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by watwut
2220 days ago
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I knew a guy who threw computer out of window, was threatening to jump out and was noisily destroying the place (he was not owner). This was triggered by his girlfriend running away (literally running away, he made just leaving impossible). Their friends called cops who came along with mental health professionals and took him to psychiatric hospital. He found the whole thing massively unfair. See, according to his words, he did not really wanted to kill himself, merely show her how much he suffers and make her go back to him. According to him, she should go back due to threat, but everyone else should instantly see through it and be ok with it. He would tell anyone who would listen like the whole city is unfair and overreacts to every little thing. So yeah, it can end up in jail or hospital from point of view of suicide threatening person. And sometimes there is good reason for it. In this case, it had also aspect of protection of everyone else in the building including his girlfriend. |
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1) This didn't end with him going to jail, right? Which is to say, the guy who was engaging in violent and destructive behavior was directed to medical care, rather than wrongly being deemed as case that was simply in need of punishment. That's a good outcome. Sick person breaks the law as a result of their ailment, gets identified as sick, and treated as sick rather than a criminal is kind of the ideal outcome, short of preventing their deterioration to begin with.
2) If he had gone to jail, it wouldn't have been because he went to a therapist and admitted to thoughts of self-harm. It would've been because of publicly engaging in acts of destruction.
"2" really is the part that leads to mentally ill people ending up in jail. My psych unit sees people with a history of jail time all the time - and it's almost inevitably due to possession of illicit drugs, loitering, petty theft, or snowballing offenses that they don't go to court for and handle like "responsible citizens." There's a real relationship between mental illness and jail, but it's not "we send people to jail for being depressed."
It's more like, "got a ticket, didn't go to court, ignored the follow-up letter from the county courthouse, ended up with a bench warrant, and if they weren't so depressed, probably would've just taken care of it all up front and never let it snowball." Or, "hated my meds, started self-medicating with weed and liquor, pissed off my housemates to the point that they called the cops, who found my weed stash." Etc.