I wasn’t going to comment but after reading what people have been posting I changed my mind. I was involuntarily committed and it was fucking the worst experience of my life.

I had at one time suffered from depression and considered suicide as an option but had pulled myself out and was trying to get on with my life except for the nagging problem that was my mother. During my low point she had combatively rejected any notion that I had depression but only after getting through it on my own did she suddenly decide that I was depressed when I wasn’t. So while I was trying to get on with my life and stop dwelling on what it did to my life, her idea of helping me was to aggressively insist that something was wrong with me which could only be fixed through medication which was something I was vehemently opposed to from the start.

Things came to a head one day when I was unable to drive to an appointment because my car battery had died after she borrowed my car but left the headlights on overnight. Annoyed by what I saw I texted her, “You killed my battery”. Next thing I know the police were knocking at my front door for a welfare check. I told them I was fine but made the mistake of admitting that I had contemplates suicide at one time long ago at which point they immediately cuffed me and declared that I would need to go with them.

I was transported to the VC hospital and interviewed 3 times during my stay. Each time the doctor told me there was clearly nothing wrong with me and that I should be released momentarily and a few hours after each interview they would come back and say they spoke to my mom on the phone and more time would be needed for assessment.

The cutoff for involuntary commitment is 72 hours at which point you must be released if not being committed so rather than release me I was instead shipped from the VC hospital to one with my insurance provider after 2.5 hours where I was informed that the 72 hour timer would restart anew. I am under the impression that this was not done for my welfare but was merely a way for both hospitals to extract as much money as they could.

At the new hospital the same pattern happened at the old where I would be interviewed and told that I was completely I should not have been sent there only to have my release delayed after calls were made to my mother.

After my second 2.5 days I was interviewed again only this time the doctor was incredibly condescending and dismissive throughout. After the very combative interview she declared that I needed to be committed after which I gave her some very choice words about her job performance.

My mom would eventually visit me at the hospital and after trying to get her to clear up any confusion regarding my mental state she all but admitted that she orchestrated my whole ordeal as a way to punish me for disagreeing with her and refusing to be medicated.

On the advice of one of the doctors I decided to start taking medication to indicate my willingness to compromise. After taking my first dose and while on the phone to convey this information I had a bad reaction to the medication and became dizzy and nearly fainted. My blood pressure collapsed from 120 something down to below 60 and I was sent to emergency.

While I recovered in emergency the presiding doctor and nurse found my situation ridiculous and told me that there was no reason I should have been committed that they can see. Shortly later I was notified that my evaluation period would be up while still in ER and I would have to be assessed upon my return. My ER doctor who was also the one delivering the message informed me that I should instead ask to be assessed in the ER instead and after a new doctor came down and concluded that I was fine I was able to escape from my imprisonment.