Mental Health

Here’s Why I Called a Lifeline for the First Time in My Life Today.

Nothing tangibly was resolved, but it meant a lot to me as I felt better and more resourceful after the call.

Context

Five large Australian companies were hacked in the last few weeks affecting the mental health of millions of citizens. Being heard and acknowledged is a fundamental human need, especially in difficult times.

A few weeks ago, I intuitively wrote a very important story about global scams titled It’s Time to Fight Against Organized Scams on this platform, but unfortunately, this critical piece for society was not distributed by the platform and seen only around 100 people, including external viewers.

I hope Medium, as an admirable content platform, recognizes these types of essential stories to improve global intelligence and collaboration and does not restrict them from viewing a broader audience. This is a platform where words matter.

Why I Penned My Lifeline Story

Last few weeks, numerous unexpected incidents challenged and concerned me mentally. They all manifested simultaneously and made a ripple effect in my psyche. Even though they are not life-threatening instantly, they affect my mental health, causing anxiety for my future.

In this story, I share three incidents incognito to give insights that might be invaluable for anyone. My goal is to create awareness of cybersecurity issues and rising cybercrimes affecting millions of people globally.

This post is not a rant and not speculation. My goal is to share my findings, thoughts, and true feelings about recent incidents affecting my mental health and well-being.

I am not in a crisis situation per se, but I mentally got disturbed and challenged due to various incidents happening at the same time. Even though I don’t undermine cybersecurity issues, I had worse problems in my life, so I keep things in the right proportion and perspective to keep my sanity.

While my primary purpose is to create awareness for my readers with practical takeaway points, I also would like to use this post as a venue to express my thoughts and feelings. Therefore, any feedback on this piece, positive or negative, will be valuable to me.

What is a lifeline service, and why does it matter?

I heard about lifeline years ago and referred some friends, colleagues, and loved ones, but I never used it myself until today. Therefore, I’d like to give an idea of my experience.

Lifeline in Australia is a free 24X7 service to help citizens with their concerns affecting their mental health. My understanding is that the government supports it, but volunteers serve it. I believe there are similar services under different names in other countries.

There were several more, but I only summarized three incidents that happened in the last few weeks that raised my stress levels, caused anxiety and compelled me to call a lifeline to gain new perspectives.

1 — I became a target of a sophisticated financial scam.

Due to security reasons, I don’t want to give details. In short, despite my cybersecurity knowledge and utmost caution, I became a target of an international scam that my bank proactively identified.

The intelligence service in the bank got suspicious and immediately contacted me about the scam. It was so sophisticated that the scammer used registered Australian companies and the top two accredited financial services in the country to access my funds using well-devised professional rip-off services.

Even though my bank did its best to investigate the situation and stop further damage, it couldn’t recover the funds. They advised me to report it to government scam watch services and federal police, which I did. The case is under investigation, but the only consolation was to give a lifeline contact number during this process.

Just after this incident, another unexpected event happened last week, as I explained in the next section.

2 — My health insurance company was hacked last week.

This is a piece of public information, so I can share the news documented on the net. Here is the link to ABC Radio News in Australia. However, as the action plan by the company is confidential, I cannot share the details.

In a nutshell, hackers accessed a very large health insurance company and stole the private information of over three million citizens. My family was one of the victims. Therefore, in the last week, I received updates from the organization.

Clients of the organization feel victimized as the hackers now threaten the organization to make all client data available on the Internet if the organization does not meet its requirements.

The data includes driver’s license, home address, phone numbers, medical history, and more. They are personally identifiable information that can harm the clients.

As an update, unfortunately, the data was leaked to the darknet. We had to take various measures to protect our privacy and safety.

3 — Strangers contacted my bank to impersonate me and ask to change the password for my accounts.

First time in my life, I received an emergency message from the bank asking whether I called them and wanted me to choose yes or no. I selected no as I did not call them within 24 hours.

They immediately locked my Internet and phone banking services which initially annoyed me but made me grateful after understanding their concern.

I have been using this bank for over three decades which provides excellent service. I never had significant cybersecurity issues apart from my stolen credit card in the last few years. They always replaced them in ten days and recovered lost funds timely.

