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 about 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.