Some layers don't understand how my mental health crisis works. Police should be able to help me, even if I incriminate myself a little bit.

I am here, I am sorry for very late response

If you had intrusive thoughts of harm, the police will not understand and may try to convict you!

Are you still around?? I may be able to help you

I am sorry to hear about your condition, but avoiding hiring a lawyer when you absolutely need one to defend you is probably the worst mistake one can make. Of course, it is important to find a lawyer who you can trust and feel comfortable working with. A good lawyer will be able to explain the legal process to you in terms that you can understand, answer any questions you may have, and are bound not to reveal any information you share with them. For example, if you find yourself suffering from a workplace injury as I have, it's best to search for lawyers like [link removed by Moderator] and find the person who understands your position and condition after a (free) talk with them. Don't let these things stop you, as you're better defended by a proper lawyer in any case!

I had a friend use gaming to treat his very understandable depression that occurred after his G/F got run over. It served as a distraction all right, for about FIVE YEARS.  He looked "melted into his chair" when I caught up with him. I managed to get him out of that chair and into the real world again, but it was such an effort.

I've also treated my own issues with drugs, cannabis, which have helped take the edge off, but it wasn't until I hit on the "If you can't help your self help some other poor sod" approach that my life actually started to get BETTER.

I don't want the poor chap to waste his most productive years in misery like I did, if what worked for me so well can be applied by him nearly a half century earlier than I started doing it. 

GIve a man a fish and he eats for the day, give him the skills to fish, and the bigger problem gets solved...

Give an unhappy person a distraction from the misery and they swing between misery and distraction, but if they undertake a series of constructive and helpful acts, they get both the distraction and an increased sense of agency and self worth, whilst picking up or excercising useful life skills. 

IN engineering terms it's a strategy that is likely more likely to deliver a permanent and first time fix..And I get a sense that this poster is actually actively hoping to fix their situation, and get a fulfilling life.

I can't get back the half century I lost in aimless misery, feeling just like the O/P but I can share the tools I've used to overcome some quite serious issues, such as the one the O/P describes. People ARE different and I'm not so self impressed that I am certain I have all the answers and that my advice is the best.

In fact the process of giving it scares me. But some knowledge  I seem to have lucked into, has been really powerful for me, and sharing it (In excruciating detail and quite poorly sometimes) costs me nothing, except a bit of time. 

And TBF, I am recommending a form of "gaming" actually. I do much of my "good works" not like this, but more invisibly. I've even taken to using the expression "Plan it like you would plan a crime!".

It's a bhuddist/kung-fu/ninja type of skill, and if you embrace it the aim being not to become a known "do gooder" with all that entails, but to "do good" as a form of spiritual combat, or learned practical useful skill, where the course materials are completely free of charge, and the skill you gain has good utility and generates a useful "return" to the operator. 

Of course you are right, anything which helps others or yourself in the real world is going to be better than gaming. I was suggesting the easiest distraction. Picking up a book or his special interest if he has any would also work. Doing a job and earning money and contributing to the economy by doing something useful would also be good, though he said he was still at school. Mind you in the UK that limits his maximum age, in the US school means college or university here. 

Mostly good, but I found "games" to be "empty calories".

Doing an act of kindness or planned goodness, is much more of an accomplishment than handing out gibbitude to the aliens or building a digital empire, and occasionally delivers unexpected and tangible benefits which games never do. 

I get the same level of challenge and occasionally excitement playing the altruism game as I do others. I don't consider myself to be especially "goodie two shoes" or or any of that sort of claptrap, I'm just stuck in an imperfect world, and often it is easier to make someone else's bit better than it is to make my own bit better. And a WIN is always a WIN, whether you are the beneficiary or not.

BUT when you get good at engineering situations where everyone wins, god seems to l've you more. Or you get luckier. Or the psychology is good. OR your karma improves, heck, I don't know why it works, but it does. My existence became more of a life after I figured that one out. 

The day comes one day, when some person is waging a campaign of hatred against you, including making sure their dog shits on your land. You are in your thirties however, and have grown ninja customer service skills as a by-product of learning to survive in the neuro typical world. I think we all do, to a certain extent, but I found it useful to study psychology and "games people play" and I learned how to BE NICE to troubled people.

When faced with a certain sort of horrible person I consider it to be way more satisfying to demolish their aggression with carefully applied goodness, ninja psychology and compassion, that striking them a heavy blow with a ball-pein hammer would ever deliver. But you will need to get a grip of yourself first and create or find an environment where you are reasonably free of oppression for a good few years to grow those more advanced skills.   

The guy with the pooping dog? I honestly cannot remember what I did/said to him, but I used my skills, and he handed me a can of beer and never gave me any trouble again. 

I don't often win so big, but I do win often... Or you can gain gaming skills...

Autism makes us vulnerable in the criminal justice system. Whether false confessions, given immediately, when no lawyer has advised, or fixated thinking of harming others, delusions of guilt, etc. There is research on the subject, even a book.

