
Ask HN: I hacked the mental health industry now what? - tcj_phx
On November 27, 2015, I commented here about how I unexpectedly found myself falsely accused, arrested, and prosecuted:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10639657<p>Recap: the hospital wouldn&#x27;t let my girlfriend go after she’d come to her senses. They refused to talk to me. I scheduled a court hearing, which the hospital’s attorney decided to ignore. The court investigated, decided that my girlfriend was being unlawfully detained, and ordered the hospital to release their patient. I made a few minor mistakes in my execution of the court hearing and implementation of the court’s ruling. After calling the police for help, I was attacked by the hospital’s security guards. Eventually I learned that they lied to the responding officer when he appeared, which is why I was arrested.<p>It took me two days to meet with a lawyer, who prepared a template for a motion to amend the court’s order. By then it was too late: my girlfriend had been sucked into the system.<p>I “read the documentation” (statutes) and hacked the hospital’s usual procedures, but minor mistakes kept me from successfully keeping my girlfriend out of the mental health system. She needed some help, but is not benefiting from the “treatments” forced upon her.<p>Initially I wanted to draw public attention to the plight of everyone who’s stuck in the system. But someone I respect said, “the missionaries get eaten by cannibals”.<p>To quote ESR: “Hacking favors scrap-and-rebuild over patch-and-extend. An essential part of hacking is ruthlessly throwing away code … no matter how much time you have invested in it.”<p>The mental health system is not going to fix itself: Obamacare pays the bills, and the patients are generally incapable of standing up for themselves. I have some observations, research and suggestions for helping people keep themselves sane, and for helping their trapped family, but it’s a big project. Where do I start?<p>Thanks!
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jlg23
You could start by contacting those that have been fighting this situation for
a long time: International Association Against Psychiatric Assault[1]

[1] [http://www.iaapa.ch/](http://www.iaapa.ch/)

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tcj_phx
Wow, thanks for the link! Something that was lost in the trimming (to fit in
2000 characters) was that my girlfriend is doing pretty well now, because I've
figured enough out to make a difference.

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ivl
Would it be possible to sue the hospital for ignoring the court order? Might
be a way to make some progress. It's a shame the system functions so poorly.

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tcj_phx
My attorney said that we have 3 cases: my criminal case (misdemeanor charges -
trial is next week), my civil case against the hospital (false imprisonment),
and my girlfriend's malpractice case. The industry is partially protected by
"standard of care", which is basically "drugs for symptoms".

My thinking is that it is better to treat causes than symptoms. I have been
observing and experimenting, and we've found some things that work rather
well. The next step is to get my girlfriend off the sedative that the mental
health court forces her to take.

A lot of my submission was trimmed away to fit in 2000 characters. I guess
this was the core of it:

"Compulsory mental health care exists for a reason: sometimes people get
suicidal, are incapable of taking care of themselves, or don’t realize how
others see them. Lucky patients are watched for 48-hours to make sure they
stabilize, then are released. After their acute crisis passes, these patients
can go about their usual lives.

"Unlucky patients are treated in perpetuity with drugs that never allow them
to recover: 'Sedate the patient until normalized'."

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tcj_phx
Much of what I'd intended to submit didn't fit in HN's 2000-character limit. A
lot of it was about my girlfriend's hospitalizations, and how they haven't
helped at all.

Here's the link to my original post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10639657](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10639657)

