@Crystal-Cotton 's thread go me looking into USA laws on certain things. It seems to me that despite certain laws, when you are mentally ill, you can be forced to do pretty much whatever your overseers want.
An example of this: What I read on forced medication is basically that it could be administered involuntarily on a temporary emergency basis when involuntarily committed to hospital. Under any other circumstances, you are supposed to have a right to refuse medication. Despite this, when I was forced into a mental health facility/group home for six months(another forcing that is questionable under law)…the staff there would force you take your meds. If you were sneaky and tried to spit them out, they would grind them up and put them in pudding and force you to take them that way. Is this truly legal? IDK.
Another thing that seems questionable to me is that many of the people in that facility were there for years, despite not wanting to be, because they had no where else to go and the administrators would not release them. Even though I agreed to go with my parents, it still took me about 6 months of wrangling with staff and my advocate to be released. I never got any kind of legal hearing with a judge after being moved there, yet I was forced to stay for a long time.
I did not know all the law back then, but maybe if I would have forced the issues on these two areas they would have been forced to submit, but the impression at the time that was given by those in authority over me, was that I had no choice in either situation. I guess I needed a lawyer.
Once you are judged to be mentally ill and placed under others care, it seems to me that despite what the law is, often your rights seem to go out the window.
Another example: When I forced to take my invega shot in the hospital, I was absolutely in no way a danger to myself or others, yet the judge still ruled that I had to take it.
Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that I was forced to take Invega. It brought me out of psychosis. I’m not saying it wasn’t a good thing. What I AM saying, is that it seems to me that the actual law does not seemed to be followed in many cases when you are deemed mentally ill and placed under others care.
Yea, forced treatment and stuff does raise a lot of questions.
I think somebody on this forum said it best recently: “once you’re deemed crazy by others, it’s really hard to prove to them that you’re actually not.”
Paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it.
I dunno— is there like, some sort of Bill of Rights for those with mental illness under care or forced treatment?
Seems the UK has the Mental Health Act through the NHS, but sparse findings where the USA is concerned.
I know certain cities in the USA have a Bill of Rights for homeless folks. Not trying to equate homelessness with the mentally ill population, although they are both marginalized groups, and there is some definite overlap between the two.
When I was in hospital, they talked to a friend of mine about my condition without my approval regardless of hipaa laws and released me into her care. It was awful because she was obsessed with me. She was much older and claimed to them that we were partners. I told them we were not, but they did it anyways. I had no rights whatsoever. I ended up taking off, and went back home to my ex husband who was abusive just to get away from her. It was so awful.
This was so long ago, it may be that I signed something admitting me to their care. Maybe if I had held out the hospital would have been forced to release me eventually without going to the facility. But again, the impression given is that you have no choice. And once there they would not release me without a long process and having someplace to go.
Honestly shocking and borderline exploitative expecting somebody experiencing psychosis to understand the material they’ve been asked to sign while in that state.
Sorry that happened to you— it also happened to me as well, except I was in a ward when some strange lady came in and asked me to sign like a million pages of crap— all while I was floridly psychotic.
technically we have the right to mental health advocates, whose level of competence is questionable. in my state they used to have flyers to contact them inside the psych ward cafeteria, though the rate of abuse like violent assaults did not stop despite me having to call mental health advocates several times due to assaults my last hospitalization, which was over a decade ago.
psych wards are def a last resort for me, but if someone is threatening other people or threatening suicide, or doing actions that put themselves or others in danger, i see the need for hospitalization.
With forced medication, honestly our illness makes us have denial of insight, we do not know we need medication. the illness basically controls our brains, makes us think we don’t need pills, we’re fine, it’s the world that doesn’t see our reality that is wrong. i agree to some extent with forced medication as a last resort. however, a lot of people are now against forced medication, so in my city there are dozens if not more unmedicated schizophrenics, homeless, unwashed, screaming to themselves or at others every day and everybody just thinks that’s how we all end up. they just shrug, think of us as “dirty” and move on, not realizing how many of us can live productive lives if we had to take our pills. It varies depending on city, but how police interpret a 5150 determines whether you can forcibly hospitalized or not.
Here, they rarely 5150 anybody and some schizophrenic this year was tackled by a group of angry bystanders because the cops refused to take him in as a 5150 (he was screaming threats at everyone and was playing with electrical wires that made them shut down the power in the middle of the summer). cops said he wasn’t a threat to himself or others so they walked away and let the public “handle” him. So, what’s worse, being forcibly hospitalized in a situation like that or leaving him to the mercy of an angry mob who wanted their AC units back on?
I had a mental health advocate when I was attempting to get out of the mental health facility. He was not very helpful.
I’m not even complaining about the forced hospitilization. What I think was not right, was them moving me from a hospital to a mental health facility and then being forced to stay there for six months despite having a place to go. Also, that mental health facility was not doing emergency meds for psychosis. IT was ongoing forced medication for your entire stay there. They gave the impression that you had no choice but to take the meds, going as far as grinding them up in pudding or applesauce to force you to take them. What I have read on the law since them seems to contradict their authority to do such.
and again, I’m pro meds. I take my medication. I just question their legal authority to force medication without a court order over years.
Edit: They also asked you to open your mouth and such to check to make sure you swallowed them… The impression was, that you had no choice.
100% couldn’t agree more. Doctors bend the rules all the time because there is no accountability. Nothing bad can happen to them if they wrongfully hold a person.
To me the issue is completely situational, once you’re in the hospital you’re trapped. There’s hundreds or thousands of schizos in any major city that could be picked up off the streets at any time for displaying symptoms. Most people in the hospital could probably be released and no harm would be done, but in the hospital you are caught up in process. Anyway, I’ll never be on the side being an apologist for forced treatment.
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