Crisis: Twenty-Five Years on Crisis Intervention Hotlines

For over Twenty-Five years, I have been a crisis intervention hotline listener. I am the person one anonymously calls when one is lonely, afraid, overdosing, in need of help that just can’t wait or, at times, is suicidal. I have heard from children asking for homework assistance. I have heard from those scorned in love. I have heard just about every type of problem known to man. I am the one a person calls when he or she is lost and needs someone to be there for him or her, and the time is now and urgent. I have handled thousands of calls throughout the years. Some of these calls were easy; others literally involved tracing calls in a rush to save a life. This is my story.