Question about being in a mental hospital

[copperwindow]

In 1995 a psychiatrist diagnosed me as being "a danger to myself or others" and I was places in a mental hospital against my will. After a week or two, I ran away when I escaped through an empty door. Now it's been eleven years later and I got to thinking: if someone noticed me one day and alerted the authorities, would they be able to put me back since I ran away?

[Balthisar]

Presumably you somehow paid for your SDMB subscription with something linked to your ID -- why don't you think of the mods won't put it to the test for you and alert the authorities?

This is a hypothetical, of course. Right?

[copperwindow]

I have a feeling that they would be wasting their time. If the police did come to my house I would hire a lawyer who would argue on my behalf that since 1993 nothing has happened to me or anyone because of me so I was either misdiagnosed or I was somehow "magically" cured and things would get messy. This is why I posted the question.

[Ethilrist]

Wow, you're having a bad month.

[Ethilrist]

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

[Foxy40]

Originally Posted by copperwindow

I have a feeling that they would be wasting their time. If the police did come to my house I would hire a lawyer who would argue on my behalf that since 1993 nothing has happened to me or anyone because of me so I was either misdiagnosed or I was somehow "magically" cured and things would get messy. This is why I posted the question.

I am wondering if you "hid" or simply went home and no one came back for you. I guess it would depend on your diagnosis. If you were "Baker Acted" and you were simply depressed at the time, they may have just said you left AMA and not worried about it. More information is needed, I think.

[copperwindow]

Originally Posted by Ethilrist

Wow, you're having a bad month.

Originally Posted by Ethilrist

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

These two posts were hypothetical.

Originally Posted by Foxy40

I am wondering if you "hid" or simply went home and no one came back for you. I guess it would depend on your diagnosis. If you were "Baker Acted" and you were simply depressed at the time, they may have just said you left AMA and not worried about it. More information is needed, I think.

I was diagnosed with "Oppositional Defiance Disorder", "pervasive developmental disorder", "schizotypo", and a laundry list of other ailments. I ran away and left the state.

[Sonia Montdore]

Originally Posted by copperwindow

These two posts were hypothetical.

I was diagnosed with "Oppositional Defiance Disorder", "pervasive developmental disorder", "schizotypo", and a laundry list of other ailments. I ran away and left the state.

Well, at least you don't have porphyria: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/...d.php?t=394731

[Lumpy]

Was it just the standard 72 hour hold for observation? Or were you actually declared legally incompetent and assigned a guardian? The latter is lot more permanent than the former.

[Operation Ripper]

Originally Posted by copperwindow

In 1995 a psychiatrist diagnosed me as being "a danger to myself or others" and I was places in a mental hospital against my will. After a week or two, I ran away when I escaped through an empty door. Now it's been eleven years later and I got to thinking: if someone noticed me one day and alerted the authorities, would they be able to put me back since I ran away?

Doubt it, unless you are still engaging in the same behavior, whatever it was, which of course is a huge variable here, and caught the attention of the right people. It is pretty hard to get committed against your will today.

[lawoot]

I work in a locked In-Patient unit for adolescents. We had one of our clients run while on a home pass (she was two days from discharging anyway, but the call of friends and booze was too strong for her to resist. We got her back on the day she was originally to discharge, but her actions just added more ammo against her - danger to self, poor impulse control, poor judgement, etc. But I digress) If she had remained AWOL for another day we would have discharged her officially, and that would have been that. We wouldn't have kept looking for her, and if she was found she would have to be detained on new/fresh reasons. Generally we have a time limit for how long charges are kept active. And if you were a child when you ran, then you REALLY have nothing to worry about now, as an adult.

[copperwindow]

Originally Posted by Operation Ripper

Doubt it, unless you are still engaging in the same behavior, whatever it was, which of course is a huge variable here, and caught the attention of the right people. It is pretty hard to get committed against your will today.

So the requirements to get commited as different now as they were in 1996?

[Lynn Bodoni]

Originally Posted by Balthisar

Presumably you somehow paid for your SDMB subscription with something linked to your ID -- why don't you think of the mods won't put it to the test for you and alert the authorities?

This is a hypothetical, of course. Right?

We don't care if our posters are crazy, as long as they're not jerks about it. If we rejected/turned in every poster that had a few screws loose, we'd have a much smaller membership. And a much less interesting board.

[chappachula]

Originally Posted by Lynn Bodoni

We don't care if our posters are crazy, as long as they're not jerks .

Great Slogan! Add it to the site banner.....
It'll attract many more web surfers than "fighting ignorance"

[WishIHadACoolName]

ODD and PDD are, to my knowledge, not diagnoses that would get you committed today. Today, PDD is simply seen as a form of Autism ("PDD Not Otherwise Specified" was my son's original diagnosis, before someone finally had the balls to say Autism). Schizotypo is a word I've never even heard before.

