Poll of the Day > If you try to kill yourself and are unsuccessful do they take your cell phone?

(+) Yeah! (+)

My girlfriend was going through some hard times. She mentioned being suicidal, we got into a fight, and the next day I didn't hear from her at all. I thought she was ignoring me, but her friend also wasn't hearing from her. Now I don't know exactly what happened, but I've been told she physically can't answer me. Obviously I'm assuming the worse, and she was admitted to the hospital for 72 hours, but after that wouldn't you get your cellphone back? I can't imagine she's so mad at me that she would purposely ignore me, but I also couldn't imagine this last week in general so who knows

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Suicide watch will never have cell phones

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But isn't that only for 72 hours? Or can you be committed for longer without being given your cellphone? I get not having your cellphone, but it seems odd you can't make respond to messages at certain times.

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Time for a new girlfriend

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deadpigs101 posted...

But isn't that only for 72 hours? Or can you be committed for longer without being given your cellphone? I get not having your cellphone, but it seems odd you can't make respond to messages at certain times.

if theyre being watched for SI then they dont get access to their phones at all

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Neither psych ward I've gone to allowed cell phones

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Sounds stressful af

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Yeah if shes in a psych ward for being suicidal you dont have much of anything with you. They let my parents bring me a book, but largely shes got more important things to work on right now.

The 72 hour period is just how long they can keep you involuntarily unless they are still worried you are a danger to yourself or others. It could go even longer if she is in there voluntarily seeking help too. Your best course of action is to ask her friends and family if they know where she is. They may have visiting hours, but with COVID that may be different than when I was in years ago.

I hope shes okay and getting the help she needs. Be ready to be supportive and to be a positive influence on her continuing to heal. That shit takes a long time to truly get past.

I heard back from her today, she should be out within a week, but no visitors which I don't get, but I'm just so happy to hear she's ok

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deadpigs101 posted...

My girlfriend was going through some hard times. She mentioned being suicidal, we got into a fight, and the next day I didn't hear from her at all.

Oof. That's a shitty way to leave things. Her parents are dicks for not letting you know she was okay.

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I don't want to hijack this topic or anything but since there seem to be people here with insight into this there was something I was wondering.

Hypothetically if someone were to go to the police and very lucidly and logically explain that they planned to kill themselves (only informing the police so they wouldn't waste resources searching for them/could send someone mentally prepared to collect their corpse) in such a way that would cause virtually zero physical impact on anyone else (no jumping off buildings/in front of trains/discharging a fire arm within city limits/etc.) would they still be involuntarily held? What if they affirmed after their three days/a week or whatever that their plans had not changed? Would it get to the point where they were forcefully given medicine (under threat of physical violence/restraint) to alter their thoughts and held as an effective guiltless prisoner indefinitely?

I guess my point is people publically like suicide is completely antipodal to the idea of "sanity" when at the same time almost everyone can think of a hypothetically situational where they would truly wish to die rather than go through it. I get annoyed by hypocrisy I guess.

^ As always check your local laws, but there comes a point (usually around 30 days) where a doctor's signature isn't sufficient to extend involuntary treatment. Then it's a matter for the courts. This is to prevent the kinds of indefinite commitments of mental patients that went on with no oversight in centuries prior.

In the hypothetical case outlined above, yes there are plenty of places where the court would agree to longer treatment.

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Didnt read anything but the topic title: yes (assuming youre turned over to a psyche ward under an involuntary hold).

edit: read more of the topic. In California, at least, a basic hold is 72 hours. Called a 5150. This can easily be extended to at least a month. I think thats called 5250. Im sure other states have similar set ups.

Reigning_King posted...

Hypothetically if someone were to go to the police and very lucidly and logically explain that they planned to kill themselves (only informing the police so they wouldn't waste resources searching for them/could send someone mentally prepared to collect their corpse) in such a way that would cause virtually zero physical impact on anyone else (no jumping off buildings/in front of trains/discharging a fire arm within city limits/etc.) would they still be involuntarily held? What if they affirmed after their three days/a week or whatever that their plans had not changed? Would it get to the point where they were forcefully given medicine (under threat of physical violence/restraint) to alter their thoughts and held as an effective guiltless prisoner indefinitely?

You would 100% be committed. The only workaround is a medical assisted version if you were terminal, but you wouldn't go to the police for that. And you would be detained until you deemed to not be a threat to yourself, which likely wouldn't be forever because sooner or later the treatments will work.

