I’m aware of what the standard is, which is why I won’t go into details.
I take it from this phrasing that you have an imminent plan to harm yourself or others. Is this correct? If so, you should commit yourself. This way you are in charge and can seek the help you need with as much control as possible.
If nothing else, your EV calculation above should be taken as a sign that you are not thinking clearly.
Are you familiar with ideation disorders? I believe the two most commonly known are homicidal ideation and suicidal ideation.
I don’t, but I sometimes talk about violence in a way that people find disquieting, as this forum well knows. I have no current plans for violence or self-harm, but I don’t deny the rationality of violence in certain circumstances. If I’m being honest, I can’t commit to never doing such things in the future because I understand that there may come a time when it makes sense to do so. I don’t know if a therapist can hear me talk about things like that and not think that violence is imminent.
I’m not sure what’s wrong with my EV calculation. There is a cost C for going to therapy. There is a benefit B for therapy if it is successful. There is a probability x that therapy is successful. For therapy to be +EV, I need x(B-C)>(1-x)C. Even if B is very high, if x is very low, it might not be worth it. Where is my math wrong?
I can see this as a fair expectation given the immediate reactions such expressions tend to evoke in polite society. We’ve seen similar reactions to what you’re describing on this very forum. The mere mention of these ideas is enough to send some people into a reactive state where they treat the existence of a possibility as though that possibility is now a certainty.
Therapists are trained to see beyond this. I am not a therapist. But I hear nothing alarming when you say:
I don’t deny the rationality of violence in certain circumstances.
If I’m being honest, I can’t commit to never doing such things in the future
I understand that there may come a time when it makes sense to do so.
My concern might be whether you obsess over or compulsively explore this line of thinking, but your capacity and willingness to engage in it is not in itself good or bad.
Having a near-constant stream of violent thoughts is common. If you don’t have a history of carrying it out the therapist is unlikely to freak out. Don’t put it in terms of “I’m thinking of stabbing the rude postman,” but rather of, “my brain keeps spitting out violent thoughts, help me deal with it.”
I don’t really have a desire to do violence. It’s more like when I enter a room I scan it for things that can be used as an improvised weapon if necessary and I constantly assess people and think about their range of behaviors and what would justify violence against them. And what would justify other responses. I’m not obsessed with violence. I’m obsessed with over-planning and mentally preparing for every contingency.
I mean, there are people I dislike enough that I would be happy for them to give me a legal justification to do them harm, but I am not impulsive and won’t lash out in anger against them.
I’m not in a position to comment on anyone’s specific situation here, but I think I should provide some general clarity so that fear of being misunderstood doesn’t prevent people from seeking support.
In general, a good therapist/psychologist isn’t going to hospitalize anyone based on aggressive thoughts that are not combined with serious intent or other risk (e.g., unpredictable dysregulation). There’s a lot more nuance involved than that alone, but if I hospitalized everyone who occasionally had thoughts of hurting someone (or themselves) then I’d probably have to send like 30% of the population to the psychiatric ward and destroy a ton of lives in the process.
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“Good” is the qualifier here. I got 51-50’d once when I was 19 because I expressed suicidal thoughts I had no intention of acting on and even told her so. But because she worked for the school, she must have felt her job was in jeopardy or something and she had me taken away in cuffs to a hospital where I spent about 6 hours before they released me (because I didnt belong there) with no phone or wallet on me and I had to navigate through shitty parts of downtown LA by myself and beg for enough cash to find a bus back to my car/school.
The whole incident was not only humiliating and traumatic but caused me to miss my exams which resulted in me dropping out for nearly 5 years.
I’m not trying to discourage anyone from seeking help but there should be some caution exercised in expressing certain thoughts in therapy, until you know you can trust them. Or sufficiently disguise and qualify your language so they do not feel legally compelled to act. For instance, prefacing a statement with “I’d never ever do this, but…” In an ideal world obviously you should be able to but there’s a lot of bad therapists and psychiatrists out there, like any other profession.
To this day I do not feel comfortable telling my therapist the extent of my suicidal ideation, even though I’ve been with her for nearly 4 years now.
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Sorry to hear that, though I appreciate you sharing the other side of the perspective.
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I have those thoughts of what weapons can I improvise out of household items. A doorstop, a brass ornament, cricket bat, big pepper grinder etc. Also always worked out where the exits were wherever I was. I spoke to a counselor who specialised in domestic violence and she said that this was very common in people who had experienced/witnessed domestic violence and that it was the brain being constantly in survivor mode. Made me feel a bit better that I wasn’t just being completely paranoid.
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Sorry to hear. Losing a parent is one of the largest events in your life. It’s the natural order of things, but I’m not sure anyone is ever ready for it.
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My higher level self: what a nice uplifting tweet, I should really try to do that.
My everything else: fuck you you’re a worthless piece of shit who no one likes let alone loves, and the only reason any of them tolerate your long winded ass is that you have just enough ability to handle medium complicated tasks without making a complete fool of yourself.
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And that’s on a good day 
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I just tried to retweet this and I don’t have a twitter account.
LOL
That account is an excellent follow btw
But you’d have to make a Twitter account…
I use to have one. This site is my only online addiction now.
Then allow me to repost that person’s best tweets here as though they’re mine :P
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Tony Hsieh. The former CEO of Zappos (famous for his book “Delivering Happiness”), who died tragically in a fire recently, apparently struggled to deliver it to himself–or at least had a warped view of what doing so entails.
It’s always odd but at the same time unsurprising that the most zealous champions of happiness are the same ones who find it most elusive.
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