How to save a life, one call at a time

How do you talk to someone who spends a majority of their life listening? Jayanthi, (name changed), a former chartered accountant, squirms in her seat when asked about her life. “I am not comfortable talking about myself, I am not used to this,” she says. Generally, she is on the other side of the conversation. You see, Jayanthi is a volunteer at Sneha Suicide Prevention Centre in RA Puram.

When Jayanthi was 15, a pamphlet by Sneha stuck to a pole at a railway station caught her eye. The words “Are you ordinary enough to be a volunteer?” jumped at her. Over two decades later today, she volunteers four hours a week for Sneha, aiding the distressed through the 24/7 telephone helpline and convincing the suicidal not to lose hope in face-to-face meetings. In many ways, Jayanthi is the last lifeline for several Chennaiites, young and old.

How does she do it? “The key is to see them as people, stripped of all other identities,” reveals Jayanthi. “When you talk to a person, you have to connect just as two human beings.” We tried to understand what drew her towards talking people out of killing themselves, but Jayanthi reveals that it has nothing to do with her own emotional history.

Sharing personal experiences is not expected of volunteers, she explains. “Different people react differently, even when put in the same situation. So while I can draw upon my experiences to understand their feelings of shame, guilt or anger, I can’t share my experiences or advise them. What if that person tries out what I did and it doesn’t work for them? They would then hesitate to call here again, and lose what’s probably their last hope.”

Instead, she acts like a sumaithangi: a stone platform for weary travellers to rest their burdens on for a while; a blank slate for people to chalk their loneliness on to. “We act like witnesses to their lives. Isn’t that what we all want?”

Despite having honest, intimate conversations with them, she does not consider herself to be their buddy. After all, a suicide prevention volunteer is no substitute for friends. “The aim of this exercise is to help them have healthy relationships in real life. We don’t want them to be dependable on us; we’d rather they never call us again.”

Far from being friendly, learning to dissociate oneself from their work as volunteers is an art they must all learn. Jayanthi has received calls from children as young as 11 years old. She herself is a mother. Very often, Jayanthi is struck by helplessness: no matter how much the callers open up to her, the minute she hangs up the phone, she is literally disconnected from them. Strangers again.

There is no sense of closure, much less a happy ending. Nobody hands out validation for this work because you never know whether you have been succesful or not — all you can do is hope. “We do share our callers’ pain. After every call, I feel inadequate, because I never know what happens next. But once we go out of this room, real life takes over.”

Volunteers aren’t allowed to reveal to anyone except their core family that they work at a suicide helpline, in case it prevents any of their acquaintances from calling when in need. Jayanthi and the other volunteers make it a point to vent their hearts out before leaving the room. Given that everything they talk about is confidential, it becomes essential to have a supportive family that understands that there is a portion of their spouse’s or parent’s life that they will never know anything about.

Despite all the secrecy, Jayanthi is fascinated by the idea of providing emotional support to someone. “My personal belief of not looking at things in black and white reflects Sneha’s. Here, I can afford to be completely non-judgmental,” she signs off.