|
|
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 03/14/2009 : 06:58:39
|
Hat tip to Cracked.com for this link. And remember, the economy has gotten much worse since December, when the following was written: David Lazarus
December 24, 2008
Layoffs, foreclosures, cutbacks -- there are plenty of grim economic stats out there this holiday season. Here's perhaps the grimmest one of all: Calls to Los Angeles' busiest suicide hotline have soared as much as 60% over the last year.
Mental health experts say the sour economy has turned what usually manifests as seasonal blues into a full-blown crisis.
"I've been doing this for 10 years, and this is the worst I've seen it," said Kita Curry, president of the Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center, which along with nine clinics in the Southland operates the region's most frequently called suicide hotline -- (877) 7-CRISIS.
Last year, she said, the hotline got an average of 1,500 calls per month. Now the total routinely tops 2,000 and sometimes runs as high as 2,400.
Likewise, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline says it's getting 35% more calls -- roughly 50,000 a month this year compared with about 37,000 last year. The national hotline can be reached at (800) 273-TALK.
"What's even more noticeable than the increase in call volume is that the intensity of the calls has gone up," said Sandri Kramer, who began as a hotline volunteer at the Hirsch center about 13 years ago and now is the program director.
"Fear is the No. 1 emotion we're hearing. People are feeling hopeless and helpless because of the economic crisis, and many feel that things aren't going to get better."
. . .
|
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
Edited by - HalfMooner on 03/14/2009 07:00:34
|
|
|
astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 03/18/2009 : 09:31:27 [Permalink]
|
I don't understand many people. They NEED religion because they fear death so much. They contemplate suicide because things are bad and they don't see it getting any better???
Me....I'll be out hunting squirrels and making fires if that's what it takes to stay alive. |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
 |
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/18/2009 : 13:20:28 [Permalink]
|
Good plan, astropin. My Dad sometimes said that the day he couldn't put food on the family table was the day he'd start hunting cattle for meat.
I saw an item at Dumb as a Blog, in which a 48 year old woman was reported to have robbed a convenience store by threatening to blow her own head off, then to have crossed the street and ordered a pizza. Dumb as a Blog, being what it is, invites us to laugh at the woman. I see her act as more sad than funny. It seems to have been an act of desperation by a very hungry but inexperienced robber.
For many of us, thinking doesn't operate well when we're hungry. It's best to make our plans, nefarious or not, before the food runs out.
[Edit: This at the end of the new item: "Gorsuch was already on federal probation for armed robbery." So maybe she was not so much inexperienced as incompetent. I'll stick to simple desperation and hunger as a motive.]
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 03/18/2009 13:51:39 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Suicide lines see rise in calls as economy tanks