I'd say you're probably in the clear, as long as you don't still present as a danger to anyone. I'd think the ODD symptoms may have been what made you look "dangerous" to those who didn't understand. As far as the PDD diagnosis, I'd be curious to hear the symptoms that led to that. Maybe you just have a touch of mercury poisoning, which will present some of the same symptoms (Mad Hatter's Disease looks a lot like high functioning Autism, depending on whom you ask). Got a lot of "silver" fillings? Eat a lot of tuna? Live in an area where industries burn coal? Those things are all high in mercury, and while most of us can purge it from our systems harmlessly, some can't.

[Operation Ripper]

Originally Posted by copperwindow

So the requirements to get commited as different now as they were in 1996?

Could you rephrase that?

[AHunter3]

As of now, they don't keep psych records the way they keep police records; a few months after you've gone AWOL, they don't have APBs out for your ass, nor are the police checking your name against a database of schizzies-at-large or anything.


— escaped from an East Texas psych bin by exactly the same means as the OP

[lawoot]

Our usual MO: When a client escapes we alert the family and the police. After X number of days they are placed on an administrative discharge.

I would imagine that there is no formal APB put out/search done by the police unless there is already a further legal hold on the client (i.e. they came to us from Juvie/prison, and are scheduled to return there once they are stable, or are a registered Sex offender). As Iam not a Police Officer, I cannot say for certain.

[myskepticsight]

Originally Posted by WishIHadACoolName

Schizotypo is a word I've never even heard before.

Maybe it's supposed to be schizotypal personality disorder?

[AHunter3]

I make schizotypos all the time

[Ethilrist]

Originally Posted by copperwindow

These two posts were hypothetical.

I was diagnosed with "Oppositional Defiance Disorder", "pervasive developmental disorder", "schizotypo", and a laundry list of other ailments. I ran away and left the state.

My apologies. It looks like the threads you've created fall into two camps: fairly mundane and straightforward questions, and wildly hypothetical ones. This looked to be (and was stated much the same as) one of the latter. That you asked about a potentially serious legal situation on a public message board made it seem more likely to be a hypothetical.

[lorene]

Was it 1993, 1995, or 1996? You have said each date once.

Anyhow, I think it also depends on the kind of "danger to others" you were. If you had a stated plan to harm or murder someone specific, the authorities would have had more call to keep looking for you. Same as if you had actually done so. But if you were a general menace to society, as they were once called, then I think that's something different altogether.

At least it was when I worked on an IP unit many years ago.

[copperwindow]

Originally Posted by Ethilrist

My apologies. It looks like the threads you've created fall into two camps: fairly mundane and straightforward questions, and wildly hypothetical ones. This looked to be (and was stated much the same as) one of the latter. That you asked about a potentially serious legal situation on a public message board made it seem more likely to be a hypothetical.

Okay, the thread about me mudering and raping a seventeen year old was completely hypothetical. The other one was based on a muder that occued in my area. When the police ruled it a murder and they were waiting for an autopsy to come in, I was wondering how they knew she was murdered without an autopsy and whether she could have died of a heart attack.

Originally Posted by lorene

Was it 1993, 1995, or 1996? You have said each date once.

Anyhow, I think it also depends on the kind of "danger to others" you were. If you had a stated plan to harm or murder someone specific, the authorities would have had more call to keep looking for you. Same as if you had actually done so. But if you were a general menace to society, as they were once called, then I think that's something different altogether.

At least it was when I worked on an IP unit many years ago.

I was hospitalized once in 1991 and discharged, once in 1993 and discharged, once again in 1993 and ran away, and then once in 1996 from a different mental hospital and ran away. I don't think I was ever hospitalized in 1995. Because a doctor in 1996 labed me a danger to myself or others because of my psycosis and I was never "cured", could I be put back in because of what the doctor said in 1996?

[lorene]

Originally Posted by copperwindow

Because a doctor in 1996 labed me a danger to myself or others because of my psycosis and I was never "cured", could I be put back in because of what the doctor said in 1996?

IANAD and IANAL, but I would think no. You have to be an immediate threat to yourself or another person. At least that is true where I live. Here is a state-by-state chart of commitment laws.

[copperwindow]

Originally Posted by lorene

IANAD and IANAL, but I would think no. You have to be an immediate threat to yourself or another person. At least that is true where I live. Here is a state-by-state chart of commitment laws.

At what point did I become not an immediate threat to myself or someone else? Was it the point that I escaped? One year after? One decade after?