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Gives a new meaning to the term “bucket list”
Man, am I glad I called that guy.
The Mucus Queen is all yours.
Con Air?
Dolemite
Fun fact: most health insurance CEOs will fit into a bucket if you try hard enough.
Cory doctorow wrote a short story about this called “radicalized” https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=F00D7584E6296CD7718FC3D359040FD6
Doctorow
It would be an absolute tragedy if someone in his family isn’t a pain management doctor/anesthesiologist.
Doctorow makes me hope for Doctorouchie and DoctorAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, as the medical trifecta of pain levels
If he isn’t named doctorouchie in some online account imma get mad at him
It’s polish origin, it’s not pronounced like that :|
More importantly, don’t forget certain judges in the highest court of the land.
Now this is the way to go!
terminally Ill people definitely could because laws don’t apply to people about to die. Fortunately for the CEOs, the working class just wants peace in their lives. Something heavily exploited by the 1%.
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Chicken shit mods know what side of the class war they want to be on, not the side they’re actually on
Told a friend how I was feeling and had a similar bill. $2500 with insurance. Probably won’t be talking about my feelings again unfortunately
This might sound unsympathetic, but it’s easy to put someone else in a situation where they must call the police / ambulance.
It doesn’t really matter how close a friend is. If you say you’re at risk of harming yourself or others, they don’t have a lot of options.
I work for a mental health crisis line. We are taught, with extremity, to always go for least intrusive intervention possible. We will only ever call Emergency Services after a literal check list to ensure it’s the last resort possible.
Practically the only times we ever call EMS on someone is if they tell us they are actively dying this very second, due to injury or overdose, etc. Or if they, after all of our attempts to listen, empathize, talk about what’s going on, talk about how they’re feeling tonight, work on what options there might be, who in their lives might be able to help, listing resources, and attempting to safety plan; if after all that, they say “yeah, I’m gonna kill myself specifically in this fashion and I’m gonna do it right now, and I have the means available to me.” Then hang up and don’t answer when we call back. Then we call EMS.
It’s drilled into us that EMS is expensive for the person, and potentially dangerous because police are often not great at responding to Mental Health emergencies. So always the last last last resort.
This so much…
Emergency services are like the absolute worst dog shit resource for mental health issues. 99% of the time they just make shit worse, I had to learn this the hard way.
It actually makes me mad that so many people suggest it as what you “should” do if someone is in crisis because it’s just not made for that. Do not call 911 if you are having a panic attack or SI or even self harming in a non SI way, they will do nothing to help you and it will just cost a fuck load. Like you said the only time it makes sense is if you are actually dying from an attempt. Even MH practitioners say to call 911 when they should know better. I am glad your place seems to know what’s up because so many people get the wrong advice on this issue and it actively hurts people. Maybe if the healthcare and police system were different going to the emergency room or calling 911 might be a good idea, but how they are now its just not.
The “wellness checks” are way too often murders. I would never call the cops to check in on someone because they’ll likely shoot them
About three weeks ago, my coworker’s brother was shot by police responding to a wellness check. It’s fucked.
The group that handles 988, the suicide line, is called Vibrant and they’re working with 911 dispatchers all over the country to train them to transfer over to 988 if there’s any situation like that instead of handling it themselves.
Firstly, this varies by region. Most people don’t live in the US, including me.
Secondly, you’re right in that it will be an unpleasant experience for most patients, but the vast majority of patients will survive the episode. Which is the point.
In the US, surviving the episode and immediatly going into medical debt is why the second attempt happens with them not reaching out to anyone.
Hyperbolic.
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Alright don’t blue ball us, give us the list. I want to know step 1,2,3 on how to handle people like this.
My employer is actually having a “mental health first aid” seminar pretty soon. You should look for things like that.
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This is a really interesting perspective, and obviously you know a lot more about this than the rest of us.
I think you can probably understand that your own training, experience, expertise, and support gives you a range of other options to implement before calling EMS. The rest of us don’t have most of those options.
There’s not much more I can say just because I’m not in the US. Obviously the options will vary by location.
It’s definitely true that my training, experience and employment gives me a lot more resources. I definitely encourage people to help others call us, rather than 911, when they’re able.
