Oh, OE, I know all about the legal definitions and requirements of being hauled into probate court and declared a legally incapacitated individual, and also what is necessary to obtain a commitment order or an order for court supervised outpatient treatment. I didn't the day I walked into the quack's office. Two weeks later I had read it extensively, the statutes, case law, commentary. Remember, I was still showing up for work 5 days a week and trying to put in my poker face, but I absolutely could not concentrate on anything save my crisis, so I had plenty of time each day to look all of this up.

Of course, all that did was feed into my crisis and make things even worse - I just scared myself more.

Because I was so utterly great at catastrophising, in my mind I knew I didn't come close to meeting criteria for either incapacity or commitment -well, except for my extreme suicidality, which I shared with absolutely no one because it would have been ammo to use against me, BUT THAT WAS IRRELEVANT per my thought process. I had already been "railroaded" by the quack, falsely accused, sentenced even though I was innocent of the crime of being a danger to myself up to the moment she declared me that. So. To me in my doomsday mind, it would be really simple for my family to strip my rights away and have me declared incompetent since a shrink already pronounced me "crazy", bipolar and dangerously suicidal. And, who are they gonna believe, anyone from Joe on the street to the judge on the bench, all of the people, psychiatrist, family turned against me, OR me, "the crazy guy"? I saw it as pretty much a done deal already the very second my family "found out" - it would be an "easy out" way to get rid of their biggest disgrace and problem, me, the failure slacker ne'er do well. They wouldn't even have to go to the bother of feeding me poison mushrooms as happened to Clint Eastwood's character in the final scene of the movie 'Beguiled' - all they had to do was ask the court to eliminate their problem for them and haul me off. Good riddance to bad garbage I could practically hear them saying.

I know the reality is it is very hard to do any of that in the courts, but reality was trumped by catastrophe in my mind every time.