Can I go to jail instead of the hospital? **Major trigger warning**

It's been a very long time since I've been on here but things have gotten seriously bad for me. I've dealt with treatment resistant depression. I've been fired from two jobs in the last year because I wasn't at work long enough to qualify for FMLA and my personal time ran out. That's the short story.

It was just about a month ago I lost my job. My time off of course was unpaid and I'm running out of money. I had ketamine treatments and had a gene test done which showed that all of the medications I had been taking showed a significant gene drug interaction. For those who are wondering, ketamine treatments are a last resort for clinical depression when everything else fails.

The ketamine treatments helped and I'm on the meds that seem to be working now. However I'm going through such a hard time right now and I'm about to run out of money. I had to take a hair test for a job I want and need desperately but it's going to return results for the ketamine treatments and the medical marijuana (I have a card) that I used for severe insomnia. Nothing else helped me sleep and the insomnia was making things worse for me. I will fail this drug test. The new norm in corporate America is hair folicle tests which is very invasive, my entire history of prescription medications is going to be revealed too. My privacy is gone, I'm going to have to explain all this once the results come back.

I've absolutely run out of steam and don't have it in me anymore. I will NOT go to the hospital. I don't have the money for it and the last experience I had in a psych ward was bad and it was pretty much jail with a huge medical bill. I'd rather just be in a cell by myself.

I just want to go somewhere without being forced to go to the hospital. Anyone who knows me doesn't truly understand the hell I've been through and I just can't talk to anyone anymore. My psychologist has stood by me this whole time and I'm at the point where I don't even want to bother her anymore either.

Suicidal thoughts will not leave me alone. The messed up part about this is that on the good days I still think about killing myself and how I'm going to do it and where I'm going to do it.

Can't I just ask to be thrown in jail for a few days instead of go to the hospital? I don't think I'm going to last much longer. Does any one know if the police will just let you stay in jail for a night? I'd rather do that than go to the hospital. The ER will ask questions and force me to go to the psych hospital and I cannot go through that again. If I answer honestly a social worker will commit me. If I don't they will discharge me, I had this happen a few months ago when I went there voluntarily. All I wanted was a night there with no questions asked.

Hello nutters: I'm sorry your life has brought you to such a difficult place. I don't know the answer to your question. But I would simply like to send some warm hugs your way with the hope that you may find the inner strength to persevere.

I don't think jail is the answer ... Then you'd have a whole other set of things you'd need to explain next time you went to apply for a job ... Perhaps getting a job that doesn't require drug tests nor a lot of stress or responsibility would be a viable alternative in the meantime? ... I quit an 18 year career with excellent pay and benefits and opted to work third shift at a convenience store for a while (7 years) as I focused on getting the help I needed to get myself in a better place with my mental health issues ... I'm now back to work at a more responsible job with better pay and benefits ... I did exactly what I needed to do at the time though, and had I not taken that "slacker" type detour, I doubt seriously that I'd even be here to tell you that neither suicide (knocked on that door twice) nor jail are the answer ... Wishing you the best in sorting it all out without resorting to either of those two options!



Sincerely,
Pfrog!

Hi nutters. Welcome to Psych Central. I am sorry you face many challenges. Some people with Depression talk to their medical and psych providers about ECT. To read more about this please check out this link What You Need to Know About Treatment-Resistant Depression | Psych Central

If you might have feelings of hurting others or yourself, please consider forming a safety plan. There are ways to cope with these kinds of stress, like self care and having a safety plan in case you find yourself in a crisis of confidence. Here is more on a safety plan that includes numbers for crisis lines that serve your area.

Psych Central - Search results for Safety plan

Common Hotline Phone Numbers | Psych Central

Many people here at PC who have gone beyond the immediate crisis, find they can share these feelings and what they are going through with the confidence that people go through similar things and can empathize. So many forums are offered as well as Chatrooms (after you have 5 posts or comments on others posts). Depression chat meets on Thursday night at 9pm EST and Anxiety Friday at 8PM. This is a great way to meet people just as much as the forums. These are not a substitute for crisis support but can play an active role in the path to recovery.

You can also be an active member in other ways like supporting others in their questions, reading articles and posts http://forums.psychcentral.com that are applicable to your area of concern.

Please feel free to private message me or any of the Community Liaisons by left clicking on the name in blue to the left of their post) for questions or just to share.

Thank you all for your kind words of support! There has been a stunning turn in events that came just in time. I came very close to not making it through the weekend, I'll leave it at that. The good news is I got the job I wanted, this has been a very, very long process and quite a stressful time. I made it. I'm so relieved and happy right now, I've just in been in tears since I got the good news. I can't believe I made it. What a relief.

CANDC: ECT would have been a very last resort because of the memory loss would have a severe impact on my profession. With that said, I highly recommend anyone going through treatment resistant depression to look into ketamine infusions, this really does work. This is sort of a new thing so there's not a lot of clinics out there. Do some research, you will be amazed at all of the positive results. Thank you so much for posting these resources.

If anyone has questions about this kind of therapy, please PM me. It does work and in my situation it did make a major improvement but my situational issue is what nearly did me in. I will help you any way I can to provide you with info on the treatments.

http://www.ketamineadvocacynetwork.o...ussion-forums/

Kindly,
nutters

nutters, congratulations That is great news about the job.

You are correct that ECT is not a first tier strategy but is used in case other methods fail. The new single sided ECT I have heard allows one side of the brain to retrain the other side memories. From a friends experience memories of much info is there but access time can be delayed. Traumatic experiences may not be recalled.

For less side affects TMS is a better choice first time around according to articles at psychcentral.com

Thanks for the update nutters and congratulations. I hope this is a turning point for you and you can build forward.

I hope the job works out for you. Sounds like you really need a break.

It may be a moot point now, but you might want to understand a bit about how jail works. (I worked in one.) The police don't run the jail. They just bring people there. They can arrest you for breaking the law and drop you off at the jail, pending your appearance before a judge, who will decide what to do with you. Once the cops drop you off, they are completely out of the picture, except, maybe, to show up at court to testify against you. Sometimes cops do bring people to jail mainly for their own protection. If you were stumbling around the streets drunk or sleeping on a city bench intoxicated. The cops might arrest you for public intoxication. The penalty for that is often one night in jail. They arrest you and bring you to jail. Next morning, you go to court and the judge deems that you have already served your one-night sentence and tells you that you are free to get your stuff and be released. You can be arrested for other things, like being a public nuisance, where the cops main concern might actually be your welfare.

At the jail, you would get looked over by a paramedic or a nurse. They would ask about your physical and mental health. If you told them you were very depressed and in danger of self-harming, they would place you under special observation.

At any rate, you have to have violated in some way for the police to arrest you and bring you to jail. Once the jail accepts custody of you (which they can refuse to do, if they think you need emergency room care) the cops leave and have nothing to do with what happens after that.

As you seem to know, cops can just decide to bring you to a hospital emergency room, or to a psych emergency facility.

Some jails (larger ones) have psych units for inmates with unstabilized psych problems.