does not seem to be much realisation that adults cannot always speak on the phone regarding mental health due to a host of factors. I think there is more understanding now about it, but not enough.