ST. LOUIS — The National Suicide Hotline is reporting all-time success thanks to the use of a new script written specifically for gamers.
988 Crisis Support Operator, Denise George, unveiled the promising new support script to her team with the intention of creating new protocols for assisting the demographic most vulnerable to the mental health crisis: Gamers.
“Nearly a third of our late night calls are from gamers,” George said in a press conference. “We were doing our best to talk them through whatever they were dealing with, reminding them that they have much to live for and people who care, but no matter how much we followed our training we didn’t know how to help someone who was ‘getting tilted’. So I tried a new approach. I spent an entire weekend doing research, standing outside my son’s room while he played ‘Call of Duty: Warzone’ with his friends over discord. I listened to their conversations, their language, but more importantly I took note of how they comforted one another when experiencing distress.
Experts agree, the key to helping gamers is through understanding.
“Despite the common belief that gamers are insecure, misanthropic manbabies, their language shows a surprising capacity for emotional intelligence,” said gamer psychologist, Chuck Ward. “What a gamer refers to as ‘grinding’, the feeling of facing endless repetitive tasks for minute gains, is what we psychologists would call ‘depression’. So, I ask my clients if they feel like they’ve been grinding, or if anyone in their life is being a griefer, which is, well, my way of explaining abusive relationships to them.”
Since implementing George’s new call script, suicide rates among gamers have dropped nationwide.
“Often times they call because they want to ragequit IRL, they think I won’t understand what they’re going through because I’m a filthy casual, but with this new script I’m able to speak to them on their terms and remind them that we can’t end on an L. We can never end on an L.”
At press time, George’s breakthrough method has helped countless people and finally given hope for gamers and the family members wondering when they’ll come out of their room.
