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.
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.
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.
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.
If you’re struggling with acute social thoughts, checking yourself in is not a bad idea. Especially if you live in a country with a proper healthcare system
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.
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.
I’m not aware of this having happened anywhere. At least not with the 988 Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which I assume is the line that’s being referenced.
If you’re suicidal you might not be thinking clearly, and emergency numbers are associated with help from a young age, and if you feel like you’re in a real emergency and you need help…
Being suicidal, or even depressed, sorta implies they are not thinking clearly or able to make good choices. Alternatively, maybe they just didn’t know of a better option?
I don’t have severe mental health issues (although I do have them), but I am dealing with an undiagnosed medical issue and I am at the Mayo Clinic right now because of it. Before I came here, just from everything I’ve been through in the past year and a few months, we’re thousands of dollars in medical debt. I am terrified of what the bill from Mayo will be. They are in our insurance network and we supposedly have “good” insurance, but how good can even good insurance be when you can rack up that sort of debt in under two years just so you can stay alive?
The for-profit healthcare system in America is the truly insane thing, far more insane than this woman was when she felt suicidal.
As you know, these villains have purchased the laws that “regulate” them. If we cannot fix congress (and end the ability to purchase legislation), this will only get worse.
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.
Thanks for sharing. Hope you’re feeling better now. Having witnessed people breaking down myself and it’s no joke. If people have no way out of a shitty situation, I mean, what can they do?
My daughter, who does have psychological issues (don’t we all?) but nowhere near the need to put her in a facility, has heard so many horror stories about them that she was terrified we would put her in one someday. It doesn’t help that there’s a mental hospital that down the road from us that has super severe patients. Her psychiatrist is part of their network and I didn’t understand that it wasn’t in that building for her first appointment, so she also had the misfortune of seeing some people with problems far more severe than hers when we went to the wrong place. I felt bad for her, but I also think it helped her understand that her symptoms are not even remotely close to the severity that would have anyone consider putting her in one, so maybe it was for the best. She certainly has not expressed that fear since we made that accidental trip there.
I’m glad you made it out of there with your mental health in tact enough for you to come across as a basically mentally sound person to everyone here.
I’ve found CBT actively harmful for mental health struggles that result from ill health and physical disability. Like if I’m anxious about whether I’m strong enough to make it to the bathroom, CBT techniques seem to involve pretending that falling and pissing yourself on the floor isn’t a real risk that needs to be accounted for.
Sometimes you’re stuck in a situation with no win state and the last thing that’s useful is gaslighty bullshit that ignores reality.
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.
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.
Mental health “hospitals” in America are basically just small prisons, but without even the minimal oversight that prisons have.
You can be held in a mental health institution indefinitely if any doctor feels like it, with no recourse, no appeal, and without being charged with any crime, and not even with the need to actually diagnose you with anything. They can strip you, bully you, take whatever possessions you had on you and destroy them, humiliate you, and within those walls you have no rights. And at the end of it all, they’ll send you an astronomical bill proportionate to the amount of time they imprisoned you.
Unless you are, like, to the seeing-imaginary-people levels of out of whack, do yourself a favor and don’t think checking in to an American mental health institution will help you. You’ll might go in with one problem, and you’ll come out with two or more.
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.
Yeah, I logged into the app here in Sweden, sent a message with what my problem was. Got a reply in 2 days, saw a doctor in a week, she suggested surgery, it was scheduled in 4 weeks. Had the surgery, got a bunch of meds, was off work for a week with 80% of my salary. Paid 500sek, like $50.
That’s the Standart in about every developed nation on this planet. I don’t get it either what the USA is trying to accomplish there.
A thing that isn’t obvious seeing that insanely inflated prices is, that these are prices for individuals and won’t be payed by insurances. If you have let’s say a 70k hospital bill, the insurance might just say we only pay you 8k. The hospital then takes the 8k and writes of the other 68k as a loss. This results in the hospital not earning any money on paper and they don’t pay taxes.
My favorite thing to look at, when it comes to these inflated prices in USA Healthcare ae the prices of saline solution.
No, you don’t understand. You didn’t get treated yet, you’re still waiting to be seen. If you don’t pay for medical insurance then you wait 62518262 years to see a doctor and you die before you ever see them. Also they decide to let you die because something something government death panels.
-American media on universal healthcare.
Seriously though, almost any person you talk to in America that is against universal healthcare magically knows people in Canada that have died waiting to be seen or have 6 months wait times for their very painful conditions. Every time… Even people like my mother who I know doesn’t know any Canadians says she does…
American “rugged individualism” has murdered compassion and empathy and has done nothing but foster greed amongst all of us. It’s me me me me, MY tax money going to treat YOUR disease, taking up space making ME wait to be seen. Turns out ultra individualism makes for a shitty society.
That “in socialist European countries you get put on a waiting list” canard really doesn’t wash anymore, either, since here in capitalist private insurance America I am at this very moment being forced to wait two months before I can even have my initial consultation with a doctor.
There certainly are waiting lists for non-urgent stuff, and it does kinda suck. But FFS if you need help NOW you get it.
I’m in socialist New Zealand… The current new government is trying to be less socialist, but they are getting a lot of bad press because some of their policies are just mean.
Total wait time… Hmmmmm let’s see, about the amount of time it took for me to say “I’m having trouble breathing, my name and DoB” so they could look up my NHI number, all of 3 minutes.
I think you have hit the nail on the head with the “rugged individualism” comment. Just across from me is a dude from Sri Lanka, broken leg at the local mountain bike park. He deserves the best treatment we can give him, I have no idea if he has travel insurance or doesn’t really matter, he is here we treat him.
It really is amazing how we went from “sharing is caring” to “you get yours yourself, I got mine already.”
Your comment on the Sri Lankan dude is also spot on, a human being shouldn’t have to suffer just because we’re too selfish to help them whether it’s by our taxes or whatever. It should be a point of pride that “our” country provides for whoever needs help and that our collective actions make that possible. That’s an America I’d be proud of. Not the ultra capitalist greed machine we should be proud to be a part of because “GDP number big”…
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