I’m Going To Kill You…Or Am I?
January 15, 2008 by Alicia Sparks, Mental Health Notes
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
“If this traffic doesn’t start moving soon, I’m going to start ramming my car into people.”
“He cheated on me, and now he must die.”
“I’m going to end up killing that woman, I swear.”
In last weekend’s Saturday Sanity, I directed you to Associated Press article Va. Considers Mental Health Law Changes. The article begins with
An AWOL servicemember explained in detail to his emergency room doctor how he planned to climb atop Richmond City Hall and pick off legislators with a .50-caliber rifle as they left the statehouse last January.
and goes on to explain that the emergency room doctor, Dr. Greg Christiansen, “couldn’t couldn’t prove the man was an ‘imminent danger’ to himself or others, as required under Virginia’s tough standards for involuntary commitment,” using this situation as just one example of why “legislators [should] relax that standard and [allow doctors] more authority when it comes to involuntarily committing mentally ill patients.”
Now, those quotes? Those quotes at the top of this post? Those are the kinds of quotes most – if not all – of us hear probably semi-regularly. We hear them from our friends, our family members, people who talk loudly on the bus… Shoot, I hear the third one several times a day – it’s from a Lifetime commercial for the new show Top This Party.
Are these people “imminent dangers” to themselves or others? I’m guessing most of them are not. I’m guessing most of them say these things to express their anger and irritation and to release some stress.
Am I making light of the AWOL servicemember and his claims, from the above article? Am I assuming he was just angry and stressed and spouting out empty threats? Absolutely not.
I am, however, raising this question: How do we tell the difference between the two? Empty threats and imminent danger and mental-health related standards and legislature aside, how do we tell the difference between those who are just blowing off steam and those who are seriously capable of harming themselves or others?
Any ideas?
Making threats against others is very common. Almost everyone does that during a period of anger. Some threats are used to get attention and produce action. But when a mentally disabled person makes a threat, it should be taken seriously. But by seriously should not mean locking him/her up, but doing something to find out what made him/her to threaten somebody so it can be fixed. Most of the time, the people who are threatened deserved to be threaten because they provoke them. myspace.com/worldtopsexiestwomen
I agree, such threats seem common. So, in response to your comment, I want to add this to my question – How do we tell the difference between those who are and those who aren’t mentally disabled?