“2-1-1 Saved My Life On Several Occasions”

“My life was like being in a really deep, dark pit, with no way out,” remembers Donna Lynch about her decade-long struggle with bipolar disorder, depression, agoraphobia and multiple suicide attempts. “I just wanted to die.”

Donna was in and out of mental hospitals so much that a nurse called her to make sure she was still alive because she hadn’t been at the hospital in three weeks.

What kept her alive? Great counselors at Berkeley County Mental Health and the volunteers at 2-1-1 Hotline. “The first time I called 2-1-1, I literally had the pills in my hand to kill myself. It felt like my brain was melting. The counselor asked if I wanted to talk. I was shocked that she cared,” Donna recalls. “2-1-1 saved my life on several occasions.”

Trident United Way’s 2-1-1 hotline is a free, confidential, 24-hour service that helps nearly 50,000 people a year get the help they need. What Donna needed was often little more than someone to listen. Eventually, she learned how to survive, then cope, then thrive.

Where once she was confined to her house for two full years, Donna today is employed fulltime at Berkeley County Mental Health helping clients get their lives together. She is newly-married and for the first time in her life, happy. And she wants to tell her story. “I want everyone to know what 2-1-1 Hotline did for me. They could do the same for you.”