Yeah, I don’t know if this is related but when I first got sick in 1980 it was a lot easier to get into hospitals. The “danger of harm to self or others” criteria was in place back then but doctors had more discretion in whether to hospitalize or not and hospital stays were longer.
A benchmark on whether doctors would hospitalize you or not was how well you are functioning. Some factors that were considered was your degree of psychosis and whether you could provide food, shelter and clothing for yourself but they also considered hygiene, whether you could dress appropriately, if you could do something as simple as going to the grocery store or take a bus. If you were psychotic and couldn’t do any of those things then you could be considered gravely disabled and doctors had much more leeway in involuntary committing you.
I’m on the other forum and I see people suffering badly from psychosis and at the end of their rope but they can’t get into a hospital. And of course you see it here on this forum often where someone with schizophrenia can’t take care of themselves or are creating havoc or are homeless and a hospital stay could be a safe place to get better and get their meds straightened out but the families hands are tied and there’s nothing they can do.
I don’t know how to change the laws, it would take a concentrated effort by such organizations as NAMI or the APA to get the laws more in balance so people with mental illness aren’t just left to fend for themselves when they don’t even have the tools to do that. You could tell the readers responses in that article were well thought out but at the same time very heartfelt. I think that the courts would consider making the laws for involuntary commitment easier to be going backwards and wouldn’t do it.
And just as a large side note, here in California, billions of dollars were allocated by Gavin Newsom to fight the homeless problem and much of that money was unaccounted for by an audit and from 2019-2021 the homeless numbers actually rose. It is only recently that the number have gone down but they’re still high.
I’m lucky in many ways that I’ve had so much help available to me and that laws were more lax in my day. It was no fun being in a hospital for 8 months and I thought it was to protect other people from me but my parents told me it was actually to protect me from other people.
On the other forum its is common to discuss dating and having friends and what we did that day and have people discuss them with humor and insight and then see people here who are suffering so badly along with their families. We still have suffering and people actively psychotic on the other forum but we have people who are doing well and serve as examples to others with schizophrenia.
Thanks for those thoughtful remarks. I think the key is: how is disability defined? It seems logical that if someone is unable to take care of themselves due to psychosis, that would be sufficient. And yet apparently it is not. Given all the misinformation and stigma around severe mental illness, I think the only way to move forward is, as you point out, to continue lobbying and informing. The related issue of addressing homelessness is probably more immediate and compelling to the average person, but it’s also heavily stigmatized.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this topic. I agree with your observation as to how difficult it can be to get involuntary treatment for a deteriorating condition unless one is of danger to him or herself. One organization, especially focused on this challenge in the US is the Treatment Advocacy Center. I suggest people check it out. TAC.org