For confidentiality reasons, the bank did not provide me with the details of the impersonators, but they asked me to change my passwords and gave me an action plan to harden security. One of the actions is not to change the password on the phone option. So if I need to change my bank passwords, I have to go to a physical branch and provide two pieces of identification to get them to reset.

Fortunately, no money was stolen during this incident, but it raised my concerns as they provided significant information to impersonate me. The bank believes that the scammers who obtained my details might have attempted to do it. They advised me to report the case to ID Care.

I liked the services of the ID Care organization, but unfortunately, they couldn’t solve my problem, and they are very busy with recent attacks in Australia. I tried to call several times today and couldn’t reach an operator.

For example, the state I live in does not allow me to change my driver’s license, which does not make sense to me. Other states in my country do that. I am still investigating the options and escalated them to the relevant parties.

Currently, I feel vulnerable as my personally identifiable information is owned by international scammers. Thanks to support from the bank, I hardened the security, but now I am concerned about the health insurance leak, which puts me in a vulnerable position.

How did lifeline help alleviate mental pain?

First of all, a person answered the call within five minutes even though I called after hours. It was an excellent relief someone cared and wanted to understand my concerns.

The person listened to my points explained in the previous section carefully without interrupting or judging me. She answered my questions with empathy and compassion.

Interestingly, the counselor also became a victim of similar scams and the recent data breach of my health insurance company. Someone who understood my pain and acknowledged it with empathy gave me temporary relief.

The counselor did not solve any of the issues mentioned in the above three points, but she gave several contact details so that I could obtain further information. Unfortunately, those numbers were not mentioned by the government organizations that I reported. So I was grateful for the support of Healthline.

Even better, the counselor advised me to call them anytime again when I feel down and to have a chat with other counselors who might provide me with different perspectives.

At the end of the call, I felt noticeable relief giving me more space to think differently. Interestingly, the counselor mentioned that rather than presenting myself as a victim, I sought information to gain a new perspective and planned to take action to find viable solutions to these three incidents.

Conclusions and Takeaways

As I mentioned in my previous story, anyone can fall into sophisticated scams as they are run by professionals who can trick even the most knowledgeable and experienced people. I feel no shame or guilt, as also validated by the lifeline counselor.

I see these incidents as lessons, so they increased my intelligence and resilience. I reframed these setbacks as opportunities for my growth.

Even though these are serious issues, I still see them from the proper perspective compared to the big schema of things.

My health and fitness give me confidence. As long as I am healthy, I believe that there will be a solution to every problem, even though the solutions might require a lot of effort and takes time.

While my recovery tools like self-talk, meditation, and other mental health first aid kit items help me to keep my sanity, I enjoyed an additional and independent person to listen to my worries and show her empathy and compassion.

As a result, I found the lifeline call therapeutic and empowering even though it did not solve my problems.

The problems still exist. But I felt much better after talking to an anonymous person who listened to me, served as a soundboard, and gave me perspectives supporting my mental health and well-being remotely.

Some people care about others and do their best to alleviate their pain. However, others, like scammers and hackers, try to rip off people and cause them unnecessary suffering for selfish reasons.

The sad part is that our governments and big corporations cannot effectively deal with these types of unethical people. So millions of innocent citizens suffer from the harm they give.

The Internet has become a minefield of dangerous people trying to cause suffering to vulnerable and authentic people. Therefore, we need to be extremely careful with any proposal, no matter how genuine they sound.

If a deal sounds too good to be true, most likely it is. Consider it a scam as default, as advised by scam watchers. Unfortunately, my optimism does not work on the Internet currently. I became skeptical of every phone call and email recently.

I hope one day it will change. I desire to have services like Blockchain to make the net more trustworthy. I believe one day, we will trust the process without trusting the people in our transactions and business interactions.

Before making any business decision, we should always obtain feedback from trusted third parties, friends, and loved ones who might detect our blind spots.

Unfortunately, scams have been a norm on the Internet. Cybercrimes have been very sophisticated. Even governments and large organizations struggle to deal with them effectively. The more information we provide, the better they can sell with the undesirable situation.

If you are scammed or bullied on the net and feel down, you may share your concerns anonymously on the phone for a service like a lifeline to lower your stress and anxiety. Talking with a person who listens and cares can be invaluable.

You will not regret making a call to a lifeline as you will gain a mental space and better perspectives at the end of the call. It is not a waste of time as it might be perceived from the outside.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

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