9:46pm October 8, 2013

➸ So a mage and a cleric walked into a tavern: strugglingtobeheard: she-hulk-monstermash: Has anyone ever checked...

strugglingtobeheard:

she-hulk-monstermash:

Has anyone ever checked themselves into the hospital for voluntary mental health watch? If you have, would you mind telling me about it? I would really appreciate it.

boost or reply please. i know i have some followers who have experienced…

I’ve done voluntary. It’s a tricky thing, with insurance you have to basically be eligible for involuntary to have a voluntary one paid for that I’ve seen. (I’ve also had coerced voluntary, where I went in voluntary because otherwise someone would take me in involuntarily.) The legal details vary from state to state, and you should look them up so that you know what your rights are in your state around your treatment/care decisions and timelines.

Make sure you read the papers and forms they give you on check in carefully and ask questions if you are able. They are required to give you papers about your rights and their policies, but most patients don’t bother ever reading them. If you think you’ll have a hard time processing them, It becomes extra important to have looked state law and policy up ahead of time.

I’m… not a big NAMI fan, as they tend to have your family and friends as a priority a lot of the time. I’ve been doing MH advocacy since I was 12, so 14 years, and my discomfort with NAMI’s priorities have only increased. If you find them helpful, then great. If not, eh.

If you believe that your rights are/have been violated during your stay, or have other concerns about mental health and the law, I would refer you to the Bazelon Center.They have lots of information about your rights, including access to services and your right to live in the community. You might also find that they have information that can help you get into an appropriate treatment setting if you desire.

Remember: You still have rights in the ‘ward. They are curtailed, but you still have them to some extent. There are advantages to going in voluntarily around this, generally around how long you have to stay, when you can decide to leave, and if you need a third party to mediate when you leave. If you want to leave before the doctors want to release you, they may ask a judge to put a hold on you. If you are in involuntarily, there’s usually a longer wait period between admission and check out.

Insurance can be a big issue. If you are able, find out your insurance’s policies about MH treatment. It’s possible that they won’t pay for voluntary, and so you might only be able to have them covered if you are involuntary/involuntary eligible.

The words you need to have when you go in are that you have clear thoughts and have made plans around harming or killing yourself or others. Your going in then becomes a matter of safety. Because of some of the above, this can be super risky as they may decide to put you down as involuntary even if you aren’t. It’s pretty crappy.

I don’t want to go back to the hospital myself. If you decide you don’t want to go after all, or that you don’t want to go again in the future, you need to create a safety plan for yourself in case you are tempted to harm yourself. For example, When I’m doing that badly, the frequency of calls to my mother increases, or I might need someone to come sit with me- in my case, they don’t have to do anything but sit there and chill with me. I also reach out to people online, usually people who have also had these experiences. Some use support groups, some don’t. Different things work for different people, so figuring out what will make you safe until you get through it (if that’s your type of depression/anxiety) is something only you can really figure out. For me, that means that Hospital is lost resort, but for you, it might mean that it’s a much earlier step.

Good luck to those who need this info, and feel free to ask or fanmail box me.

The only time I went voluntarily, they…

First told me I was being so wonderful and taking care of myself and they were so proud of me.

Then told me they’d have to switch me to involuntarily but only for insurance reasons, nobody would take the hold seriously.

Then transferred me to a mental ward.

Where they laughed at me when I said the hold was for insurance reasons only, told me I had to stay longer than planned, and only let me out after a fight and got technical reasons that would apply to very few people in the world. And accused me of being dramatic and manipulative when I repeated that the voluntary part was for insurance reasons.

Also the ward was known to local mental patients as a hellhole where rights exist only in theory and they give you drugs that make it impossible for you to talk at your court hearings.

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