Layoffs, foreclosures, cutbacks -- there are plenty of grim economic stats out there this holiday season. Here's perhaps the grimmest one of all: Calls to Los Angeles' busiest suicide hotline have soared as much as 60% over the last year.
Mental health experts say the sour economy has turned what usually manifests as seasonal blues into a full-blown crisis.
"I've been doing this for 10 years, and this is the worst I've seen it," said Kita Curry, president of the Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center, which along with nine clinics in the Southland operates the region's most frequently called suicide hotline -- (877) 7-CRISIS.
Last year, she said, the hotline got an average of 1,500 calls per month. Now the total routinely tops 2,000 and sometimes runs as high as 2,400.
Likewise, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline says it's getting 35% more calls -- roughly 50,000 a month this year compared with about 37,000 last year. The national hotline can be reached at (800) 273-TALK.
"What's even more noticeable than the increase in call volume is that the intensity of the calls has gone up," said Sandri Kramer, who began as a hotline volunteer at the Hirsch center about 13 years ago and now is the program director.
"Fear is the No. 1 emotion we're hearing. People are feeling hopeless and helpless because of the economic crisis, and many feel that things aren't going to get better."
Kramer cited the case of a woman who lost her home and now lives in her car. Another caller, she said, is secretly living in a locker at a storage facility.
"A year ago, many of the calls we would get were from people with mental illnesses," Kramer said. "Now many of the calls are from people who have lost their home, or their job, or who still have a job but can't meet the cost of living."
One other big difference: Kramer said callers these days appeared to be further along in pondering their own demise, rather than just grappling with sadness or confusion.
Extreme cases have emerged in recent weeks. On Tuesday, a money manager who had invested funds with accused Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernard Madoff was found dead in his Manhattan office. Police said Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, 65, apparently committed suicide.
Madoff is charged with bilking clients and business partners out of as much as $50 billion. De la Villehuchet may have lost as much as $1.4 billion of investors' cash.
