My father in law has just stepped down as the branch head for his local samaritans after 5 years. He said he might go back to it but he needs a break. But before his retirement and volunteering in this he was a high up police office in child protection so you can imagine he's had to deal with shit for a long time and samaritans took its toll on him. He also developed prediabetes during his time because he would constantly comfort eat while on shift (full packs of biscuits). I did a santa fun run in aid of samaritans once worse hour of my life
Gosh, your post brought so much back to me. We used to do a LOT of comfort eating on our shifts. Bad food, like we'd take it in turns to cook for the group to bring it into work, and then spend the entire time picking at naughty foods.
I hope your father in law is okay. I think being the branch head would have been considerably difficult as not only would have he had to deal with his own emotions and the callers emotions, but also his volunteers. Huge respect to him.
We had lots of vicarious trauma counselling/training sessions which helped so much but despite that, the nature of some calls do take their toll. Especially if you're able to personally relate to anything the caller tells you (Eg having kids at similar ages to you or the caller being close in age to you). But I remember now when I needed to debrief with our branch leader, she was always so amazing and I wish now (after reading your post) that I thanked her more for sharing my burden.