Sixty years on, Lifeline grapples with 'new normal'

"The very basis of Lifeline is quite extraordinary," patron and former chairman John Brogden told AAP.

"You pick up a phone or you text a complete stranger, someone you'll almost certainly never meet in your life, and pour out your deepest and darkest despair and difficulties.

"Because you can't talk to your friends and family ... you're too ashamed, you're too embarrassed, you don't think they'll understand or you think they'll judge you.

"It's that non-judgmental, unconditional listening that is what makes the difference for people who don't think anyone wants to listen."

Ahead of its 60th anniversary on Thursday, Lifeline has never been busier.

Its network of 41 centres and 11,000 staff and volunteers across Australia receives more than 2.5 million telephone, text and online chat contacts each year.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Summer bushfires, Lifeline received an average of about 2400 contacts per day.

That number has blown out to 3800 a day.

"It's the new normal for us," Mr Brodgen said.

"The biggest day in the history of Lifeline was New Year's Day this year.

"It was people waking up very anxious or worried about the year ahead. We've had bushfires, floods, COVID, phenomenal disruption in people's lives and now we're seeing interest rate increases ... (people experiencing) a quadrupling of their mortgage bill."

Demand for mental health support spiked in Australia during the first year of the pandemic but fears of a rise in suicides failed to materialise.

"The outcome was more people sought help and suicide dropped," Mr Brogden said.

"That is a wonderful outcome for organisations like Lifeline that have been screaming out for a long time that there's no shame in having a mental illness, there's no shame in asking for help."

Lifeline was founded by the late Reverend Sir Alan Walker, a Methodist churchman and anti-war activist.

A man who identified himself as Roy had called Dr Walker at home one night, saying he intended to take his own life.

Despite the reverend's counselling attempts, Roy was found dead days later.

The harrowing encounter planted a seed for Dr Walker and after years of planning, Lifeline opened on March 16, 1963, at a Darlinghurst office.

The first phone call came through just after the lines opened at 5pm and was answered by Eric Adam, a railway engineer by trade and longtime friend of Dr Walker who had helped to establish the service.

"She had just lost her boyfriend so she was a bit devastated. She just wanted to talk to somebody about it," his daughter Jennifer Adam recalled.

"Dad was there and he said, 'Well, the Central Methodist Mission has a cabaret on a Saturday night. Why don't you come along to that and we'll look out for you and make sure you meet some nice people.'

"She was quite comforted by that."

Suicide was broadly considered to be a sin at the time and criminalised in parts of Australia.

"It's hard to imagine 60 years later but this was a matter of so much shame," Mr Brogden said.

"This was a time when many families would lie about how their loved ones died, where good-hearted police officers and ambulance officers and doctors would turn up to a suicide and falsify the documents to say it was a heart attack or misadventure.

"It's extraordinary that he had the courage to start Lifeline in that environment."

The reverend's motivation, Mr Brodgen believes, was not just to preserve life but to promote compassion for those in the depths of despair.

It's a subject with which Mr Brodgen is intimately familiar, having survived a suicide attempt days after resigning as NSW opposition leader in 2005.

"We've had an extraordinary change in attitudes towards mental health in Australia but the area where we still struggle is suicide," he said.

"Because it's such a dark and sad and tragic topic. It's hard for people to often understand why it happened and there's enormous guilt for people who feel that they could have done more (but) didn't see it happening."

Lifeline's aim is not to normalise suicide but instead to normalise mental illness.

"We don't want people to see suicide as the best way out of a difficult situation. We want them to see that there's hope to live through that difficult period in time," Mr Brogden said.

"Lifeline has played an incredible role, in my view, in letting people know there is hope during personal crises and despair."

Lifeline 13 11 14

beyondblue 1300 22 4636

Australian Associated Press