- Police arrive on the scene
- Shoot suicidal person
- “Problem solved”
I thought this is how Murica does it, but obviously not, because they want your money.
Anyone calling 911 and thinking they are getting anything other than a bunch of thugs that will choatically escalate what ever situation you are in, I’m sorry.
There is no bad situation youd find yourself in that the police cant make worse
It’s always nice knowing the police in America will show up five hours after a crime has been committed, accuse you of said crime, then leave while doing nothing.
then leave while doing nothing.
Not true, they’ll probably shoot your dog.
She is a black lab. Zero chance of survival.
Told a friend how I was feeling and had a similar bill. $2500 with insurance. Probably won’t be talking about my feelings again unfortunately
This might sound unsympathetic, but it’s easy to put someone else in a situation where they must call the police / ambulance.
It doesn’t really matter how close a friend is. If you say you’re at risk of harming yourself or others, they don’t have a lot of options.
I work for a mental health crisis line. We are taught, with extremity, to always go for least intrusive intervention possible. We will only ever call Emergency Services after a literal check list to ensure it’s the last resort possible.
Practically the only times we ever call EMS on someone is if they tell us they are actively dying this very second, due to injury or overdose, etc. Or if they, after all of our attempts to listen, empathize, talk about what’s going on, talk about how they’re feeling tonight, work on what options there might be, who in their lives might be able to help, listing resources, and attempting to safety plan; if after all that, they say “yeah, I’m gonna kill myself specifically in this fashion and I’m gonna do it right now, and I have the means available to me.” Then hang up and don’t answer when we call back. Then we call EMS.
It’s drilled into us that EMS is expensive for the person, and potentially dangerous because police are often not great at responding to Mental Health emergencies. So always the last last last resort.
This so much…
Emergency services are like the absolute worst dog shit resource for mental health issues. 99% of the time they just make shit worse, I had to learn this the hard way.
It actually makes me mad that so many people suggest it as what you “should” do if someone is in crisis because it’s just not made for that. Do not call 911 if you are having a panic attack or SI or even self harming in a non SI way, they will do nothing to help you and it will just cost a fuck load. Like you said the only time it makes sense is if you are actually dying from an attempt. Even MH practitioners say to call 911 when they should know better. I am glad your place seems to know what’s up because so many people get the wrong advice on this issue and it actively hurts people. Maybe if the healthcare and police system were different going to the emergency room or calling 911 might be a good idea, but how they are now its just not.
Firstly, this varies by region. Most people don’t live in the US, including me.
Secondly, you’re right in that it will be an unpleasant experience for most patients, but the vast majority of patients will survive the episode. Which is the point.
In the US, surviving the episode and immediatly going into medical debt is why the second attempt happens with them not reaching out to anyone.
Hyperbolic.
Mental health hospitals are hellish too. I can’t fucking stand Married with Children, not because of how stupid or unfunny it is, but because it was always on and I get flashbacks.
I attempted years ago - because I was dead broke and about to have to drop out of college. When I got out, I had lost my job and had to do survival sex work to eat.
The power structure of those places facilitate horrific abuse. For example, the Indian man whose screams have haunted my dreams for the past ten years - a man who had no family, came to the facility with no clothing… the staff (and patients) bullied the shit out of him. No one in that hospital was interested in helping him.
The psychiatrist I saw for maybe 15 minutes at the beginning of the day. All they did was prescribe me meds. There wasn’t any really meaningful therapy, at least as I understood it? It was more of a holding pen.
I think in the US, the horrifying truth is that mental health resources are mostly illusory. 988 exists so that we can pass out 988 stickers and pens - we can be the good people providing help. Therapists exist, but the waiting lists for good ones can be months and there are thousands of disturbed LPCs who went in to counseling for the wrong reason.
CBT is a shitty modality for things like “I’m miserable because I can’t afford to eat” or “I’m stressed because I got fired from my job when they found out I was trans” or even something as dumb “my body tenses up and I can’t focus my eyes when hear the name Al Bundy.” It’s symptoms focused and can be harmful for certain situations. But it also is often the only modality that one can easily access.
The entire structure of the mental health system in America is horrifically broken, but fixing it would require a complete overhaul of the system. So instead it’s bandaids - employee assistance programs and chat hotlines.
988 Worker here.
Every single time someone asks me what we can do to fight the mental health epidemic in the U.S. and the rising suicide rates, I always always tell them the keys are workers rights, affordable housing, a healthcare system that doesn’t suck, all of this shit that the person asking typically doesn’t want.
Just curious - is 988 using “AI”? I’ve seen some strange and suspect conversations.
988 is not using any AI in conversations with callers to my knowledge. I know that some branches are looking at implementing AI for training purposes, to perhaps give more realistic simulation calls for trainers, but at no point should anybody calling 988 needing help encounter an AI. For the chat platform, I know that the messaging system has some automatic questions that it asks everyone at the very start of the conversation, but it’s a machine in the classic sense, and is not AI. Chat/Texters should not be encountering AI either.
Some online friends called 911 on my son when he was just a few weeks shy of 18 and he was placed on a psych hold for a week for self-harming thoughts.
Don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful they saw signs he’d managed to hide from us, but since the paperwork took a few weeks to process, he not only had to deal with his mental health issues, but also got an 18th birthday present of a $20,000 bill for inpatient services under his name. That definitely didn’t help his mental state at all, and it took years to sort it out.