That sounds like a good protocol but that was not followed in the incident I was referencing
Yeah, unfortunately not all call centers have the same policies. I can only speak for mine.
So many people seem to only care about life and not dignity. Locking someone up against their will for being suicidal will always be wrong in my mind. Unless they are threatening harm to someone else, then it might be warranted in order to protect the threatend person.
Locking someone up against their will for being suicidal will always be wrong in my mind.
You’re entitled to that opinion, of course.
Contemporary thinking, including that of the mental health care profession, is that thoughts of suicide are the product of illness, and that treatment options are available. Terminal illness or chronic suffering are an exception. If someone has an illness which causes them to harm themselves, it seems appropriate to intervene when no alternative options are available.
While I am sure that’s true for a lot of cases, I think you have to look at society and the individual as a whole. Lots of people are homeless or struggling to afford food, and they will never break out of poverty completely even if they manage to improve their situation a little. Add on to that the fact we are killing the planet, each other, and nature all at the same time and I don’t think suicide is that unreasonable in some cases. This is especially true for disabled people that can’t get jobs or have much quality of life and live on peanuts from the government if anything.
You’re also entitled to that opinion, but you have to acknowledge that it’s not commonly held, which is why people will prevent others committing suicide.
Maybe look at the upvotes to see which is more popular an idea? Nobody really stops homeless doing anything aside from getting a place to sleep. Euthanasia is also a pretty popular idea for people who are already dying.
Are you seriously suggesting that upvotes in a lemmy thread about suicide are an indicator of societal values generally?
Few people are required reporters and those will be medical workers, public school employees, and people who work for universities for the most part. Calling 911 will get your friend shot by the police in the worst case, and traumatized and in debt in the best case.
Few people are required reporters
So what do you do if a casual acquaintance tells you they’re intending harm to themselves or others ?
Whatever I feel like. If I care for someone you better believe I won’t call authorities and make their life worse while destroying our relationship.
Kinda sounds like you don’t have an answer.
Sure, if your bestie is having a tough time then of course you’ll talk to them and do whatever it takes not to call EMS.
If it’s a “casual acquaintance” as I said your options kinda diminish.
I called EMS for my neighbor once. A few days later his mother came to thank me profusely.
I’m not in the US though so things work a bit differently here.
They are still traumatically carting people away, depriving them of liberty, and not really helping.
Obviously the “not really helping” is the critical part of that statement.
In many cases they help a great deal.
“Depriving people of liberty” is also an appeal to emotion. While that does happen briefly in some cases, it’s not really the norm. I’m sure you’ll find that any one in healthcare is only going to do that if the patient is at risk of harming themselves or others. The alternative is allowing people the liberty to harm themselves or others.
I get that. I never said I intended to harm myself or others to them. In my opinion they overreacted and nothing I said could convince the ambulance not to take me.
Well something doesn’t add up.
Do EMS often abduct people?
To be fair, your friends shouldn’t be billing their time to your insurance.
There’s a hotline for a reason. Get them to call that and let them figure it out. They’re also trained to talk people into stabilization, for free.
♥️ I care about your well-being Internet stranger. I too have those days and have come close to seeing it through. You aren’t alone.
Thanks ❤️ you are awesome. Feel free to reach out any time. Even to chat about nothing
i think you have to look for better friends if they charge you for talking about your feelings
Your friend was an idiot, I’m very sorry.
I called no one and told no one and just let it bottle up. Totally a cheaper option but I wouldn’t recommend that either.
I tried the same technique and then ended up trying to kill myself using all the pills, but that just made me sick and throw up followed by tremors for a few weeks. I was twice a failure.
After a few more failed attempts and visits with bad therapists, I finally found professionals and medication that worked for me and I’ve been suicide-attempt-free for 13 years now! And the past 6 years have seen significantly more good days than bad.
You win this round, modern medicine…
Not everyone is as lucky to be able to do that either.
Sadly sometimes that is the safest option.
Some online friends called 911 on my son when he was just a few weeks shy of 18 and he was placed on a psych hold for a week for self-harming thoughts.
Don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful they saw signs he’d managed to hide from us, but since the paperwork took a few weeks to process, he not only had to deal with his mental health issues, but also got an 18th birthday present of a $20,000 bill for inpatient services under his name. That definitely didn’t help his mental state at all, and it took years to sort it out.
