This came up in my health care forum.
Right now, you can legally detain someone medically when they are a danger to themselves or others for up to 72hrs. The details vary by state, but this is how we lock down individuals trying to suicide or someone mentally off the rails making threats of violence.
This variation on that law would also make opposition to Trump qualify.
Civil commitment can follow as with individuals who have profound mental illness and are not safe to be out in the world.
This is the loudest scream that democracy is dead short of hauling people out into the street and shooting them.
It’s important to note the police are currently the people who bring individuals in for the 72hr mental health holds.
The power dynamic is the scary part. PTSD isn’t just trauma - it’s trauma with powerlessness and an invalidated narrative.
Saying “hey I need help, I’m struggling with not wanting to leave the house or be alive” - and then losing your rights. Being forced into a room which isn’t clean. The threat that they can medicate you if you annoy them to much (asking to speak to an advocate, asking to file a grievance).
It’s strange that suicidal ideation is considered enough to make you “crazy.” I don’t understand why the response to someone cogently explaining the reasons they want to die (and most of those reasons being fairly rational responses) = “this person is crazy and should be a ward of the state for the next couple days.”
They also get to present this as the only option - “oh, you want 988 to let people just die over the phone?” Well, the research indicates that suicide rates spike not just immediately after institutionalization - but the effects continues for YEARS LATER.
The charge nurse joked that even with the 72-hour hold, weekends didn’t count and they would be happy to keep me for five days if I didn’t shut up.
They also didn’t properly discharge me/provide paperwork. I lost my job because of this. I was already reluctant to seek out help (my mother was a serious Munchausen by proxy - she sent me to institutions as a child telling them I was violent/on drugs/etc - I was a straight edge teen that didn’t even look at porn because I was scared of what she would do.)
Instead of help, I got another set of memories to crush me at 4 in the morning. I got mistreated for being trans, which further contributes to the atmosphere of fear I live in. I lost my job, which is already a struggle because I need to save up to get out of here.
I’m sick of people suggesting therapy as the first response to anyone describing mental health struggles. I’ve met so few capable of anything more than providing the CBT worksheets that seem to be all they’re trained to do nowadays.
Psychiatry and psychology as fields ultimately seem more about the enforcement of social norms than about benefiting the patient.