Mental Health Treatment in the US

[Belsnickel]

I posted something to Facebook a little bit ago, I wanted to share:

Quote:I had jury duty today, and when we were told it was a civil case I was happy because even if I was one of the seven chosen out of thirty, the consequences of the decision would be monetary rather than someone being imprisoned if we found against them. I was chosen for the jury, and I was wrong.

Rarely, the Commonwealth must present a case before a jury for someone to be involuntarily committed for inpatient mental treatment. This was one of those cases in which we had to decide whether someone was enough of a danger to themselves or others, either purposefully or through negligence, to be involuntarily committed to Western State for up to thirty days.

After having been in inpatient treatment at least three times previous to the incident that initiated this case, the respondent had fallen into behavior of not continuing their treatment and so engaged in behavior that landed them back in the hospital. Obviously, the system was failing the respondent and the lack of any advocate beyond their counsel present indicated a lack of support outside of the system as well.

It was a very difficult thing to commit the respondent to Western State. It was the correct decision, of that I have no doubt, but why should we think there will be a different result? The mental health system is failing us in this state, and in this country, and today was just a reminder of that. This was taking someone's freedom, their liberty, away without them having committed a crime, and that was a very hard thing.

We don't have enough space, enough beds, enough doctors, enough nurses, enough money, going into our mental health care system. Far too often we hear stories about people that aren't receiving the treatment they need and they end up hurting themselves or others. This was a fortunate circumstance in which that hadn't happened, yet. But it just served as a reminder to me at how the system is failing so many people when it comes to mental illness.

Anyway, just wanted to share.