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Comment by babyshake | Hacker News Reader

Genuinely curious about this - if you call one of these numbers and say you are thinking of self harm but you are not actually going to hurt yourself and you do not want them to call whomever to your home are they likely to do it anyways?

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Can’t speak for all of those numbers, but Samaritans won’t tell anyone or even try to talk you out of it if you don’t want them to.

A friend's husband called one of the suicide lines and he wasn't committed or visited by the police, so it's not a 100% chance. I don't know the details of what the husband talked about, but it may have been because it wasn't a recurring problem. He'd just had an especially awful time at work for a few weeks, and eventually had a breakdown and called a hotline.

He quit his job a couple of days later and has been fine since, so maybe the person on the phone can make a judgement call on whether it's a recurring issue that needs professional help, or something that is an extreme response to an isolated incident and the person will be fine after they're "talked down from the ledge".

Companies that drive people to suicide are really something else. I hope he showed his colleagues that there is a way out.

You absolutely might not have any issues. But you absolutely might. It could come down to if the operator has had their lunch break yet.

So the question is do you want to play roulette with your physical freedom.

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