However, that'd be a stupid way to do it anyway. A person who wanted to do that would be better off just doing it and then having a timed note go out to the authorities. Not that anybody should be fucking killing themselves and if somebody was actually lucid they'd know they needed help. The fact that they don't recognize they need help is a sign of the disorder, because survival is supremely rational. Keep in mind that mental illness impairs judgment.

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Zeus posted...

Not that anybody should be fucking killing themselves and if somebody was actually lucid they'd know they needed help. The fact that they don't recognize they need help is a sign of the disorder, because survival is supremely rational. Keep in mind that mental illness impairs judgment.

This is the kind of mindset I mentioned in the last paragraph. Can you seriously not think of a single situation in which you would rather die than live? You mentioned terminally ill people as in euthanasia which is just that, a person in a situation where they judge that the quality of their remaining life is too low to justify the pain they are/will go through so they want to exit life early. Why are only physically terminally ill people afforded that kind of autonomy over their own lives (and even then only in a select few places)?

It is simply ridiculous on the face of it to say that lucidity and sanity are completely incompatible with the desire to die. Every action a person takes has to be judged against their own intentions and desires to fully understand it. If you insert your own preoccupations and opinions into the situation of course some things people do will seem "crazy" to you.

The idea of physically imprisoning someone who had committed no crime and using forceful tactics up to violence if they resist your unsolicited help and drugging them to try to reduce their "wrong think" (and in some states charging them for all of this) sounds much more crazy to me personally than many of the people they "protect". Although to use my own advice I have tried looking at it from the prospective of the State and why they would do such a thing. When someone is a danger to others it isn't hard to see why they would have an interest in detaining them at their own expense. In cases for when a person is only a danger to themselves... well when you start thinking about why they're so hell bent on "protecting" them, thingdd start going from crazy to sinister.

Reigning_King posted...

Can you seriously not think of a single situation in which you would rather die than live?

Literally any situation would be an example of a need for professional help. There is NO scenario where an otherwise healthy person could be considered fully rational while deciding on an inherently irrational self-harm, and it's society's obligation to prevent that harm.

Reigning_King posted...

You mentioned terminally ill people as in euthanasia which is just that, a person in a situation where they judge that the quality of their remaining life is too low to justify the pain they are/will go through so they want to exit life early. Why are only physically terminally ill people afforded that kind of autonomy over their own lives (and even then only in a select few places)?

Because they have an objective problem that by definition cannot get better or be improved. Any other case can be improved. People who have lost their entire family in an accident or murder have remarried. People have gone from sleeping in their car to being millionaires. Circumstances are not a justification. And once you take circumstances off the table, you have a pretty clear case for mental illness which should be treated.

Reigning_King posted...

It is simply ridiculous on the face of it to say that lucidity and sanity are completely incompatible with the desire to die.

No, it's supremely rational for living things to want to exist. That's how living things are designed. If they weren't, there would none of those living things around. Self-harm is inherently irrational and needs treatment.

Reigning_King posted...

The idea of physically imprisoning someone who had committed no crime

I'm not going to google this because it'd fuck up my search results in profound ways, but I'm 99% sure suicide is generally illegal so yeah, it is a crime. Unless the argument is that if something is stopped, it's not a crime which would mean attempted burglary, murder, etc, wouldn't be crimes.


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Nothing wrong with killing yourself, but yeah, if you go to the police you will be detained and they can lock you up long term if they think there is something wrong with you, or that you might hurt yourself if they let you out.

It's a bit harder to do that now than in the past, but they can usually keep you a month without having to get a court order I believe, and then after that they can continue to keep you locked up, it just takes more work.

So if you wanna end it, but don't want to leave a corpse behind that rots and is horrid to find etc, best bet is to do a timed email/letter etc so you can be found (after enough time that you would die even if you were just unconscious with no water etc).

Assisted suicide is legal though in some parts of the world, sometimes even without having a terminal illness. You would need to wait to get a passport (and for travel to open up but it is already), if your not terminal.

Places like Washington state where I live allow for assisted suicide for patients who are terminal etc. Also before even considering doing something like that (Which you certainly should think about for awhile and not just jump on it), you'll wanna get a DNR order, which can state exactly what you want done to you if you are found by medical experts (no CPR, no methods of sustaining life, can request to just have pain management and nothing else). This way if you fail, or someone finds you, they will not resuscitate you and will actully help mange the pain if the process takes awhile etc.

