Anyone ever been Baker Acted under admitted false pretenses?

Hi all,

I'm a longtime alcoholic of the binge-drinking type who often goes several months without, and was also recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a condition for which I would guess I have actually qualified for at least a decade.

Recently my housemate -- with whom I had lived for two months and knew nothing of my history as I remained sober throughout this time -- was forced to tolerate my isolative drunkenness (she knew I was in my room drinking) and was understandably approaching her wit's end, as she is the homeowner and is trying to sell the place and thus wants to avert disasters. Beyond that, she was simply concerned.

She eventually called one of my friends, a physician, who told her about the Baker Act. He said to call the cops and to tell them I was suicidal, with a plan, and that there was a gun in the house (she has one hidden somewhere), etc. So, this is what she did, and six cop cars arrived to haul me off. I remember this, but not well.

When, after two days in a small room in the hospital, I was finally visited by a doctor (at this point I thought I'd been Baker Acted for mouthing off to an ER doc while drunk or something, although this seemed unlikely as I am rarely so much as confrontational), she asked me if I was still suicidal. I told her with a figurative head-scratch that I didn't recall saying I was suicidal, and that for all of my manifest problems, lately I had been anything but. She said that my chart included mention of a recent job loss and a recent break-up, neither of which had occurred (I've been single for over a year).

While people do say things under the influence that they otherwise wouldn't, making up something against one's own self-interest out of whole cloth is not typically one of them. Moreover, I knew I would not have said anything like that about a break-up because if anything I recently became acquainted with someone I will call a very strong prospect. Filling in my memory gaps, I began to realize that my housemate had lied.

Ultimately I spent six days in lockdown before being released. I'm back at the same place and have made some significant changes, and things between my housemate and me are fine. I don't begrudge her in the least for getting me into better hands no matter what it took and am sorry she had to be there for it (but grateful someone kept me from another three-week-long bender).

However, I do have concerns about this being part of my official file. I did not, in fact, express suicidal ideation, and my housemate has openly admitted as much (with a grin), to me and perhaps to others if not to the authorities. I'm wondering if there is anything I could do to have this scarlet letter of sorts excised, because it's pretty serious business. Forget the inconvenience of effectively being jailed for about a week -- my psychiatric history is florid enough without fictitious stuff in the mix.

Thanks for reading.

I don't know that the "specifics" of your case will be a problem for you, its more that you were Baker Acted because you didn't/couldn't take care of yourself and that isn't really an issue? I think your housemate could say whatever she wanted to get the cops out there but then they'd see for themselves what was what and they decided you weren't "with it" on their own. I don't think it was her story that got you taken away but your behavior/how not together you were when they came to check it out.

http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.o...onbakeract.htm

http://www.robinerickson.com/bakeract.htm

I don't believe there is such a thing as an official file. Hope that helps.

Yes, the hospital will have this on record, your record there. They can't share it except with their doctor who saw you while there. If you don't share this with any new doctor, they won't be able to access it. There is a police report, but unless you are carted off again soon and by the same police, I doubt they would link the reports.

I wouldn't put too much stock in what you think you didn't say, because you were out of it. I'm glad things are better now, and perhaps the hospital visit did help you, at least in stopping you from sliding down that dark slope?

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Seems like the 3 places who will have a record of this are the police, the hospital and your insurance company. There may be consequences if you contact the police, since it cost them a lot to send 6 officers to your home. They might not be happy to have been tricked into that. I would ignore this one personally...although I'd be curious to read the police report!

The hospital - you might want your case file updated just for accuracy since you may be back at some point. Maybe ask your "friend" to send a letter and have it added to your file for future reference.

As far as the insurance - if you ever need to apply for private insurance, this would be a reason to turn you down. But if your psych history is already "florrid" - well, that's not an issue.

S

Also, if you have a primary physician listed on file at the hospital that info. will be sent to that phsycian (I found that out after I had an OD & ended up in the ER). I had been in the hospital previously when severely dehydrated & had to be put on IV's & filled out the paperwork & listed my primary care doc at that time.

I didn't realize she would be given this info. about the OD as a matter of course & I didn't appreciate it, either. I wanted to keep it confidential as much as possible, but when I went in to get my blood pressure checked a few weeks later she let me know the hospital had notified her.--Suzy

I never had anything like this happen. One time I was on a crisis step down unit and my mental health center came to pick me up I though I was being discharged home for I had been there a week and doing well. Well one of the other patients on the unit told the staff I was taking glass and stuff and hiding it in my room. They always do searches and never found anything in my room. Well my mental health center said since I was not safe there then they had no choice but put me in a state mental hospital. I was stuck there for months. I had lawers and a huge fight before a judge finally ruled that they can't go by another paitents word. I was mad. The worst and sad part of this was that the other paitent also went to my mental health center. She told me when she got home she was going to commit suicide. I told the staff and they said I said that to get out of going to the state hospital. I later found out that she did commit suicide.

> http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.o...onbakeract.htm

The "Treatment Advocacy Center" was founded by E. Fuller Torrey, who has a history of advocacy of involuntary "treatment." When he was with NAMI, one of the things they advised parents to do was to lie if necessary about what the child had done in order to get their children "treatment." He often maintains that people refuse treatment because as a result of their mental illness they do not understand what they are doing. He seems to me to dismiss as invalid other reasons why people might refuse treatment.

This may or may not be relevant to the present case or to the Baker Act.

Wikipedia has a section on the TAC at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treatment_Advocacy_Center

(Torrey triggers me.)