The creator of Never Alone Helpline had paid the dues of loneliness more times than he could count.
The terrifying shadow of having no one and everyone at the same time was not something that he was a stranger to. He had often sentenced himself to speaking only what others wanted to hear, being his own judge and jury as he constantly told himself that no one cared. No one wanted to know of the garbage disposal that was his brain. They only cared for the boy who was fine. Who was okay. The man who didn't have a problem in the world. So, he became the man with no problems, certain that the people around him would prefer not to be washed out with the tsunami of dark thoughts that he kept locked inside.
They had believed him to be fine. So he had been fine.
He had been honest with no one. Not even his reflection.
In being the man with no problems, he found that he could no longer recognize the man in the mirror. He became confined in his own reflection. Obsessed and transfixed with reassuring everyone that he was fine. That his life was perfect. That he had no reason to be upset about anything. Because, just like him, everything was fine.
His actions were as mundane as his words, distant and expected as people heard what they wanted to hear. Because he didn't want them to hear. Hadn't wanted them to know what really went on beyond that bright smile of his. He was so sure that they wouldn't understand. That they would take him for a joke. Not believe him, even. For, how could a man who was so happy be such a sad little boy? How was that possible?
Or worse, he had feared that they would see him a something broken. Something to be fixed.
In a desperate claw at something called hope, he had dialled a random number. Someone to talk to. Someone he couldn't put a face to. Someone who he didn't have to worry about leaving him once they had heard of his tragedies. Because they were never there in the first place. For once, he didn't have to worry about this person leaving him. Because they were never there in the first place.
And, in that moment, for the first time in a very long time, he felt a little less useless. He said what he wanted to say. And his words weren't meaningless like they usually were. The had meaning. A meaning so great that the revelation he felt almost knocked him off his feet. Because those anonymous phone calls had taught him a great lesson. The lesson of selecting the correct words to speak. For, he had realized that telling people what they wanted to hear was pointless. If they cannot understand, comprehend, support, encourage or bear the weight of what you have to say, then those people are not worth talking to. For, a real friend is the person who what you want to say, is what they want to hear.
And now, as a man who had learnt his lesson and saw that no one deserved to feel the loneliness he had felt, he opened up the opportunity to the world.
Shane Caliente created Never Alone Helpline in the faint hope that no one would ever have to feel as alone as he had felt.