The best I’ve ever received! 🥰

I was dancing at a club a couple years ago and someone came up to me and yelled without pause “Are you a boy or a girl you’re gorgeous”

I thoroughly appreciate everyone’s responses. In hindsight, I probably could have put the question in clearer context to avoid sounding like I was just trying to cherry-pick justifications for involuntarily committing someone without the legitimate grounds to do so (and it’s become ever more clear that this is a deeper philosophical question about how much control we should have over a person’s autonomy when they display signs of extreme mental distress). Ultimately, I share the same concerns that many of you have about how this could be misused to hold someone against their will when a third party deems their life isn’t “normal”. There are of course people in our society that would like to use such allowances to involuntarily treat people who are NOT suffering from a mental illness but fit some categorization they deem as “abnormal” -or- treat people who are suffering from a mental illness but are content with their lives (sorry, I’m sure there’s a clearer way to phrase this but I’m struggling how to elucidate it; hopefully this is clear enough).

I was mainly curious to hear of other peoples experiences, what the outcomes have been, how things could be improved, i.e. get a better understanding of how it works, NOT try and use it as a justification. And I hope anyone that reads through this thread takes extreme care and consideration with this stuff, since it is such an extreme course of action to take.

I’m admittedly a bit worried that this post might make people feel targeted themselves or feel unsafe in someway, which was definitely not my intention.

From the Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges

That’s entirely possible and, yes, I ultimately fully want to respect their autonomy and do not want to commit them against their will. In the past though, they have talked about plans of ending their life and have seriously harmed themself in an attempt. And I can’t really say that there’s anything ‘wrong’ with their life but they do seem very, very miserable. While don’t wish to make a judgement of the quality of their life or insist on how they should be living, I do want them to feel less torment. Its sometimes hard to be sure of the extent of their anguish, because they’re so unwilling to talk about it.

Thanks for that. That clears up a lot of what I wasn’t sure about. I’m curious, from your experience in that job, did you ever feel like certain steps in that process could’ve been different to better help people? Genuinely curious

Appreciate you sharing your experience. Unfortunately, the person in my life is so staunchly opposed to getting any kind of care, partially out of stubbornness but mainly because of semi-delusional thoughts (I say “semi-delusional” because it’s no delusion that mental health care in our state is incredibly lacking – but also there’s actual delusional “I’m being targeted” type stuff too). It sucks bc it just feels like we have to wait around for something really bad to happen before they can get the care they very clearly need.

Our society benefits those who manipulate and cheat, and punishes those who choose not to. Pretty simple

It almost sounds like you’ve been fantasizing about this happening to you

Bought myself flowers and beignets, supported a friend who was feeling mopey. I’m depressed but it helps to do things for myself and others

You’re going to kill some people or threaten to do so and expect that to make the world a better place?

Waltz to Heaven - David Murray

One that I’ve been enjoying is a blog by Nick Dvoracek who is a photographer and avid pinhole camera maker: https://pinholica.blogspot.com/?m=1

I’ve made a few cameras using his designs!