The very best thing anyone with any mental illness can do in western society is to ensure that medical professionals do not find out about it. Three months ago

The very best thing anyone with any mental illness can do in western society is to ensure that medical professionals do not find out about it. Three months ago I had suicidal thoughts, and even after they had subsided and I came home to rest and recuperate I was literally forced to get out of bed (I had been dozing) from where my loving family wanted me to remain, and was forced into a small, filthy locked room in the ED ward of Liverpool hospital. I had been awake for over 14 hours. I desperately needed sleep. Instead, I was stuck in a hospital with almost no contact with any staff member (except the occasional nurse or doctor that checked my vitals) for the next five and a half hours. Thank goodness my friend Andy arrived 15 minutes after I was in that locked room, I would have gone barmy - there was literally nothing to do, I was tired but had bright lights constantly shone upon me and I was extremely stressed that I was being held against my will, even though I wasn't in any danger of harming myself or anyone else. In Australia, at least in NSW, a drug dealer growing Cannabis or producing meth in a drug house gets more rights than a mentally ill person: under the Crimes Act, the police must get a warrant from a magistrate before they can enter a drug house. But if you are deemed by an ambulance officer to be in danger of harming yourself then the police can enter into your house with no warrant and forcibly take you into the nearest mental health facility - even if you aren't unwell! If that happens, then they can make you wait there for up to 12 hours before you are allowed to go home. And there is nothing you can do about it.