Calls to suicide hotlines over coronavirus are spiking. Counselors feel the pain
LOS ANGELES - The voice on the other end of the line was filled with panic.
The woman on the phone had come back from the market with a dry cough; she was worried about having COVID-19, worried that she could infect her husband and her children. For a brief moment, she'd forgotten her fears and embraced her kids.
"Now I'm afraid they may have gotten it from me," she said.
April Rosas comforted the woman the only way she could - over the phone from a small gray cubicle on the third floor of the Didi Hirsch Suicide Prevention Center in Century City.
Her children "were in need of love," the caller said. "They were not doing OK, so I hugged them."
"You did your role as a parent. You were there for them," Rosas said. "That's not a bad thing."
The caller