My preference would be to steer well clear, to access mental health support from specialists who understand autism, and to focus on facts, clearly differentiating facts from fantasy or wish fulfillment. So, for example, you may have wanted to harm others who bullied you, but that might have been a fantasy that you would never act out. It won't help you when talking to the police to discuss fantasies, all it will get you is jail time. The police are there to protect and serve, they are not your friends, it is an act to get your trust to make you confess to crimes.

If you have committed crimes, that is a different matter, but remember that the role of the criminal justice system is to protect society from criminals not to look after your interests. A lawyer might be a good place to start, but they can't help people who admit crimes. 

Learning to distract yourself from obsessive thinking about guilt might help. Autistic people are more likely than neurotypicals to play online games. That might be a good way of changing emotional gear.

Well I've had, and am having a fairly decent life, in between those difficult phases. You have an even better chance than I do because you know you have an issue and set of constraints to work around, I did not.

I've just about managed to get by without too much in the way of "intervention", but it's been at the cost of having to follow a simple idea. "Do no harm".

As soon as you do, or even threaten any harm, you make yourself very, very, powerless, and we neurodiverse people already get enough of that, thank you.   

Now go and find something good to do, that brings joy to you and other people or pets.

Instead of spending time fantasising about killing the bullies (It's not so abnormal, I think we all get drawn that way at some point) try cultivating some ninja personal skills and psychological insights, so that you can actually reclaim your power and even hand a bit back..

I've needed most of 4 decades to refine my approach, but I've got quite good at sucking the joy out of any attempt to bully me. I've got even better at "not noticing" whilst I continue to get whatever it is I want out of a given situation..

From the way you have interacted with the people here, you look like you are well on the way to finding a bit of balance and understanding yourself. 

A handy hint I have found when in the depths of despair and powerlessness. If you can't sleep it off and have to DO SOMETHING, then do something simple that helps or improves someone else's life. Sometimes even just a phone cal to a troubled friend to discuss their problems whilst clamping down about your own problems is all it takes. (you can always call a less troubled friend later if you really HAVE to moan about your own issues, but that call was for your friends benefit...)

It's often easier to se what someone else needs in order to have a slightly better day, than it is to solve your own problem de jour, and it is an easy psychological win* to take when you seem to be losing every where else...

*Actually there are a raft of more subtle and even occult benefits to be had for this, and I need to do more of it myself.

IF I CAN KEEP ONE OF YOU OUT OF THE VICTIM BASED MENTAL HEATH TRAP, and empower you to subdue your own transient sillyness enough to keep being a nice loving rational human being, rather than a MH "victim", my life will not have been a complete waste of time...

All that guff about love and self disciipline being vital to a decent life, doesn't actually seem to be guff, when you compare it to the alternatives dispassionately.

Don't take fifty years to figure it out like I did. 

According to PACE, if you tell the police you have a mental health condition or learning difficulty, they need to get an "appropriate adult" to support you. This may be a friend, relative, health professional or social worker. If you cannot name somebody you want, it will probably be the on-call social worker or somebody from the community mental health team. The whole point is that you don't confess to anything you didn't do and that the interviewer does not ask leading questions or plant ideas. Ideally, the appropriate adult should be somebody who has been trained in the PACE Codes and can ensure that the correct procedures are followed.

I agree!

I think I can help you a little, because you report exactly the same feelings I had all though my youth (and still get intermittently, like today, when in the most deranged possible I just promised to destroy my muse with an 'ammer because toaday, now, I am burningly angry and resentful of aspects of my situation)

Here's the thing, I am in my sixties, and apart from one time when I made the mistake of "seeking help" and got given Prozac, which seriously unbalanced me, I've hurt no-one including myself, since I got a grip back in the very early eighties. 

The bad news is that there is no magic wand, but there are some coping techniques that I lucked into and will now try and share.

1. REMEMBER THIS: These moods are always transitory. AWAYS. You are quite rational, you can see that if you act on those strong feelings things will go to ***, so DON'T. A mantra that hippies use for dealing with the effects of strong psychedelic drugs, (particularly "bad trips") is to remember that this is a temporary problem and that all you need to do is, DO NOTHING and wait it out). Seriously, that's the trick, it worked for me and kept me out of the MH and Justice systems for decades until I was able to work out/ find out out WHY my life was so *** that I felt that way.. 

2. At the end of the day, these negative feelings of frustration and powerlessness are just that. Strong feelings. The whole trick of winnig versus losing, appears to be gaining mastery over your own feelings and not letting them get in the way of your life.

And how do you do that smarty pants? (I hear the reader thinking!) Well, Initially, I discovered the power of cannabis to dull my feelings to a more manageable level around the age of 18.. Drugs can work well, whether licit or illicit to help MANAGE your pain, but they don't really change your situation...

3. Now, and this is where many people will stop reading, if you want a more permanent solution, than merely "staying out of trouble & surviving" you will need to get yourself some "religion"! If there is anyone still reading at this point, here is why we need what I call "religion". Life is as you so poignantly describe, almost impossibly hard and unpleasant for some of us, yet not all of us. For some people life is clearly easy, and things go their way, much more so than for us "losers"!