I'm a strong believer in both the right to life, and the right to death. Nobody should be able to take your life away from you (hence murder being illegal) but also, nobody should be able to FORCE you to live if you don't want to either. I do think that offering methods to help people who don't want to live, and having a time frame that gives people a chance to get better/change their mind/outlook etc...makes sense.

I feel like anyone who is looking at a long prison term, should have the choice to cease living instead, anyone with a painful/terminal illness etc. Sometimes life becomes torture, and nobody should be forced to endure that.

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Zeus posted...

Literally any situation would be an example of a need for professional help. There is NO scenario where an otherwise healthy person could be considered fully rational while deciding on an inherently irrational self-harm, and it's society's obligation to prevent that harm.

You can't just claim that "self harm" is inherently irrational when you concede that terminally ill patients are an exception. Also why is it society's obligation to prevent someone from harming themselves? Does society OWN each individual living within it? Do they have no freedom to live or die as they please when it harms no one else? By that logic abortion should still be illegal since protecting the life of a future citizen would trump the autonomy of the mother. Maybe you personally would say that should be the case in reality, but it isn't which shows that personal freedom has at least some value in this society.

Because they have an objective problem that by definition cannot get better or be improved. Any other case can be improved. People who have lost their entire family in an accident or murder have remarried. People have gone from sleeping in their car to being millionaires. Circumstances are not a justification. And once you take circumstances off the table, you have a pretty clear case for mental illness which should be treated.

Not true at all. There are many, many illnesses/injuries that would have been considered terminal, or near terminal even just a century ago. With the advancement of medical technology you could tell anyone today that they aught to just wait it out and suffer in agony, because who knows, a new treatment for their ailment could be discovered tomorrow. Humans can't see into the future, we can only make predictions and for every one of your rags to riches stories where someone contemplating suicide had their life turned around there are many more where things got worse. To say ALL problems non-medical can be fixed is assinine and that's only looking at if they hypothetically could be fixed, not even getting into the chances of them getting fixed.

Some people are mentally childish enough that they can be sustained on hopes and dreams alone but you can't expect that from everyone. In fact I would argue that, continuing a venture that has gone poorly and looks to be heading in a downward trajectory simply because some miracle could happen to turn things around is more indicative of mental illness than being able to look at things objectively.

No, it's supremely rational for living things to want to exist. That's how living things are designed. If they weren't, there would none of those living things around. Self-harm is inherently irrational and needs treatment.

Appeals to nature are weak to begin with but you're not even using this one correctly. The "natural point" of life isn't simply to exist, it's to aid in spreading DNA. If "self harm" was against the natural imperative then we wouldn't have things like large scale wars where young men were used as cannon fodder. It is perfectly in line with evolution for someone to willingly sacrifice their life, sometimes on literal SUICIDE missions "for the greater good" (i.e. to protect/propel their genetic group forward) and most people refer to those that do as heroes. Same with a mother who risks her life to save her children from some threat, would you say such a person is mentally ill for risking their own life?

I'm not going to google this because it'd fuck up my search results in profound ways, but I'm 99% sure suicide is generally illegal so yeah, it is a crime. Unless the argument is that if something is stopped, it's not a crime which would mean attempted burglary, murder, etc, wouldn't be crimes.

Suicide as well as attempted suicide haven't been illegal in America for many decades. I mean think about what you just typed, have you ever heard of someone actually going to a jail or prison over it? Getting a fine from the government? Come on now. This kind of ignorance is why we still can't have meaningful conversations about this topic in society. I hope that one day that changes.

Anyways... I said I wasn't going to derail this topic but I'm definitely on the way to so I'll leave it at that for now.

Reigning_King posted...

Anyways... I said I wasn't going to derail this topic but I'm definitely on the way to so I'll leave it at that for now.

You can derail it, I found my girlfriend, although she still doesn't have her cell back

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Of course, you might try to kill yourself with it

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Time for crab.

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Kimbos_Egg posted...

Time for crab.

Did someone say crab?!!

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isn't the initial hold a mandatory thing, and they can extend it depending on different things?
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Zareth posted...

Of course, you might try to kill yourself with it

I mean that part of psych wards is completely true. I remember getting there and after I gave them my shoes because there were shoelaces, I realized the trash cans didnt have liners so you couldnt suffocate yourself. Kind of made me laugh despite being horrendously depressed and scared all alone with strangers in a psych ward.

She's getting out today! Thank you everyone for your support

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