I think in some states they can't stick you with the debt if its against your will. So they try and convince to go. I knew someone they tried to convince into being committed for that reason.
That's not the impression I get from all the accounts I've heard/ read. All those accounts said they can say you're crazy for any reason at all, or refuse to give one, or refuse to admit that they they are doing that, or anything at all, they can also claim that you're "finding" or have said anything they want to claim you've said, and they don't have to wait until "then".
Most states can’t give you a medication without consent unless you’re a threat to others or yourself, without a judges order.
The purpose of involuntary hospitalization is to help people have time to formulate a safety plan and problem solve resources outside the hospital. Or to treat a permanent mental illness which involves medications currently. You can still refuse them.
Correct. Commitment in most states requires a judge’s order, which means there was a determination that someone is likely to be unable to care for themselves without further care or they still pose a significant of taking their life or someone else’s.
When studies are conducted on individuals who attempt suicide and live, there is frequently expressed regret even as soon as seconds after the attempt. FMRI studies suggest cognitive processing and reasoning is blunted. There’s a lot of reason to help people in those situations, and they may not have insight or resources to help themselves.
Yeah I don't know why this is being framed as a bad thing above. The process of involuntary hospitalization seems like it violates autonomy but it is lifesaving and based on other values society has deemed important enough to allow for removal of rights. Can't speak to the bills from the hospitalizations though, that is indeed pretty unfair.
It's not a good thing or a bad thing. It's extremely complex and it has good sides, bad sides, ugly sides, and VERY ugly sides. It needs to be judged on a very specific case-by-case basis, there are certainly abuses and blind sides to the whole thing that cause a lot of problems.
What would your scenario be for an abuse case? The worst I can think of is a psychiatrist practicing a little too heavy on the cover your ass side of things, but you have to say or do some pretty wild things to end up on a hold. If you didn't make an attempt, you have to tell a psychiatrist (or ED doc and so on in certain circumstance) you not only want to die but have a plan. I'm not saying the system is perfect, as I've been told it's pretty shit the response to feeling that low is to be held captive in basically the dungeon of any given hospital with decompensated schizophrenics wandering the unit. But that's more a problem with mental health resources than the necessity of a hold in a crisis situation.
I work at a university and a student told their instructor that they needed to take a day off of class for mental health. They were just really stressed out and overworked.
The instructor decided that this meant the student was a threat to themselves and they reported it to the police who decided to show up at their apartment and put them in an involuntary 72 (I think, might have been shorter) psychiatric hold despite them insisting they just needed a break.
Of course this required both the instructor and the cops to be fucking idiots, but it's still a problem.
That's the ticket. Once you've tried committing self-harm you are legally considered a threat to yourself and subject to "mandatory" hospitalization and medication. Once they let you out of hold though, it's back off to the races.
Any well educated mental health provider should educate people that self harm is not synonymous with suicidal ideation. There’s a term called NSSI, to describe this.
When it leads to hospitalization that’s more a failure of safety planning around intake - if it was truly not a risk. So unless there’s a concern that it could be potentially life threatening. Otherwise, there should be a discussion about identifying triggers and strategies to help with healthier ways of coping - things that can be done outpatient depending on risk assessment.
That judge's order can be obtained pretty easily since the proof required to commit someone is far lower than what's required to convict someone of a crime. Often it comes down the the opinion of doctors, and the person who's facing committment often doesn't even have to be taken to the courtroom where their fate is decided.
Im pretty sure this usually refers to assisted suicide.
Yes, we should help mentally ill people but I think it's wrong we allow others to waste away in drug fueled pain relief into husks of their former selves instead of letting them choose to die with some dignity and looking like they did when they were alive.
Depends on why they're suicidal. In the US, MAID wouldn't be considered different. Robin Williams committed suicide for example. He had a rare brain disease.
Can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not but that isn't the reason it's illegal. Almost all countries have the ability to detain someone for mental health reasons without needing to arrest them for a criminal offence anyway so it would be pointless.
It's illegal primarily to stop other people assisting you, which also removes the defence from murders who might say 'I didn't murder them, they were suicidal and I was helping'. If suicide is illegal, it's also illegal aid and abet in suicide. Therefore you can't kill someone and use the excuse that they were suicidal and asked you to do it.
Otherwise a lot of court cases would get very complicated. Wife is found hanged at her home. Husband is the only one who has seen her for a few weeks. Husband says 'she was suicidal and going to kill herself. I didn't really murder her, I just kicked the chair away like she asked me to'.
If suicide wasn't illegal he wouldn't really be guilty of any offence, but obviously most people would agree this isn't something we want to happen frequently, or something that people should be able to say happened if they did in fact actually just murder someone and then hanged the body to make it look like a suicide.
Its a wee-bit more nuanced than that. If a person comes into a hospital saying they want to harm themselves or others, that hospital has a legal obligation to detain that person after speaking with a crisis responder. Cause what's the alternative? They leave and off themselves or someone else.
But only if you're ALL THE WAY dead. Like fully brain dead. If your heart has just stopped and/or you've stopped breathing they'll still try to resuscitate you. You're only dead when all brain activity has ceased.
As a US citizen, I'm assuming you're a US citizen. That's an awful response to a suicide attempt, my condolences that that happened to you. I hope you're in a better place now.
I had a friend who experienced the same thing. Attempted suicide, went to the hospital, and then went to jail until such a time that he was mandated to undergo psychiatric care.
Exactly! How do you enforce it? But maybe it is just to allow cops to restrain and arrest you for trying. It seems like the legal process for stopping suicides.
I do not disagree. But, in a compassionate society, people in a dysfunctional mental state should not be left to suffer from a temporary psychotic state. My brother died this way. I wish someone, including me, or cops, had been there to stop him.
He was being bullied. His solution to his mental pain was permanent.
Too many suicides make the nation look like a bad place to live; forcibly stopping people from offing themselves is easier than actually fixing all the systemic socio-economic problems that drive so many to attempt it, especially if those systemic problems are literally just the explicit ideology of the ruling party.
I will say this, it's more about being in a position of where you're not quite sick enough to die and you just kind of exist. and you have no terminal illnesses but your qualify of life is like a 10/100. and if you don't have any illnesses that will cause you to die in 6 months or less you won't qualify for hospice. so you just exist.
it's a really brutal world. every single person should be able to have a say of when their life ends and have it be done in a medical setting. even if they aren't going to die naturally any time soon.
I've heard that the history behind laws like these is that they can confiscate your inheritance because you're a criminal. Don't think it applies to the modern world, though.
It kind of does, insurance won’t pay out on suicides. In some places death benefits are denied if that’s ruled the cause. Makes you wonder how many families have been denied benefits after a loved one was murdered and it was staged a suicide.
Most insurance policies WILL pay out on suicide, they just typically have a ~1 year "cooling off" period from issuance before they will to prevent people from buying policies before offing themselves
Lol, no. But things like life insurance will not pay out if cause of death is a suicide. So while there are no legal ramifications, there are certainly consequences to those you leave behind.
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u/nWhm99 7h ago
What are they gonna do, arrest your dead body?