Conversations between callers and Community Helpline volunteers can be life changing for both. So can silence.
Two years ago, Claudia Misceo learned the importance of silence.
She was talking to a man with a terminal illness who was thinking about ending his life. He had called Community Helpline, where Misceo volunteered.
“He knew the odds were against him,” she said recently. “He wanted to die with dignity.”
Even though she had worked at Community Helpline for two years, she felt nervous.
“I felt like I needed to fix it,” she said. “But I thought, I kind of understand where he’s coming from.”
She talked with the man for two hours.
“At one point he said, ‘I just want to die.’ We sat for a couple of moments. I didn’t say anything. And then he said, ‘But that doesn’t make sense.’ He talked about all the reasons to live. I think sitting in silence gave him the opportunity to think about what he said. He realized it wasn’t going to help him.’”
Misceo said that even today, she could recall the whole conversation.
“It really stood out to me, the real power of silence,” she said. “I could have said so many things, but it wasn’t going to validate where he was coming from.”
Validation, she said, is key.
“When you validate how they’re feeling, you can get onto what they need to do to change the situation,” she said.
Misceo is one of about 60 volunteers who answer the free, confidential hotline every day of the year, including holidays. The majority of volunteers are teenagers, recruited from South Bay high schools.
Unlike many similar services, Community Helpline, which is a nonprofit, is not restricted to any topic or age group. Volunteers are trained to deal with a range of issues, including depression, anxiety, suicide, domestic violence, addiction and abuse. Sometimes they get calls from older people who see the number in the Palos Verdes Directory, which the organization delivers every year to raise funds, according to Tina Cruz, the program coordinator.
“Then they find out, ‘Oh, I can talk here,’” she said. “They find comfort in talking and sharing. They didn’t know the service was out there.”
The hotline began as a Palos Verdes resource. Now, they get calls from all over the state — and even out of state. The majority of the 10,000 calls they field per year come from Southern California, however.
If a listener thinks that someone is truly in danger of hurting himself or herself, the listener might transfer the caller to a suicide hotline or call 911.
“I ask them, do you want to die, or do you want the pain to stop?” said Misceo. “There’s a difference. There’s a way to make the pain stop.”
Misceo recalled a caller who had made himself sick by drinking too much alcohol. The listener, who was not Misceo, called 911. The man was taken to the hospital. While there, the man called the helpline to thank them.
“Most people call us because they’ve exhausted their options,” said Misceo. “They don’t have anyone else.”
Misceo began working at the hotline as a student at El Camino College in Torrance. A friend who was a volunteer suggested that she try it.
“I fell in love,” said Misceo. “It was meant to be.”
She has gained skills that she uses in her personal life.
“I’ve grown and changed so much from the experience,” she said.
Now she is planning to get a degree in art therapy at the University of Washington, where she will enroll in the fall. She wants to move back to the South Bay, where she’s lived all her life, to start her practice.
Misceo’s trajectory is not unusual. Joel Schwartz began volunteering as a teenager. Now he has a doctorate in psychology and lectures new trainees. He said he uses the skills he learned as a young volunteer in his practice.
“When it comes down to really doing the work, I go back to what I learned at 15,” he said.
That includes the “importance of silence, letting someone be without pushing them or trying to intervene.”
Schwartz, who is taking over the private practice of Vicki Scrimger, another therapeutic professional who got her start at Helpline and is still involved with the organization, learned that skill from one call in particular.
That “once-in-a-lifetime call” was from a man who truly wanted to die, and didn’t want to be talked out of it, Schwartz said.
“I spent an hour and a half not employing my listening skills, trying to convince him not to do it, to think of his kids,” he said.
Finally, he gave up.
“It was a profound moment of growth to just sit there with him in pain,” he said. “We connected on a really deep level.”
They both cried, said Schwartz.
“To have that discovery at 15 or 16 was profound,” he said.
Schwartz doesn’t know what happened to the man, but he thinks he probably killed himself.
“At the end, I assumed he went through with it,” he said. “I think whether he did it or not, he wanted to connect with somebody, and I was able to give him that. If it was fulfilling a hopeless man’s dying wish, that’s powerful, too.”
Schwartz sees the growth he experienced as a young man in the teens he now works with.
“I realized that the ones who stick with the Helpline have a confidence and maturity,” he said. “They can really talk about things in ways most teens can’t. They’re not defensive. They’re in touch with their feelings, they’re not worried about talking to an adult about a sensitive topic.”
Pam Van Alstyne, who began as a listener 14 years ago and is now on the advisory board of the organization, said she sees teens “blossom” as they gain more experience. She also thinks they’re particularly suited to the work.
“Teens don’t pass judgment,” she said.
One high school senior, who didn’t want her name used because she is an active listener, said that the experience had changed her life.
“I came from a fairly sheltered background,” she said. “Being able to talk to people I wouldn’t ordinarily talk to has given me a better perspective.”
Another teen, a senior at Peninsula High School who also didn’t want to use her name, said that the listening skills she’s developed have allowed her friendships to deepen.
“I’ve gotten so much closer to my friends,” she said. “They’re able to open up to me. Instead of me just talking, they’re able to spill it all out.”
It also works the other way around.
“My friends also let me have a chance to talk,” she said. “They’re able to see how much listening helps them, and they’re able to do the same for me.”
The girl, who does other volunteer work, started at Helpline after taking an AP psychology class. Though she doesn’t yet know where she’s going to college, she plans to major in psychology.
“Helpline marries my passion for helping others and understanding the human mind,” she said. “It’s captivating how intelligent and mysterious it is, but also how vulnerable. Behind the science of the mind, there are real people with real emotions.”
Cruz, the program coordinator who manages all the volunteers, thinks that anyone can benefit from the skills they gain by working at Helpline.
“These tools are amazing, because whether you’re a stay-at-home mom or an executive, an engineer or a college student — it doesn’t matter where you’re coming from,” she said. “It works.” PP
