Alameda County Suicide (or How Not to Save a Life)

All right, back to Alameda County. I finally get to talk to the supervisor of the suicide prevention training Monday. She asks to talk with me. Of course I'm going to talk with her. The conversation - it's been six days, I'm having a hard time remembering it now. But it was essentially and above all else a half hour blood bath. My sense was that the presence of suicidal ideation had put me off of their training list from the beginning and that they were somehow taking a perverse interest in jerking me around.
She briefly goes over the contact I had with the volunteer coordinator earlier, then says she would like to discuss things. She asks about:

Why do I want to work suicide prevention - I enjoy it, I'm good at it, it provides me with a peer group who likes the same type of work I do.
My suicidal ideations - under control and my responsibility
My therapy - under control and my responsibility
My ability to deal with stress - under my control and my responsibility.
What does my therapist think about my ability to work suicide prevention - she supports it.

Now it gets even more fun. I have worked suicide prevention before. I know what I'm doing and what I am asking for here. Also, let me make this clear - I understand that disclosure of suicidal ideation on a volunteer job application is a calculated risk. I tell her right from the start that I do not lie, and that I am not going to lie to her. If I have nothing else, I do have integrity.

She asks why I left Marin. I told her first off that I knew a number of the callers, which is absolutely true. She pushed the issue a bit more, and that was always a curious phenomenon but not really why I left. I told her that I also felt that they pushed me to take shifts alone on holidays which I felt, as a volunteer, was not in my best interest.

She then moved on to the tone of my voice. When I am stressed, my diaphragm kind of spasms or something and I sound weird. I know this. By this point, I am stressed. She asks about my voice so explain that it is a stress reaction, that this is stressful, but that this was never an issue in the year and a half that I worked suicide prevention. She asks how I could possibly deal with a stressful situation when I couldn't even deal with what she was asking me. Nothing I said worked. There was no reasoning, no compromising. No matter what I said, I was judged and found lacking.
I do not like dealing with the issue of my voice. This did come up occasionally with callers, at which point I would reassure them that while my voice may sound odd, I am perfectly okay and then go on with the call. It was never a problem. Also, regular callers never had a problem with my voice - they just accepted it as my voice as do most people who know me. At this point, I am so frustrated I have lost control over my involuntary muscles (hence the word "involuntary"). She tells me that regular callers don't count and that, unlike Marin County, they really do have suicidal callers. (Huh? And Marin doesn't? I don't even know where that comes from.) Then she tells me that if she were suicidal she would find my voice distressing. I mean, c'mon, there is a point where you have hit below the belt. This is way beyond reasonable.

Oh, another fun question - "If you are suicidal, why would you want to do work where you are thinking about death?" Okay. Maybe I am a slow witted child, but the operative word here seems to be PREVENTION. It is about life. Death is always with us. So is birth. But suicide prevention is about DEATH? I don't get it. I tell her that the whole idea is to help people live. She goes back to how hard it would be for me to go through a training where they talk about death.

And ultimately, the answer was no before I picked up the phone. I know that. This was just a blood bath for some reason that I do not understand. Then she tells me, by the way, I am welcome to try again for the next training in August but that the class already started anyway. Why would a person who's job it is to protect the dignity and well being of clients subject a person to such degradation and humiliation? What did she get out of it. And how can I take back my power?