Later, he told me all he learned from the whole experience was to never tell anyone what he really thinks. As a mom, that scares the shit out of me.
Wouldn’t it have made sense for him to declare bancrupcy at that point.
Crisistextline.org has helped me out of some dark places - it’s no substitute for medical care, but it is free and they are always available. Hopefully someone will see this comment who can benefit from this service.
Dear Americans, I’m not writing this to gloat… But what the fuck have you let happen to your country. Health care is a human right!
I’m currently in hospital, for a second time in a month. First time, I came in with a “very nasty pneumonia”, which turned into sepsis, I needed surgery to help clear the crap from my lung. They sent me home after 14 days. They also flew me from my local small hospitals to the bigger one I’m in now.
I was home for 4 days and started getting severe chest pains around my heart. So I’m back, feeling way better now, is a long weekend so no doctors to make decisions… I’m stuck in here till Tuesday at least. On Tuesday it will be a total of 24 days. Various medications and treatments etc…
My expected bill at the end of all of this is $0.00.
The only real cost is the gas from hour each way for my family coming to visit. All meals are covered.
I honestly have no idea how much my time here is costing the national health service. The are no numbers discussed, everything is just what you need to get better.
That’s the Standart in about every developed nation on this planet. I don’t get it either what the USA is trying to accomplish there.
A thing that isn’t obvious seeing that insanely inflated prices is, that these are prices for individuals and won’t be payed by insurances. If you have let’s say a 70k hospital bill, the insurance might just say we only pay you 8k. The hospital then takes the 8k and writes of the other 68k as a loss. This results in the hospital not earning any money on paper and they don’t pay taxes.
My favorite thing to look at, when it comes to these inflated prices in USA Healthcare ae the prices of saline solution.
Have a read if you’re interested.
I don’t get it either what the USA is trying to accomplish there
Privatize profits. Socialize losses.
That is very confusing.
Thousands of dollars, but also somewhere between $3 - $120, what a fucked up system.
Sustain and further enrich an elite class of wealth. At any cost.
But what the fuck have you let happen to your country.
Uh. It hasn’t changed.
“All men are created equal”
IS SLAVE STATE
Always has been
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Yeah, I logged into the app here in Sweden, sent a message with what my problem was. Got a reply in 2 days, saw a doctor in a week, she suggested surgery, it was scheduled in 4 weeks. Had the surgery, got a bunch of meds, was off work for a week with 80% of my salary. Paid 500sek, like $50.
I fucking love paying taxes.
No, you don’t understand. You didn’t get treated yet, you’re still waiting to be seen. If you don’t pay for medical insurance then you wait 62518262 years to see a doctor and you die before you ever see them. Also they decide to let you die because something something government death panels.
-American media on universal healthcare.
Seriously though, almost any person you talk to in America that is against universal healthcare magically knows people in Canada that have died waiting to be seen or have 6 months wait times for their very painful conditions. Every time… Even people like my mother who I know doesn’t know any Canadians says she does…
American “rugged individualism” has murdered compassion and empathy and has done nothing but foster greed amongst all of us. It’s me me me me, MY tax money going to treat YOUR disease, taking up space making ME wait to be seen. Turns out ultra individualism makes for a shitty society.
That “in socialist European countries you get put on a waiting list” canard really doesn’t wash anymore, either, since here in capitalist private insurance America I am at this very moment being forced to wait two months before I can even have my initial consultation with a doctor.
Two months.
There certainly are waiting lists for non-urgent stuff, and it does kinda suck. But FFS if you need help NOW you get it.
I’m in socialist New Zealand… The current new government is trying to be less socialist, but they are getting a lot of bad press because some of their policies are just mean.
Total wait time… Hmmmmm let’s see, about the amount of time it took for me to say “I’m having trouble breathing, my name and DoB” so they could look up my NHI number, all of 3 minutes.
I think you have hit the nail on the head with the “rugged individualism” comment. Just across from me is a dude from Sri Lanka, broken leg at the local mountain bike park. He deserves the best treatment we can give him, I have no idea if he has travel insurance or doesn’t really matter, he is here we treat him.
It really is amazing how we went from “sharing is caring” to “you get yours yourself, I got mine already.”
