Lifelinehelpline Avis 

Every 1 star reviews here are all true. I am empathetic to you all. At first I think I was unlucky that one person was incompetent, but I tried a few more times later and they are all the same. And today I tried again, they don't even wanna start the conversation with me.

This was my first time using any kind of website like this when I was in the middle of an anxiety attack and desperately needed someone to talk to and lifeline was perfect I used the webchat and although it took roughly half an hour for someone to enter the chat, it was completely worth it. I can't explain how forever greatful I am that someone created something like this and for me this was better than kids help line because of the waiting times, kids help line normally takes around an hour and can be longer at night but lifeline only took around half an hour. I will forever be greatful for this website.

Appalling not compassionate felt bad for wasting their time. Don’t bother. You might as well drown yourself in your negative emotions. Despicable.

I was told to go to my brothers house who had failed to protect me from my parents (his in his late 30’s) after I told them about my parents abuse. They also told me to support my mother (who had been abusive towards me), and to work on getting her counseling rather than asking me whether I’m ok. Absolutely ridiculous.

1stly, refused to use my name or give me her name(make one up) It's awful 😖 trying to speak with someone with cold & distant attitude. Shut me down several times. It's the attitude 😒 🙄 of no compassion or smile in their voice, that is the worst. For people with no family & Cptsd it's so painful. Feel 100% worse. I must remember NOT to ever never call again. I feel totally alone with my grief. Why do they trick you with saying they help with grief - then she tells they don't actually and wanted me to jog on. If we had a reliable friend we could confide in - we wouldn't be calling Lifeline. I hung up because she was weird. It's a private business with all the care of capitalism. PS they better not send the police around.
⚠️Edit: 90% of people here on trustpilot have experienced 0-1star treatment. It really helped to read all the reviews - I feel connected to all the hurting people that got more hurt. Sending Love to our Aussie community. I care how you feel. Big Hugs 🫂 ❤️

Completely invalided my experience: I kept saying I’ve been living with depression since I was nine and I’ve been actively living with suicide ideation since 14- her response was “you couldn’t possibly been feeling this deeply depressed for that long!”
I needed someone to listen and instead it was a person panicking when I mentioned I hope for death and peace, not listening and asking questions .. I actually felt like hanging up the phone and could feel myself getting cross

God help us if this is our lifeline. As a crisis counsellor who needed help, im glad i wasnt so desperate that night i reacged out for the first (and last) time. Who are they signing up for these roles? Disgraceful. Please improve your staff, people are dying.

This is a really poor service staff are not even trained yet you wait 5 hours to talk to someone .then they just rush you off the phone don't seem to care talk like robots ect .I would only recommend this service if you have no one else to talk yo even if you don't like reaching out to family and friends. this is surely worse.

If I can give then zero star I will, is what that are, I’m in a sucide state calling them is waste of my time

I called Lifeline today for some help, support and guidance, and the man that answered sounded so miserable, sad and demotivated, I felt awkward and uncomfortable to proceed:(

Could not provide me with any help whatsoever, expressed feeling down, suicidal thoughts etc. Greatest advice I’ve ever gotten “make yourself a cup of tea”. That will make your suicidal thoughts go away. The person on the other end of the phone could only dig for information, gave false details left right and centre. Somehow still got cops rocking up at my door at 3am, 5hours after the episode.
Confidentiality = None
Professionalism = None
Helpfulness = None
Take it from me, you’re better off dealing with your mental health issues on your own than dealing with this cock and balls service!

Lifeline is useless. I have called many times but had no positive experiences. I hate how they just follow a script which involves 1. asking about thoughts of suicide and 2. asking how you can use 'self care.' My issue with the suicide question is it can put thoughts of it into the mind of someone who has not actually considering it. My issue with the 'self care' is how patronising it feels. My mental health issues are very complex and long term. I have exhausted every form of professional help imaginable. I am not going to feel better (even in the moment) by having a bath, reading, cooking a meal, going for a walk, listening to music. If it was that simple, I would have thought of it myself.

Beyond shocking, did nothing but degrade, insult and infantilise me, made me feel that nobody cares at all and I’m just irrational and a problem. Made me feel extremely guilty about being in such agony I wanted desperately to be gone. I left the call feeling completely suicidal.

Absolutely hopeless. The girl didn’t even bother introducing herself or who she was or what she does it was plain silence left on my part to say what I was there for and struggling with. She was hopeless. Hardly talked. No advice given, no care, no empathy, no suicide risk assessment, so many awkward silences until I finally had to say I’m fine just to leave the awkwardness of that conversation. Lifelines is dealing with suicidal people- hire better people. Appalling. If I decided to kill myself tonight luckily I have the whole conversation recorded because I think she/lifeline could be sued for being so incompetent and negligent: didn’t know lifeline would hire such incompetent and negligent staff. Don’t trust them. They’ll make you feel worse. This is in Adelaide

I don't know why I even bothered to call. U explain how low U are and no support and what U are going through. I just give up absolutely a waste of time and honestly so impersonal U don't even know the persons name

I have been calling life line on and off. I just wanted to thank the person I spoke to today (wish I had taken her name). I was extremely anxious today and the person who I spoke to calmed me down. She went through a calming process and I was so amazed by this. I had called around 2.40pm. I really appreciate the service.

I called up last night as I was in a really bad place and I was terrified of my own thoughts of self harm, I had no one around me at the time and I couldn't go any where due to the situation I am currently in.

I was on the phone for about 11mins explaining how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking, I got told to go for a walk to clear my head and was given breathing exercises. Once I told them what led to this spiral they then told me to cut slack on what had put me down that path. They even told me I need to grab a pamphlet from my drs office on depression and read it.

I was then forced to explain more personal things that I was not comfortable with by the woman on the other end of the phone, I told her I did not want to talk about that part and she kept pushing.

I hung up after this and was left even more isolated and scared by the ordeal of speaking to her.

Zero stars. Said I wasn't suicidal, went to bed and got taken to hospital by the cops. Absolutely ridiculous.

Trust pilot 1.6 % No way are this lot worth that

Disappointing. I've reached out to the service multiple times now hoping for a different experience but unfortunately, I keep getting the same result.
The first time I tried connecting I was in a waiting room for 20 minutes before I gave up. The second time, I was on the chat for nearly 2 hours where 5 or 6 messages were exchanged, as the reply time was significant. not only that, they didn't understand what I wanted/needed and ended up referring me to a website listing off other help services I could use. Ironically, Lifeline was the main one listed there.

Finally, today, I reached out with a simple request, should I do X or Y to deal with ABC situation - their response was something along the lines of "I'm sure this must be difficult for you, can you tell me how you're feeling". The request for support was not for me, it was for someone else. Absolute joke. Didn't even read what I'd said, and still somehow took 10 mins to reply.

I've gotten better assistance from using ChatGPT, and more 'human' responses. If anyone is struggling, try ChatGPT. Just specify in the prompts that you're from Aus. You can even ask it to 'act as a psychologist', and it will assume the personal identity of a psych. It might help, it might not, but, it will definitely be better than Lifeline.