by Blink » August 8th, 2008, 6:34 pm
If you want to admit yourself, find a nice, quiet, private facility and tell 'em you've been feeling depressed. They'll check your insurance card and usher you right in. It's not going to be cheap. It's not going to be a bondage fantasy. You'll have to answer a lot of diagnostic questions that I'd like to say will get you escorted out, but, given the reality of the situation, your insurance card will probably get a tighter screening than you will. You'll probably do some group therapy, take some medication that will make you feel lousy and follow orders from every member of the staff. It's probably going to follow you for the rest of your life. (Don't bother trying to get professional licensure for anything.)
If you want to be involuntarily admitted, you'll typically need to present a risk of harm to yourself or others as understood by someone with the power to detain you. The psychiatric attending at the local ER is probably your best bet. As you've noticed, you'll probably either need to threaten to kill yourself or make a credible threat to someone else's safety (and look "crazy" enough to the arresting officer that you go to the ER and not the tank). This will be worse on your record than a voluntary admission.
A sympathetic probate judge might be able to help you get yourself committed, but most jurisdictions will still require a solid clinical opinion be documented for the record before you can be deprived of your liberty. Nobody I know is going to risk his or her professional license to help you get your rocks off. Sorry.
And, for the record, genuine mental illness looks nothing like what you see on TV and in the movies. The only places still using straitjackets are military institutions and some prisons. There are no "orderlies" in white jackets and the nurses don't wear the groovy little caps anymore. The ears of the last person who suggested that psychiatrists wear white lab coats on the job are likely still ringing with laughter. The serious psych meds get you the opposite of high and the atypical antipsychotics come with a serious set of health risks.
Why do you want to get locked up, anyway?
-- Blink