Patricia ‘Pat’ Morrison
Senior Counselor
32+ Years of Experience
Specialties: The very first call, decades of silence, people who think they left it too late
Patricia “Pat” Morrison
Senior Counselor
Pat started this. In 1993 she was working nights on a general helpline when a man rang who could not say what was wrong with him. He stayed on the line for forty minutes and never once managed the sentence. She could hear him deciding not to say it, over and over.
When the call ended she went looking for somewhere to refer him to. There was nothing. Not a line, not a leaflet, not a single name in any directory she could find. She has said since that the worst part was realizing he had probably already known that, and had called her anyway because it was the closest thing to a door that existed.
She never spoke to him again and she has thought about him for thirty two years. Everything here grew out of that one call.
Pat is now the person the other counselors bring the hard ones to. Thirty two years of this has left her with almost no capacity to be shocked and an unusually long memory for what helps. She has heard the whole range of it, from people in their teens to people in their eighties, and her view has not changed once in three decades.
She is warm rather than clinical, and she is very direct. If you ask her whether something is normal she will tell you straight, because she thinks people have been left guessing for far too long already.
What it is like to talk to Pat
Pat takes a lot of the first calls, and she takes them slowly. She will not ask you to explain yourself. She will usually just start talking, about nothing much, until you find your feet.
She is comfortable with a caller who cannot get the words out, because that was the very first call she ever took on this subject and it shaped everything after. She does not experience your silence as a problem. She experiences it as the part she knows best.
If you have gone decades without telling anybody, she is very likely the person to start with. She has walked more people through that specific first sentence than anyone else here.
In Pat’s own words
People arrive expecting me to be surprised, and I think part of them wants me to be. Because if I am not surprised then they were never the freak they thought they were, and that is a lot to take in at once.
The one I still think about is the man in 1993. He never told me. He got right up to it perhaps six times and each time he stopped. And there was nowhere for me to send him. That is why any of this exists.
So when somebody finally does say it to me, what I feel is that I have caught something. That is the only word for it. Thirty two years and it still lands the same way. Somebody hands you the worst thing about themselves, in their own estimation, and you get to be the one who tells them it is not.
I have never once put the phone down thinking less of anybody. Not once, in three decades. People never believe that until they have tested it, so please do test it.
Pat, on what this work gives back
Things people have said to Pat
These are the kinds of sentences that open calls here. If one of them sounds like something you have thought, you are in ordinary company, and Pat has answered it many times before.
- I am seventy one years old and I have never told a soul.
- I think I am too old to be dealing with this now.
- I tried to bring it up with a doctor once and I could see her face change.
- My wife died last year and she never knew. I do not know what to do with that.
- I have been reading your website for eight months before calling.
- I do not even know what I am asking. I just wanted to hear somebody say it is alright.
You will not shock Pat
Pat is the person to call if you have carried this a very long time, if you think you have left it too late, or if you have tried once before with somebody who did not understand and have not dared since. She founded this line because of exactly that call. Nothing you say will be new to her, and nothing you say will change how she speaks to you.
There is nothing you cannot say
Nothing is too strange, too private, or too much, and nothing you say will surprise Pat. Start wherever feels easiest, and take as long as you need.
Click to talk to Pat(888) 771-2235
Or choose how long you would like
No sign up, nothing recurring. Sessions can be any length in between.
How It Works
Three simple steps. No accounts. No sign-ups. No records.
Call the Number
Dial (888) 771-2235 any time, day or night. We connect you with the first available counselor.
Talk About Anything
Whatever is on your mind, we have heard it before and we will never judge you.
Hang Up and Breathe
No follow-up calls. No records. Your privacy is absolute.
🔒 Your Privacy Is Sacred
We do not record calls or keep session notes. Your trust is the foundation of everything we do.
✓ No notes
✓ Private billing
✓ First names only