Should I threaten my social worker with suicide?

Post Reply New Topic

what specifically do you not like about your flat?

No. That's the dirtiest, most under-handed form of manipulation that I can think of. Holding the threat of suicide over the head of anyone puts them in the worst sort of bind. No one will call your bluff, unless they don't mind looking like an uncaring, unfeeling sociopath.

If you go though with this manipulation, you will likely be forced to undergo psychiatric evaluation. Once your evaluations are done, everything you've gained up until now will be lost, and this includes any shred of credibility you may have with anyone, in or out of The System. You will then be under constant observation, as your friends and family will do all that they can to prevent you from hurting yourself, including forcing you to take anti-depressants for the rest of your life.

Then what will you do?

If noise is the primary problem, I highly recommend noise canceling headphones! Play soothing desirable tracks (music, nature sounds, etc) through them and they'll block out the neighbors racket. If you can't afford noise cancelling, ordinary headphones would likely still help -- just turn the music up a bit more.

I listen to delta music through headphones all night, and have scheduled tasks on my netbook (aka giant mp3 player ) that will play something to wake me up when I need to.

Don't threaten suicide. Manipulating people this way is bad behavior. It will also put you at the mercy of the mental health industry. Try sound absorbing curtains/drapes, and wall hangings. Also, use white noise from fans, or a radio turned to static. Combined with the sound absorbing materials, you shouldn't need to have the white sound too loud. Also, get sound cancelling head phones. Bear in mind though, that no matter where on the planet you live, from time to time, there is going to be noise, so you will always have to deal with some noise. As for being stuck on a noisy, busy street, you could try a lawsuit as another poster mentioned.

I live in a trailer park, so my neighbors are all nearby. They are often outside doing yard work, or playing, so it's not all that quiet here a lot of the time. I also have an irregular sleep/wake cycle due to several health problems, so I am sometimes sleeping when normal people are out and about. In the summer I use a fan, and sometimes the radio static to blur the outside noises. When colder weather sets in, I can keep the windows closed, leave the fan off, and just use the radio static. It does help, and is more comfortable than wearing head phones.

We were driven from a lovely flat by new neighbours, it is truely hell when you cannot escape the noise.
I would recommend you definately don't give them a reason to lock you up where there is no escape at all, so no suicide threats. You need more control over your environment, not less. So get every newspaper and start looking for somewhere else to live.

I have lived in about 20 or more private rentals in my life, my tip is to always be aware they will keep your deposit no matter what, so always withhold some rent if you plan to move on. Try a few places, eventually you will hit lucky, but the social workers won't do it for you. They might help if you have started looking though, most are nice people under the scary exterior!

I was put in a mental hospital for being suicidal once.
They put me in a room with an old woman who screamed all night. When I complained, they told me to sleep in the padded room. They then wheeled this woman's bed out into the hall and parked it outside the door of the padded room. I can only assume they deliberately deprived me of sleep for reasons of their own.

One flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo's nest.

Yes and yes.

I was once in a locked ward in a psychiatric instituation two years ago.
I was there for two weeks against my will and I had claustrophobia.

I came out with PTSD I suffer EVERY day from and I have EVERY day the fear that I could be locked away again.
Believe me, that's NOT worth it.

And writing them emails doesn't help either.
Done that after my trauma, where I was REALLY messed up.
They even didn't understand the reasons for it.
NTs just function different.

This.

And specifically, do NOT do it with an e-mail. E-mails are NOT as reliable as everyone seems to think they are. Particularly when you're dealing with someone that probably gets LOTS of e-mails during a day, and may barely have time to respond.

You need to talk to them DIRECTLY. Wether this be in-person, or over the phone, you need to verbally tell them how you feel, and what the troubles are with your current location, and see what they say. But using threats, of suicide or otherwise, is a really bloody stupid idea.

Oh, so the US is third world now?

In comparison to some countries, the US probably is.

When I was running an autism support group and tried to get social services to start providing people with the support they needed, I found it was very useful to have some 'dirt' on the social worker in question

Basically there is a regulatory body for social care workers and if complaints of misconduct are made against them they have to go through 'fitness to practice' hearings and the outcome of these hearings is available for the public to see on the website. It used to be called the General Social Care Council but is now the Health & Social Care Professions Council:-

http://www.hpc-uk.org/

The Fitness to Practice Hearings section doesn't seem to be accessible at the moment but it's a real eye opener!

I came across 2 cases concerning social workers at my local council (UK, West Midlands)
In the one case a social worker had been sent to prison for drug smuggling and not informed her employer/registration body - she'd just left her job before having to go to prison, presumably hoping to take up another social work job when she came out. This should give you some indication of the calibre of some of the social workers - do not ever assume they are automatically even law abiding let alone capable of doing their job!

In the 2nd case a social worker had claimed payment for a visit to a client that never occurred.
She was supported at her hearing by a senior manager and this manager happened to be the manager who ran the section that should have been providing support to several people with ASD that I was asked to provide advice to.

So I dropped a link to the case document into an email that I sent to her, ccing one of her colleagues also, saying something about it being evident where her focus was and it not being on providing support to people.

She wasn't happy about this at all and phoned me to say I should not have cc'd it to her colleague. I said it was a public document, there for all to see anyway. She was evidently working on the premise that people weren't aware of it though. It also made me wonder whether she herself had been acting in a fraudulent manner if she was prepared to support someone else who was.

Anyway, from that point on she became a whole lot more accessible and even came to my house on one occasion to listen to my concerns over lack of social work support for two clients of social workers she supervised. She also asked if I wanted to attend their meetings.

She was worried I might spread the word about her role in getting a fraudster off the hook in other words.

So you need some kind of influence over these people - something whereby if you acted in a particular way you could make life uncomfortable for the person.

It might be threatening to go to their superior or your MP or finding out some information they don't want others to know about.

Either that or ask if your case could be transferred to a different social worker - I think you have the right to do that, and keep doing that until you find a helpful one.

In mental care, yes, it is.

The authorities kept trying to force me into school(I wasn't learning much, was getting minimal interaction, and was it destroying me both mentally, and physically), until I threatened suicide (I actually was suicidal). Now they're a lot quieter.

Believe it or not, this "help" they force on you, is more than often more damaging than helpful. Local councils are obliged to give such help, and they nearly always give you the cheapest, often most damaging option.
It's not as good as it seems. Just thought I'd point that out. I'm not saying we have it worse.

I do not agree with you, JellyCat. Living and sleeping in a house, however shabby, noisy, small, or dirty it may be, is infinitely preferable to having to sleep on the street. It's a no-brainer.