Rather than resenting the winners in life, (particularly the way they try to stay as far away from "losers like us" as they can!) We need to accept the worked example that they offer, and study it until we can do it ourselves, right? Well I did that for about 30 years, and to save you some time, it's just blind luck. they had the right skillset, aptitude, birth parents, whatever, to allow them to hit the ground running, and thrive in this set of circumstances. We didn't. SO there is NO POINT in "playing the game" exactly the same way that they do, 'cos you will lose. Over and over again. Like I did for a LONG time.

Here's a bit of conspiracy theory, that if you think about it, might turn out to be true. In the 1950's the "generation gap" was created, and became very popular in the media. A serious side effect of defining the "generation gap" was to cut the young people off from listening to the wisdom of the older people, by painting them (us!) as "out of date" or "irrelevant". The idea (according to the theory) seems to have been to successfully erase the sort of oral tradition that cultures are built on with a television tradition, where elders passing on the hard won and valuable lessons of life have been replaced with talking heads telling us and the kids what vested interests pay them to say.

It is hard to push against such pervasive and evil programming with a simple post on a forum, but if I could I'd tell you as a "Wiser elder" that there is a "game" out there called "Mental Health" In this game some pay counsellers and get paid (in some cases very handsomely) for their participation and some players get to be the "patient" who is nether paid, nor does he get to stop playing the role after the working day is over.

I'd you can control your own actions and presentation well enough to avoid playing that mental health game, particularly in the "patient" role, I'd highly recommend it.

Playing the mental health game although it seems to have rewards for some people, tends to disqualify (or at least handicap you) in many of life's other, more enjoyable and rewarding games. And it's almost impossible to stop playing that game once started, because you need the people who are being paid for "treating" your "illness" to sign off on your mental health, which both cuts off part of their income source AND they'd face questioning from their peers, who apparently never "cure" anyone of MH issues.

I watched an interviewer camped outside a psychiatric convention ask exactly that question of the esteemed professionals as they left their conference; "Have you ever cured anybody?" NOT one of them claimed to have ever accomplished that feat.

BUT at least they all got paid for their "efforts". One of many groups that get paid for participation, no matter how ineffective or even harmful to the clients well being that turns out to be. YOUR misery is bread and drink for most of these people, literally!!

And that goes doubly so, for policemen... You are better off keeping your own nose clean, rather than hoping some "professional"  will actually HELP you improve your own lot.

(Lets see how many read this, and are moved to write a detailed first hand refutation of what I say, including a worked example of where their lives personally got improved as a result of reaching out to the police or mental health services... Maybe my observations, limited as they are, are missing out some great and uplifting stories where the involvement of the "professionals" actually did make a qualitive improvement to their lives. Just because I've not experienced or heard of it, does not mean it does not happen).   

[spam removed by mod]

You don't have to be sorry for venting your feelings. One thing I can firmly state that's wonderful is that you recognize aggressive impulses as bad ones; thus, you preserve your mental sanity, and you preserve your ability of choice and stop the aggressive crisis induced by a maniacal state.

I feel bad now. I was not thinking in a rational way at all. Now I understand why lawyers are necessary, but I want special one that knows how to deal with me, especially when I almost incriminated myself to the police when I was depressed and had mild delusions of guilt. I was being too risky to myself, It not that I was NGRI, I kind of knew what I did is risky, but was incompetent to think in a rational way.

I was 19 years old at that time when that happens 3 times, and I was lucky enough to be found innocent by police and once by two FBI agents.

You do not have to falsely incriminate yourself in order to get the help you need. There's all kinds of support programs and health care professionals out there, and none of them require false incriminations in order for you to use their services. I am not referring to a school psychologist, I'm saying an actual psychologist.

Why are you so certain that if you falsely incriminate yourself, and are then proven innocent later, that they will give you the help you need? How come you are so certain that things will play in your favor? Because a lot can go wrong, I mean if you stayed guilty for instance, it'll take a long time if ever, to appeal the judges decision. And even if you're proven innocent later, most likely the police will just let off the hook, and you don't receive the help that you were expecting from them.

I mean, why don't you just try to find a psychologist that is experienced specializing in bipolar disorder, ASD, and so on? Why try to incriminate yourself? 

I am sorry, I wasn't thinking clearly and I wasn't feeling well when posted this.

When it is or it is isn't appropriate to talk about your mental health crisis to police? I am going through a rough time. I am not depressed anymore, but I have severe hypomania. I don't sleep well at night at all right now.

I understood. Thank you!

I mean I still strongly encourage you to access mental health help but I've no idea how you do that in the American system.

Police officer that talked with me yesterday told me that I appear to be very intelligent, rational and think very clearly, that I could not be a risk to go to mental hospital, but this strange, because always plan to commit suicide by fantasies when I am depressed and that should be one red flag to go to mental hospital though.

I am a bit confused.

I have the mildest form of Bipolar Disorder.

In which case I'm at a loss. I really don't know the US system