Involuntary Hospitalization

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To answer your question, it is not normal to think about killing yourself all the time. It is not even normal to think about killing yourself a couple times a week. It is approaching normal to think about killing yourself very occasionally during times of great stress, but even then, this tends to be a fleeting thought. So, something not very normal is going on right now. You are experiencing a crisis for whatever reason, and you might very well benefit from professional help. Now, the form professional help may come in if you tell a therapist that you are acutely suicidal is involuntary hospitalization for a few days. Therapists and Doctors have a duty (ethical and legal both) to hospitalize you (or at least put the wheels in motion) if they …show more content…

The prospect of losing your license might be even worse. However, to my mind anyway, being hospitalized or even losing your license has got to be preferable to dying and traumatizing your kids for life. No one likes to be hospitalized. In this case, however, hospitals exist as a safety net to catch people who might otherwise do themselves in. If you need that net, it isn’t something to …show more content…

You should be evaluated by a doctor (preferably a psychiatrist, but at least a general practitioner) and medicated if that doctor thinks that this will help. You should also be in at least weekly psychotherapy – not because it will help you immediately (psychotherapy takes several months of work to prove effective), but because you need monitoring for safety. Seek out a cognitive behavioral therapist for access to the best available therapy for managing depression. You can minimize the threat of hospitalization by denying that you have suicidal thoughts or at least that you have a suicidal plan. It’s not a good idea to misrepresent yourself in this situation, however, because the alternative to being hospitalized is perhaps killing yourself and traumatizing your family. If you have a plan and will kill yourself, drive yourself to the emergency room instead and check yourself into the psychiatric ward as an alternative. Tell them that you are suicidal. Don’t wait for a doctor to declare you a danger to self if you know you are in fact a true and acute danger to

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