Crisis Hotline

Posted by: Amara on: March 9, 2013

In: Uncategorized
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“Hello, and welcome to Crisis hotline……”

If you are obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly.

If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you.

If you have multiple personalities, press 3, 4, 5, and 6.

If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want. Stay
on the line so we can trace your call.

If you are delusional, press 7 and your call will be transferred
to the mother ship.

If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a small voice will
tell you which number to press.

If you are dyslexic, press 9696969696969696.

If you have amnesia, press 8 and state your name, address,
telephone number, date of birth, social security number, and your
mother’s maiden name.

If you have bipolar disorder, please leave a message after the
beep or before the beep or after the beep. Please wait for the
beep.

If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-
term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss,
press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9.

If you are depressive, it doesn’t matter which number you
press, no one will answer.

[Joke stolen from about everywhere on the Internet – no idea who wrote it originally, I’m sorry]

* * *

I would love to do something funny with my voice mail, but I could never decide on the language. The best I have ever heard was that of a friend of my brother’s: “I say to you, you will not leave me a message before the rooster crows three times.” and then you could hear my brother in his famous impression of a rooster. Which by the way was hilarious: he would crow in malls, schools, downtown streets and people would stop and try to locate the bird.Unfortunately, this was all ruined by cellphones ringtones: you can hear just about anything these days, and no one is amazed. But I digress.

So, crisis hotlines. After my first visit to the psychiatrist, they left me with a list of numbers to call in case I wanted to kill myself, and isn’t that weird? I wonder what the idea is. Helplines I can understand. But those number specific for suicidal people? Either you want to kill yourself, in which case you don’t warn anyone, or you don’t want to kill yourself, in which case you don’t need the number.

It looks to me that you would call them only if you don’t want to kill yourself, and yet for some unfathomable reason you want the police to come and knock down your door.