“When we, as clinicians, respect and honor confidentiality, our patients feel safer to explore their problems.”
“The Mental Health Act sets out several reasons that a person may be held as an involuntary patient. The two most common reasons are:
- The person is a danger to themselves, another person, or may unintentionally injure themselves, or
- The person’s condition is deteriorating and they require hospitalization.”
By having this Mental Health Act, doesn’t it collide with the confidentiality part?
I don’t understand how you can say that we feel safer to explore our problems but then force us to watch what we say. Yes, we are suicidal, that’s how it works. If we are in a moment of distress, (you know, those moments you’re concerned about helping with and that’s why there’s all those numbers?) then we are suicidal, we want to kill ourselves. Those phone numbers, feel like entrapment. You want us to get help, but if we can’t say what we need help with, how are we suppose to get help? If you want to help us, let us vent. Let us scream and cry and say “I WANT TO DIE!!!!!” Let us be heard so we don’t have to suffer in silence, for fear of being fed medication like candy. If we can’t say we are suicidal without consequence, then how are we suppose to explore that problem. And if we can’t explore it, we can’t fix it. To talk in the moment is entirely different then to talk about it afterwards. I understand the fear. I understand that you don’t want us to do it. But you’re not changing it. All you are doing, is silencing us. Whether we say it or not we are still suicidal. You’re just making it so that we don’t tell you, which is a lot more dangerous then to let us speak. By letting us speak you are letting us give you the chance to help and comfort us. But when we have to fear hospitalization, we won’t tell you and instead, suffer on our own. How does this sound better to you?
I’m not saying to get rid of mental hospitals. I’m considering maybe going to one for certain circumstances. I’m just saying maybe don’t be so quick with the trigger.
1 comment
This is exactly how I feel. Thank you for sharing it.
I have a plan to commit suicide and if I was a danger to myself I sure wouldn’t be talking to anyone.
I’m far more afraid of hospitalization and lack of agency than I am of death. I can never be honest with those people because of laws like that.