Wildly inaccurate, not to mention dismissive of an exceptionally complex condition.
Unfortunately you are either misinformed or your state is much different than ours. I won't go into the private details, but we have just gone through it with a family member this week for the 5th attempt since last year this time and so many times in the last 10 years I've lost count. One time after drinking drain cleaner, once by eating and swallowing multiple morphine patches, once by intentionally driving off the interstate at 120 mph, once by pesticide, but the choice is usually prescription overdoses (that was the intent this week when they were found in a parking lot having a Gran Mall Seizure on the verge of cardiac arrest ).
I've dealt with every federal and state agency I ever thought could help, so much so that I could write a book on it. On this last attempt, we did convince Mental Health to put in a recommendation on a hold for transfer to a psychiatric ward (but only after we had a melt down in the ER and shamed them on their incompetence). After being comatose for three days, the family member woke up said they were fine, and checked themselves out of the hospital yesterday.
Mental health claimed they did their job, by making the recommendation but if the hospital said they're okay to leave then it was out of their hands. The hospital claimed the patient was lucid and could not hold them if they wanted to leave. That revolving door was already spinning wide open. The suicide prevention hot line provided nothing but a number to the state coordinator for our area. Called them on Monday and got voice mail ---- they finally called back today, 5 days later. Which I'm surprised they even called, normally you have to keep calling them to get assistance. Even if you're lucky enough for someone to recognize there are individuals in need of help, at most it might be 5 days in a psychiatric ward or if you're really lucky 3 months in a program after which, in either case they dump them back on the street with a pocket full of pills and the expectation they will take them as directed, because there isn't enough bed space to go around.
Our state has two mental hospitals for holds, that's it. If you go through the legal commitment process there's a joke at the court house, that they take a pool on who will make it back to town first, the deputy or the patient. Lawyers will tell you up front they don't want to take your money because it's a useless (we know, we tried).
I consider myself a sane, level headed, educated person with the knowledge and capability to seek out resources. For those with mental health problems unable to think clearly if they have no one to help them they're quickly lost in a bureaucratic maze of revolving doors and shuffling from one place to another. So yeah maybe I'm dismissive, maybe I'm a little cynical, but one thing for certain, after working this problem for 9 years, I know first hand, what help is really there, what isn't, and the stench of BS.
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