Later, he told me all he learned from the whole experience was to never tell anyone what he really thinks. As a mom, that scares the shit out of me.
Wouldn’t it have made sense for him to declare bancrupcy at that point.
Don’t let this discourage you from seeking help. Money isn’t anything, and this is definitely not the way these things always resolve themselves.
lol your money comment indicates that you’ve never had to worry about it
Maybe seek help from people there to help and not from cops. ACAB
How did this get so many people agreeing with it? 911 is emergency services, it is not a hotline to the police.
I didn’t know that. Where I live, there are different hotlines for police, firefighters and so on. The US has one emergency hotline for everything?
Sadly yes, fire, medical, or police, all through the same dispatch router.
There are other hotlines for other services, location of underground utilities as an example, and I believe there’s a suicide prevention hotline now, but it’s new and hasn’t gained public knowledge status yet.
Dear Americans, I’m not writing this to gloat… But what the fuck have you let happen to your country. Health care is a human right!
I’m currently in hospital, for a second time in a month. First time, I came in with a “very nasty pneumonia”, which turned into sepsis, I needed surgery to help clear the crap from my lung. They sent me home after 14 days. They also flew me from my local small hospitals to the bigger one I’m in now.
I was home for 4 days and started getting severe chest pains around my heart. So I’m back, feeling way better now, is a long weekend so no doctors to make decisions… I’m stuck in here till Tuesday at least. On Tuesday it will be a total of 24 days. Various medications and treatments etc…
My expected bill at the end of all of this is $0.00.
The only real cost is the gas from hour each way for my family coming to visit. All meals are covered.
I honestly have no idea how much my time here is costing the national health service. The are no numbers discussed, everything is just what you need to get better.
But what the fuck have you let happen to your country.
Uh. It hasn’t changed.
“All men are created equal”
IS SLAVE STATE
Always has been
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
“If you’re feeling suicidal please call for help you’re not alone!”
The help:
You’re not alone, your insurance’s billing department will always be with you
Two ways of looking at this. Either you are smart, and you saved your own life for just $2000.
Or, you’re an idiot for not calling one the free helplines to see if they could chill you out first.
Either way, I would have retained my dignity, and not posted it on social media just to bash the health system. That’s actually fucked up.
Have you considered that someone on the brink of ending their own life might not be thinking clearly nor care much about their future financial situation?
Yes. Luckily they care about it again now it seems.
More than the fact their life was saved.
If you’ve just been brought back from the brink of ending your life, is your first thought going be “my goodness that cost 2 grand our health system is fucked”.
Cos I wouldn’t. I’d be thinking “holy fuck that was close, if I hadn’t called I could be dead now”
Wow, didn’t see this comment earlier. Truly spoken like someone who has never tried to take their own life.
Note: I am choosing to respond here despite ending our previous conversation for the sake of others who might be reading.
Surviving a suicide attempt or severe suicidal ideation doesn’t give you some newfound sense of appreciation for life. That’s TV fairytale bullshit.
The same problems that drove you to feeling suicidal are still there, now with new ones on top (like, you know, an extra $2k of debt). You’re not better. You’re just not dead. And most of the time you still wish you were
Called the VA crisis line a while back, talked to a case worker and they told me they’d have someone pick me up. A little while later I get a knock on the door from a city cop with his holster unbuckled there to take me to the psych ward of our local shitty hospital.
Spent three days in what essentially was One Flew Over except my nurse Ratchet was a part time psychiatrist that didn’t completely speak English, and was a total dick.
Ended up checking myself out because nothing was being accomplished there beside morning calisthenics. Later that week, I got a bill from the hospital for $1200, and the VA said they wouldn’t cover it because I didn’t call it in within 72 hours… Even though it was a VA rep that started the process, and it was related to a service-connected injury (PTSD).
This was over ten years ago, but it’s comforting to know some things never change.
The VA screwed up my meds by sending them to a non existent address. So I had to go to the local ER to get them. (I’m not sure who would even ask for psych meds that aren’t tranquilizers but apparently they’re controlled just like opiates…) At any rate. Same story, I called first and they told me that’s what I had to do. So I got a rideshare to the hospital because I was also having a really bad day. The local ER was really great. But the VA then sent me a bill. I called their number and they said I was supposed to drive myself 2 hours to the nearest VA hospital. I told them that would have been the worst choice I could have made and they could either pay for it or explain to Congress why I’m paying for their malfunction. And you know what? Somehow, some way it worked. They took it back and I never had to pay it.
But then they got me back on an ambulance ride years later, (after they swore to Congress they’d start paying for ambulance rides).
At any rate, I just wanted to let you know you’re not alone. Get what you can from the VA but never let them get you.
I am honestly surprised they even answered, or did anything at all.
Called them once (same issue with PTSD) and the lady put me on hold, then hung up. It made me laugh at how stupid this whole system is, then I got drunk and fell asleep.
Dam, unfortunately, the system that is so good for those who want to enlist, quickly forgets those who return from the battlefield.
These situations. In my opinion, there should be no costs, and they should not be based on 72 hours, or any type of restrictions.
In addition to not making any sense in this specific case, if it was started this way.
This is why I never had a safety plan. I literally cannot afford what I need to feel better, and have to keep quiet or risk losing everything and still not be helped. Nobody will know I was in crisis until I’m gone.
