Yeah, but you’re offering advice while at the same time talking about how you’re taking the intellectually righteous option by not offering your lay advice. You can just state your opinion. But you’re trying to come in and present your opinion as absolute fact on an issue where you’re unequivocally wrong. Not about the fact that the system is broken or the cops aren’t by and large evil bastards, but in implying there’s another option people can choose, which I fucking wish was the case.
Listen. All I’m hoping to have happen here is that you’ll recognize that nobody, not one single person, calls the cops on a family member because that’s the easy option, or because they think it’s even slightly a good option. They call them because their kid is having a manic episode but this time he somehow found a gun and is taking his cousin hostage so they can go get taco bell. Or because they’re screaming that if someone tries to stop them cutting themselves they’ll kill them - and they’re already down to the bone on their thighs.
Those aren’t made up examples, those are real mental health calls from the last month that we had to address. The first one, the police were called and managed to talk him down. I hate that I assume he wasn’t shot because he’s white, but that’s absolutely the reason. He might get help in the next three months. Until then he’s in jail. The second one, the paramedics were called. They tried to talk her down, deescalate like any sane person wants them to do, but it didn’t work. So, they called the police & eventually between two cops and two medics they managed to restrain and sedate her. She’ll live, somehow, but before they called for help she’d stabbed her mom and now she’s being prosecuted for battery. Which is just… awful.
I’m pissed off at you because you’re oversimplifying the most unpredictable situation anyone might have to experience in their lives with a patronizing, moralizing quip that is so detached from the reality of the situations people are put in that it’s actually kind of stunning. People have one life-line, and it’s the cops. They never, ever, ever choose that option lightly, and they are absolutely aware of the potential consequences. But sometimes people need fucking help, and it’s the old “lesser of two evils” choice. It fucking sucks. Maybe it’ll get better, but I think we both know it won’t.
(Seriously, if you ever want to get absolutely beyond pissed off at how broken the system really is, dm me. I have shitloads of stories on how this system is much more fucked up than you think. Like, even if you think it’s fucked up, it’s so much worse than you’d believe. Ask about how many jails there are, that’s a classic!)
(Also, give me that asshole. I will blow you up like a Sonic OC and carry you around like a balloon on a string.)