Really in a bad way at the moment.

@Jlol Just a note in regard to your frustration at services such as ours referring on:

We only ever refer on if the member's needs are out of our scope of practice. Our forums are operated by peer workers and counsellors and SANE has always made it clear we are not a crisis service. We have no choice then that if someone is in crisis we MUST refer them to a crisis service.

I am a peer worker. I have a cert 4 in peer work plus other training in peer work and mental health first aid. I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist, or other type of therapist so I will never pretend that I know more than I do and try to support a member as if I am.

Our forums are based on a peer-to-peer framework. Our intention is to share lived experience of mental illness and to build community. Evidence shows this can be incredibly helpful for people with mental illness. BUT we can't be something we are not which is why we have no choice to offer referrals to people whose needs are out of the framework we offer.

I won't speak for other services but am pretty sure they would give you a similar explanation.

"That's why Lifeline escalate your calls to ES - for your safety."

This is not true all the time.

I relayed a story a few weeks ago here where LL called ES on me for "saying threatening things about my landlord due to a rent increase".

This wasn't true, and was provable due to the fact that I don't have a landlord as I don't rent and have not done in years.

It took multiple phone calls, emails and a RTI submission to get LL to admit that the information they gave ES was not recorded against my file (presumably they mixed up the phone numbers). They have not apologised or revealed how the mistake occurred.

In this instance the call was not made for my safety and in fact had the opposite effect - I was overwhelmingly stressed out and fearful.

I will no longer call LL or these services again for this reason - mistakes can be made with bad consequences.