Your comment on the Sri Lankan dude is also spot on, a human being shouldn’t have to suffer just because we’re too selfish to help them whether it’s by our taxes or whatever. It should be a point of pride that “our” country provides for whoever needs help and that our collective actions make that possible. That’s an America I’d be proud of. Not the ultra capitalist greed machine we should be proud to be a part of because “GDP number big”…
Called the VA crisis line a while back, talked to a case worker and they told me they’d have someone pick me up. A little while later I get a knock on the door from a city cop with his holster unbuckled there to take me to the psych ward of our local shitty hospital.
Spent three days in what essentially was One Flew Over except my nurse Ratchet was a part time psychiatrist that didn’t completely speak English, and was a total dick.
Ended up checking myself out because nothing was being accomplished there beside morning calisthenics. Later that week, I got a bill from the hospital for $1200, and the VA said they wouldn’t cover it because I didn’t call it in within 72 hours… Even though it was a VA rep that started the process, and it was related to a service-connected injury (PTSD).
This was over ten years ago, but it’s comforting to know some things never change.
The VA screwed up my meds by sending them to a non existent address. So I had to go to the local ER to get them. (I’m not sure who would even ask for psych meds that aren’t tranquilizers but apparently they’re controlled just like opiates…) At any rate. Same story, I called first and they told me that’s what I had to do. So I got a rideshare to the hospital because I was also having a really bad day. The local ER was really great. But the VA then sent me a bill. I called their number and they said I was supposed to drive myself 2 hours to the nearest VA hospital. I told them that would have been the worst choice I could have made and they could either pay for it or explain to Congress why I’m paying for their malfunction. And you know what? Somehow, some way it worked. They took it back and I never had to pay it.
But then they got me back on an ambulance ride years later, (after they swore to Congress they’d start paying for ambulance rides).
At any rate, I just wanted to let you know you’re not alone. Get what you can from the VA but never let them get you.
I am honestly surprised they even answered, or did anything at all.
Called them once (same issue with PTSD) and the lady put me on hold, then hung up. It made me laugh at how stupid this whole system is, then I got drunk and fell asleep.
Dam, unfortunately, the system that is so good for those who want to enlist, quickly forgets those who return from the battlefield.
These situations. In my opinion, there should be no costs, and they should not be based on 72 hours, or any type of restrictions.
In addition to not making any sense in this specific case, if it was started this way.
Mental health hospitals are hellish too. I can’t fucking stand Married with Children, not because of how stupid or unfunny it is, but because it was always on and I get flashbacks.
I attempted years ago - because I was dead broke and about to have to drop out of college. When I got out, I had lost my job and had to do survival sex work to eat.
The power structure of those places facilitate horrific abuse. For example, the Indian man whose screams have haunted my dreams for the past ten years - a man who had no family, came to the facility with no clothing… the staff (and patients) bullied the shit out of him. No one in that hospital was interested in helping him.
The psychiatrist I saw for maybe 15 minutes at the beginning of the day. All they did was prescribe me meds. There wasn’t any really meaningful therapy, at least as I understood it? It was more of a holding pen.
I think in the US, the horrifying truth is that mental health resources are mostly illusory. 988 exists so that we can pass out 988 stickers and pens - we can be the good people providing help. Therapists exist, but the waiting lists for good ones can be months and there are thousands of disturbed LPCs who went in to counseling for the wrong reason.
CBT is a shitty modality for things like “I’m miserable because I can’t afford to eat” or “I’m stressed because I got fired from my job when they found out I was trans” or even something as dumb “my body tenses up and I can’t focus my eyes when hear the name Al Bundy.” It’s symptoms focused and can be harmful for certain situations. But it also is often the only modality that one can easily access.
The entire structure of the mental health system in America is horrifically broken, but fixing it would require a complete overhaul of the system. So instead it’s bandaids - employee assistance programs and chat hotlines.
My daughter, who does have psychological issues (don’t we all?) but nowhere near the need to put her in a facility, has heard so many horror stories about them that she was terrified we would put her in one someday. It doesn’t help that there’s a mental hospital that down the road from us that has super severe patients. Her psychiatrist is part of their network and I didn’t understand that it wasn’t in that building for her first appointment, so she also had the misfortune of seeing some people with problems far more severe than hers when we went to the wrong place. I felt bad for her, but I also think it helped her understand that her symptoms are not even remotely close to the severity that would have anyone consider putting her in one, so maybe it was for the best. She certainly has not expressed that fear since we made that accidental trip there.
