Suicide hotlines received a record number of calls after Trump was elected

Suicide prevention hotlines received a landslide of phone calls late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning as the election turned in favor of Donald Trump, The Verge reports. "We haven't seen anything like that in our history," National Suicide Prevention Lifeline director John Draper said.

The National Suicide Prevention Hotline received 660 calls in the single hour between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Wednesday, over twice as many as average. The Crisis Text Line was also contacted twice as much as normal Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, with the words "election" and "scared" being used most often, with "scared" usually paired with "LGBTQ." The Trans Lifeline received a record 432 calls by Wednesday afternoon. Prior to the election, the most calls the Trans Lifeline had received in a single day were 251, when North Carolina passed its bathroom bill.

Future vice president Mike Pence is a major concern for LGBTQ people in particular, as he has rolled back laws preventing the discrimination of LGBTQ people in order to protect the freedom of religion. He also supported North Carolina's bill requiring transgender people to use bathrooms matching their birth certificate gender and believes in conversion therapy, which is based on the idea that LGBTQ people can be "cured." Additionally, Trump's promise to deport undocumented immigrants and his rhetoric about women have many other people scared of what's potentially to come.

Memphis-based psychotherapist Quinn Gee told The Verge three of her clients between 10 and 14 needed to be put on emergency suicide hold after the election because their parents were either undocumented immigrants or gay. "A lot of people just couldn't believe that somebody who openly ran on all of these terrible things was supported by a large majority of white people," Gee said. "It was like, 'Oh my god, so you really hate me.'"