My Mom Spent 72 Involuntary Hours on Suicide Watch
To wear myself to sleep (because exhaustion isn’t enough), I read.
Tonight’s news made the most sense and I’m near Los Angeles.
Ugh. This idiot, whom I’ll call The Times Editorial Board, wrote an opinion piece (Subjective. Supposedly.) stating (objective?) that America is so used to this gun violence that since it turned out to not be a “real” school shooting at UCLA, we will just “shrug” it off.
(I’m purposely not sharing the link because I don’t want to drive traffic to them.)
Stay with me here. The title and UCLA tragedy will make more sense.
So, I’m upset the LA Times called me out for shrugging, but also that they wrote this opinion without offering a solution nor admitting to a lack of one.
I’m already not feeling good, now I’m pissed off personally. You don’t do that to compulsive writers; they respond. I did. No big deal.
But now I’m reading comments. One comment lead to another article. It was better-just the facts. News.
But THOSE comments were worse than the opinion piece! They were BAD. And I couldn’t help myself from reading at least ten of them.
I’m not going to share that link either, nor waste our time going back over the mean, rude, and even racist comments (to an unknown race BTW). I just want to question one thing that was brought up [in my mind].
One person claimed:
We all know (assume we know; hope we know) this person is just an a$$hole making a dark humor joke at an inappropriate time. Right?
But what repercussions are there for someone publicly talking about shooting someone?
We can’t convict someone for a thought, nor for something that hasn’t happened. But nothing? We can’t fine them 25 measly dollars and until they pay they can’t renew their license? The money could create jobs just to take their money and hold their licenses. So it really could be win-win-win. The idiot can talk, they pay consequences, and jobs are created in every state.
The reason this freedom of speech about killing someone for less than stellar grades bothers me, though, is actually personal.
My mom BEHAVED suicidal. Someone called on her on a Friday, so the watch was all weekend, long enough for my sisters and I to be abused in foster care, if you think about it.
It was mandatory. She didn’t get a choice.
Why aren’t people who contemplate this publicly held to the same standard or better? I hate suicide. But I’d prefer a murder to go down that route instead of ruining even more lives.
Seriously, though, it isn’t right you can legally write in a forum of a serious article about a murder less than twelve hours old about doing the same thing and NOTHING.
That same person can tell someone how depressed they are that they got all C’s in college, though, and who knows, they may get state mandated psychological help. They may be evaluated.
I don’t know that these are the best ways to deal with ignorant people after one fact (and potentially before another), but I’ve offered two.
One of them will support jobs in America for as long people want to admit they kinda want to kill someone and the other says, evaluate them as you would a suicidal, and make sure it’s not real.
My mom spent 72 involuntary hours on suicide watch until she could prove she wasn’t suicidal. Not even when she got the bill for the evaluation.