I’m glad you made it out of there with your mental health in tact enough for you to come across as a basically mentally sound person to everyone here.
Mental health “hospitals” in America are basically just small prisons, but without even the minimal oversight that prisons have.
You can be held in a mental health institution indefinitely if any doctor feels like it, with no recourse, no appeal, and without being charged with any crime, and not even with the need to actually diagnose you with anything. They can strip you, bully you, take whatever possessions you had on you and destroy them, humiliate you, and within those walls you have no rights. And at the end of it all, they’ll send you an astronomical bill proportionate to the amount of time they imprisoned you.
Unless you are, like, to the seeing-imaginary-people levels of out of whack, do yourself a favor and don’t think checking in to an American mental health institution will help you. You’ll might go in with one problem, and you’ll come out with two or more.
This may be the case in many other countries as well.
Thanks for sharing. Hope you’re feeling better now. Having witnessed people breaking down myself and it’s no joke. If people have no way out of a shitty situation, I mean, what can they do?
988 Worker here.
Every single time someone asks me what we can do to fight the mental health epidemic in the U.S. and the rising suicide rates, I always always tell them the keys are workers rights, affordable housing, a healthcare system that doesn’t suck, all of this shit that the person asking typically doesn’t want.
Just curious - is 988 using “AI”? I’ve seen some strange and suspect conversations.
988 is not using any AI in conversations with callers to my knowledge. I know that some branches are looking at implementing AI for training purposes, to perhaps give more realistic simulation calls for trainers, but at no point should anybody calling 988 needing help encounter an AI. For the chat platform, I know that the messaging system has some automatic questions that it asks everyone at the very start of the conversation, but it’s a machine in the classic sense, and is not AI. Chat/Texters should not be encountering AI either.
I’ve found CBT actively harmful for mental health struggles that result from ill health and physical disability. Like if I’m anxious about whether I’m strong enough to make it to the bathroom, CBT techniques seem to involve pretending that falling and pissing yourself on the floor isn’t a real risk that needs to be accounted for.
Sometimes you’re stuck in a situation with no win state and the last thing that’s useful is gaslighty bullshit that ignores reality.
That’ll teach you to have mental health problems. Now get back to work! This is America.
The American Scheme
I’m actually only surprised that she got the bill after one month.
Maybe that’s just the first bill.
I don’t have severe mental health issues (although I do have them), but I am dealing with an undiagnosed medical issue and I am at the Mayo Clinic right now because of it. Before I came here, just from everything I’ve been through in the past year and a few months, we’re thousands of dollars in medical debt. I am terrified of what the bill from Mayo will be. They are in our insurance network and we supposedly have “good” insurance, but how good can even good insurance be when you can rack up that sort of debt in under two years just so you can stay alive?
The for-profit healthcare system in America is the truly insane thing, far more insane than this woman was when she felt suicidal.
I think many Americans are unaware that you can still be bankrupted by medical debt even with the very best insurance.
All I can say is at least they don’t charge you interest. That would make it even worse.
They don’t charge interest yet.
As you know, these villains have purchased the laws that “regulate” them. If we cannot fix congress (and end the ability to purchase legislation), this will only get worse.
Yeah, it’s probably coming.
“If you’re feeling suicidal please call for help you’re not alone!”
The help:
You’re not alone, your insurance’s billing department will always be with you
I’ll do nothing for half as much money. It’s a great deal. Call now.
I’ll go so far as to tell you life is worth living and direct you to the suicide hotline for a measly $500.
On a serious note, if anyone has felt suicidal and is still here, I’m glad. I’ve been suicidal and been alone. I’ve been suicidal and had a friend stay with me. I’ve stayed with more than one friend who was ready to end it. I know how you feel and I know how it feels to lose someone and almost lose someone to suicide. Please get help (preferably without calling 911 unless there’s no other way) if you’re feeling that way because in the long run it’s absolutely worth it.
This is why I never had a safety plan. I literally cannot afford what I need to feel better, and have to keep quiet or risk losing everything and still not be helped. Nobody will know I was in crisis until I’m gone.
