littlelungs
Wizard
- Oct 21, 2018
- 646
This is all completely true, unfortunately... or at least, in my experience. For example, in the past I've called those crisis hotlines that people love to talk about and post all over the place, just because I needed an ear and didn't feel I had anywhere else I could turn to. Every single time I did that, the police showed up at my house, put me in the back of their car and took me to the psych ward (while condescendingly spouting the usual platitudes I've heard countless times on the drive there) where I was searched, had all of my possessions taken away, drugged out of my mind on benzos and antipsychotics and falsely diagnosed with things like schizophrenia (when I was really just suffering from serotonin syndrome whilst simultaneously having a very bad reaction to a new combination of strong psych meds I'd recently been put on by a new psychiatrist, and had no prior history of hallucinations or delusions), treated like a massive inconvenience, talked to like I had an IQ of -100... etc. I couldn't even take a leak without someone standing right there.
I *definitely* don't want to scare people into not using resources like the crisis hotline or checking themselves into a psychiatric hospital if they feel that's what they need to do (and these things can absolutely be beneficial for a lot of people), but in my own personal experience, I'd rather die than go through that again... so it had the complete opposite effect on me than was intended, and it just made me even more inclined to keep my mouth shut. I'll never claim to have all the answers or solutions as to how this should actually be dealt with, but I do know that if the goal really is suicide prevention, then how "we've" been dealing with it thus far clearly isn't working as well as a lot of people like to think it is.
Suicidal people in today's society are often punished, stripped of their autonomy and guilted to the max for how they feel, regardless of reason, rationality, degree of suffering, quality of life, etc. that brought them to the point of not wanting to entertain any of "this" any longer – whatever it may be – and, for lack of a better word, it's total bullshit.
