Telluride Times, Thursday, February 5, 2026

A little over a year ago, I wrote in this column that I had started volunteering with a text-only crisis line, a non-profit organization I’d read an article about and sensed might be a good fit for me. I took the 30-hour training and committed to 200 hours, or about a year at four hours per week. The training mirrored health coaching skills to some extent, which made it even more relevant; its own triage-style communication protocol was still all about non-judgment, support, and safety, which is the highest priority.

In the 300 and some text calls I’ve taken (the organization takes over a million a year), I have gained much insight into the state of my fellow human beings, young, old, and in between. People who are anxious, losing interest in all of it; people who are dysregulated, plagued by addiction, pressured, abused, overwhelmed, depressed.

In addition, I’ve dealt with people pranking the line, haters, people so scared they can only hang up or type in STOP, people who don’t really want answers or help. People may be texting in for the first time—or the fiftieth.

On any given day or conversation, in other words, a volunteer crisis counselor never knows whatis going to happen. A 12-year-old may be about to self-harm. Someone on prescription meds might be dealing with the consequences of a new drug or dosage. A texter might start the conversation with an allusion to ending it all. There might be a medical emergency or suspected abuse in progress.

Describing conversations in this basic way feels like naming three primary colors when there are literally millions of shades.

What I’ve noted as the most prevalent percentage of my calls aligns with the organization’s own 2023 report: anxiety, relationships, depression, and suicide are at the top, followed by loneliness, self-harm, and then the rest.

The majority of those texting in are women and girls. Most of my calls last around an hour unless they are pranks or non-responders. I hail my supervisor at least once a week for help with wording, legal issues, or advice. I log onto the support chat regularly, which is part of the platform, where information can be shared on resources, verbiage, and circumstantial issues.

There is a lot of help available to volunteers if they need it. More experienced counselors may opt to take multiple calls at a time; but I’ve only done that twice, both by accident.

It’s estimated that a month sees somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 active volunteers online of the over 15,000 active in that year. People from every walk of life, in short, need support and understanding to function—to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Now more than ever.

When I was a freshman in high school (at the Catholic girls’ school I’ve written about numerous times), I was a miserable creature. While 99 percent of my class had funneled in from other Catholic schools, not me. I was on a music scholarship for piano, pushed hard by a very talented—and difficult and demanding—nun. I hated it. (We did stay in touch until she died in her 90s, however.) Prone to internalizing the pressure and the loneliness, and too much in my own head, I believed I was going crazy.

Enter a young lay (non-clerical) teacher who taught the Old Testament to freshmen. She had thick red hair in a taut high ponytail, freckles, and not a speck of nonsense about her. For whatever reason, she saw right into me and my anguish and offered to have lunch with me pretty much every day for a long stretch of time. She listened. She probably offered some advice, but more importantly she listened and encouraged me to express my feelings. She was, I felt, the only one who had a sense of who I was.

I’ve thought about this over the years but never really spent dedicated time feeling it again—how Mrs. Benoit saved my life; how important it was that one person offered me, an imploding teen, her lunch hour. I don’t know how good I really am at this job of attending to people in crisis, but this I do know: people are incredible in their resilience, in what they live with or live without. I am heartened that they reach out for help.

We’re all on a spectrum of mental health. If you feel alone in your struggle, whatever it may be, seek support—from a friend, a professional, a family member, an anonymous willing ear.

Because one person listening can make all the difference.