Phoenix_RisingSenior Contributor
Bad experience with lifeline
Hi,
This is my first time posting here. I called lifeline last night and it did NOT go well. I very rarely call because I have had so many negative experiences in the past, but I was desperate. I explained to the counsellor that a large part of my mess is that up until 18 months ago I had been in a very complex and abusive relationship with my psychologist for sixteen years. The counsellor replied...wait for it..."perhaps the abuse was an important part of the therapy." I feel SO sick jut typing it now. I hung up on him and ended up in a bigger crisis than I was before I called. I tried calling back but now I was super dysregulated and the counsellor hung up on me - the most common experience I have when I call lifeline 
I have submitted a complaint to lifeline via their website, but I'm not sure if they are able to trace who the counsellor was given that all I can provide is a time - I don't know his name or what lifeline centre he is located at.
Am I the only person who has had negative experiences with lifeline? Everywhere I look the message is "call lifeline" and yet the skill level of the counsellors seems to be very poor - and indeed it seems to have become poorer over the years. A lot of them seem to answer the phone in a tone that suggests I have rudely interrupted their evening, and most of them seem to have no idea how to just "be" with the big feelings at the start of the call. Along with my mental health issues, I have autism and when I am swamped with overwhelming emotions I lose the capacity for speech and make a lot of weird noises instead. I have learnt to get out "I am autistic, please don't hang up on me" as soon as they answer, but most of the time I still get hung up on. In this particular instance it actually would have been better if the counsellor had hung up, rather than say what he said. I will never ever be able to unhear his response Thank you for listening.
Thanks for responding to my post. Sadly, in my experience, most trained mental health professionals aren't much better at providing support than the lifeline volunteers. It sounds like you had a really positive experience with the person at the hospital. I get the sense that Victoria is miles ahead of NSW when it comes to mental health. I've been forming this view over the past couple of years based on various things I've heard. I've had a lot of very negative experiences in the NSW public mental health system. Indeed, I now have a lot of trauma-related issues related to those experiences, which actually impact my life more than the original issues that brought me into contact with mental health services in the first place 
Then I got locked up in the psych ward until 11am simply because there was no psychiatrist on duty to sign off that I was fine to go home. Nope, me and the public mental health system definitely don't get along. However, as I said, I really get the sense that people tend to have more positive experiences in Victoria. I am curious to know how this apparent disparity has come about. 
