Hi, Sarah,
Thank you for, first off, acknowledging your tone-- which is unnecessary and not appreciated. It is a turn-off, and does certainly make me disinclined to reply to you further, but I am going to do that anyway because you're not a "bad person" either-- not too sure there are such things anyway, I mean-- for the most part. Again, I think we're all doing what we think is right when it comes to saving lives. You're doing what your conscience tells you to do, as am I, as are many, many other people, with experiences different from yours, and different from mine.
I think something is pretty clear here to me-- you are not going to change my mind with your arguments that are, I think, flawed. You are, in my opinion, so convinced that you are right, and that I am wrong, that there is nothing I can say that will move or sway you. By the same token, I am not going to change or alter what I say, do, and advocate. I did not make the decision to put 988 on the back of my 60 year old car and make suicide awareness advocacy my mission and life's work lightly or impulsively after, like, a couple drinks at a bar-- I came to this particular brand of advocacy through years, and it has evolved and grown and changed, and it will continue to do that. Perhaps some of your comments, and those of others who have responded to my piece (I read and respond all the time, so I'm well aware of what people are saying) will be part of my own personal evolution. If so, that will take place over time, because I come to certain conclusions, not because I am being talked at angrily and finger-wagged to.
I do want to say something; I have never, ever called myself an "expert". Not in suicide prevention, not in suicide awareness, not in crisis lifelines or helplines. I have lived experience, as someone who has mental health challneges and who has contemplated suicide, far more recently than I would like to ackwnoledge, and as someone who knows the psychiatric emergency response and crisis intervention systems well. I am not going to recite my bona fides for you or anyone else, because, frankly, it's boring and kind of irrelevant, and I don't think you care about them anyway, which is fine. But I have never allowed anybody introducing me at a panel discussion or a talk-back or any kind of speaking appearance or podcast interview as an "expert." All the "experts" in suicide are dead.
Does psychiatric emergency response in this nation need drastic upheaval and change? Most certainly it does. Do the police need to get the fuck OUT of the psychiatric emergency response system? They sure do. And, in small pockets here and there, they are; or at least serving in the backgroundwhere the possibility of firearms exists, and that's fine. Change comes very slowly, in emergency services, most slowly of all, because of extreme resistance to outsider influence and oversight and paramilitary structures that abhor innovation like the plague.
To save lives now, I have to live and work in the reality of today, not in the change I hope to see and push for in the future. So this how I'm doing my thing. You're doing yours your way, and that's fine. You think dissuading everybody you meet from calling 988 is the answer? That's where your heart is leading you. It isn't where mine is. I think the best thing we can do is have a mutual respect for each other's passion, acknowledge that we view this very important issue differently, and wish each other well with what we are trying to achieve.
Thanks again for engaging in this discussion.
--Gabe