Suicide January 19, 2012
Posted by Crazy Mermaid in Depression, mental illness.Tags: Depression, mental illness
2 comments
Sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers have all committed suicide and left behind a train wreck of guilt for their friends and loved ones. “What signs did I miss? Is there anything I could have done to prevent it? I must have failed him/her in some way.” All these thoughts and more go through the brains of those left behind.
At the mental hospital, I got to know five people who ended up there because they tried to commit suicide. That isn’t really a big surprise, since suicide “failures” (people who were unsuccessful in their suicide attempt) usually end up at the psych ward of mental hospitals. I was shocked at how many people in the mental hospital made no secret of their desire to kill themselves.
In fact,the mental hospital went to extreme lengths to avoid having suicide on their premise. There are no glass makeup bottles allowed. No hair dryers (because of their long cords), no eating utensils except for a plastic combination fork and spoon (spork), no shoestrings, and obviously no razors. Although t is inconvenient for those of us who aren’t suicide risks to go without those things, it is worth it if someone is prevented from taking their own life.
As I said in previous articles, depression is by and large a brain chemistry issue. In fact, research suggests that there may be a relationship between suicidal behavior and decreased levels the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. While antidepressants, including the class of serotonin reuptake inhibitors (drugs that keep serotonin around longer) often successfully treat depression, researchers are currently investigating whether these medications can also reduce suicidal behavior.
Genetic factors likely contribute to the risk for suicidal behavior. It’s one of the many psychiatric disturbances associated, at least in part, with genetic causation. Major psychiatric illnesses such as major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, certain personality disorders, and substance abuse (including alcoholism), which run in families, increase the risk of suicide behavior. This doesn’t mean that suicide is inevitable. It just means that a vulnerability to suicidal behavior may exist and should be monitored if a psychiatric disorder is diagnosed.
Interestingly, when a suicidal adolescent or young adult is exposed to suicidal behavior in others (including friends and famous people), the risk for suicide goes up in that adolescent or young adult.
Eventually, hopefully in the near future, brain scans will routinely screen for depression. That’s important because over 90 percent of people who commit suicide have depression. That will move depression and other mental illnesses from a “mental” disorder to a physical disorder that can be detected by way of a scientific test, which should help reduce the stigma associated with mental illness and result in more people getting the help they need so they don’t want to commit suicide.
How big a problem is suicide? Over 30,000 Americans take their own lives each year, making suicide the 11th most common form of death in the U.S. Though exact numbers on attempted suicide are difficult to calculate, it is estimated that there are somewhere between eight and twenty five attempts made for every “successful” suicide.
Men complete suicide four times more often than females, though more women than men report suicide attempts. The most common method of suicide completion for both sexes is by firearms, with white males comprising seventy three percent of all suicide deaths and eighty percent of all firearms deaths. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15-to-24-year-olds, and white males 85 years old and older comprise the highest rate of completion (more than six times the national rate).
Those statistics are why my Least Restrictive Treatment plan, required before I could be released from the hospital, required me to get rid of all of my guns before I was allowed out of there.
If someone threatens suicide or starts giving away his/her possessions, please take them seriously and intervene. You will save their life.
The Law and Involuntary Commitment January 2, 2012
Posted by Crazy Mermaid in Involuntary Committment, Mental Hospital, mental illness.Tags: Involuntary Committment, Mental Hospitals, mental illness
2 comments
You’d think that once a bill gets passed by the House and Senate and signed by the Governor, there would be no question whether the bill goes into effect. But that’s not true.
Back on March 17, 2010, I posted a blog entry about the passage of House Bill 3076. I was excited because it would no longer required Designated Mental Health Professionals to disregard evidence given by friends and family members of people with severe mental illness in their decision of whether to involuntarily commit a person with severe mental illness. Prior to this law, the Designated Mental Health Professional could not take into account testimony by friends and family members regarding the mental state of their friend or loved one.
Senate House Bill 3076 was a major victory for people with severe mental illness because it enabled them to get much-needed help by enabling their friends or loved ones to give evidence to the Mental Health Professional doing the assessment of the person with severe mental illness to determine whether that person should be involuntarily committed.
“Chapter 280, Laws of 2010 (Second Substitute House Bill 3076) expanded in two ways the factors that Designated Mental Health Professionals and the courts may consider when determining whether to commit a person to involuntary treatment. First, the 2010 law provides that a Designated Mental Health Professional must consider all reasonably available evidence from credible witnesses when determining whether to detain a person. Credible witnesses are defined as family, landlords, neighbors, and others with significant contact and history of involvement with the person. Second, the 2010 law additionally provides that, in determining whether to detain and commit, Designated Mental Health Professionals and the courts may consider symptoms and behavior that, standing alone would not justify commitment, but that show a marked deterioration in the person’s condition and are closely associated with symptoms and behavior that led to past involuntary psychiatric hospitalization or violent acts. The 2010 law set January 1, 2012 as the effective date for both of these changes”
At the time the bill was passed, I assumed that it would become effective immediately. In fact, I assumed this whole time that it was in effect. That assumption was obviously wrong. Had I read the bill more closely, I would have known that the law wouldn’t become effective until January 1, 2011.
I made another assumption as well. I assumed that, once the law came into effect, it would not and could not be revoked. That, too, was an assumption that was wrong.
In fact, another bill, Senate Bill 5987, gutted House Bill 3076. I was shocked at this turn of events.
Basically, the summary of Senate Bill 5987 changed the effective date of the 2010 statuary changes from January 1, 2012 to January 1, 2015.
The reason for the change, said the Staff Summary of Public Testimony, is that there isn’t sufficient treatment capacity to meet current involuntary needs, let alone increased demand. Already, said the new bill, between 25 to 50 percent of all persons involuntarily committed in King County are “boarded” in facilities that are not certified to accept such patients. The legislation, it said, needs to be passed in the special session before the January 1, 2012 effective date of the original legislation. Department of Social and Health Services supports to purpose of the 2010 legislation, but lacks the resources to implement it.
Although it is frustrating that the law is now delayed another three years, the reason it was delayed makes perfect sense. It’s yet another victim of our funding crisis.
