How often do you interact with people with mental issues?

[Zincwarrior]

While waiting for the wife to get dressed, I put on COPs to kill time. For nearly the entire episode the officers were dealing with people who clearly had mental issues (one aggravated by drugs). In one episode one of the officers knew the guy and immediately started asking about his Dad( who took care of him).

How often do/did you interact with people with mental issues? Has it become worse or better over time? It seems like the mental health industry is broken, pawning their first responder duties on to the police.

[Beat Trash]

Almost daily.

I can't honestly say that it's worse, or better over the years. It's about the same.

[Kyle Reese]

All the time.


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[octagon]

It depends on how you define mental issues. Fairly often for the most obvious ones who state they hear voices,want to kill themselves, are diagnosed with a mental disorder and/or are on RX drugs for same. However if you include those with control issues it is even more common. Many people I dealt with had control issues where they acted impulsively to commit crimes. They may not have been diagnosed with a mental disorder or have been prescribed medication for such but they had impulsive actions to be violent,steal or other actions that caused the police to be called that once talking with them further it was clear they had issues beyond selfish,criminal or rational thought processes. If you include drug and alcohol addictions as a coping mechanism or self treatment you get even more.

I had a neighbor who was diagnosed with bi polar disorder and had meds for it. He was not uncommonly involved with police interactions and most times while intoxicated. He self medicated with alcohol by his own admission. Some may say that is just a drunk but digging deeper you can see it beyond the surface symptoms to the root cause.

[voodoo_man]

Constantly.

Everything from diagnosed (usually not treated/poorly treated) to completely off the chart of unknown mental illness coupled with self-medicated via the worst types of narcotics.

You rarely know what is going on with some people, so being cautious is part of the game plan with everyone.

[HCM]

At work, almost daily.

Many of the meth users I deal with are clearly self medicating.

Emergency detentions in extreme cases seem to be a revolving door. The mental health folks want to treat people but many with mental illness do not comply with treatment unless there is strong family support. Some justisdictions are sentencing / civily ordering compliance with medication which seems to be the best compromise between institutionalization and letting them run wild.

[Zincwarrior]

Thank you for your answers guys. Be safe!

[PearTree]

All day everyday on almost every single call I go to.

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[Cypher]

I ran into homeless people with mental issues almost every night just working as a Security Guard. I saw a couple of them so frequently I knew them by name.

I know this won't count because it's hunting over bait but I worked in a mental health facility for 8 months and what I notice was the ages. They were bringing in kids less than 10 years old. I saw the same people over and over again, again to the point that we knew each other by name.

I saw some of these kids come in on their way to placement with a gallon Zip Lock bag with their "meds"

[lwt16]

I've ran 11 calls so far today. Four have had persons involved with severe mental illness.

My zone is chock full of folks with it.

I'll give you an example: We had this one guy that called three times yesterday for us to get the "little people" out of his luggage and mattress. I got there on the first run and he was steadily screaming at his love seat "GET OUTTA MY HOUSE MOTHER SCRATCHERS!!!!" or words to that effect.

I started to key up and ask for the on call mental health person when the paramedic stopped me. Turns out they had involuntarily committed the guy on Sunday (my off day) and he was released seven hours later.

Not seven days......seven hours. Cured? Me thinks not.

Today, he was re-involuntarily committed after completely destroying his tax payer assisted apartment. He destroyed it......cut everything up and tore drywall down. He's convinced there are tiny people chasing him. He would stand there and point "THERE HE IS!!!" and I have no doubt that he was seeing what he claims he was seeing.

The meds the ER prescribed him? In the trash, of course, not one tablet missing.

I fully expect to waste hours of time with him for the rest of the week. We hemorrhage man hours every single day on this stuff.

Regards.