And I’m so grateful for the man with the pocket knife. I think my head would be in a very different place at this point had it gone the other way.

When I was visiting Berlin several years ago, I was walking past Hermannplatz Station to meet up with a friend for breakfast. I was on the opposite side of the street from the station entrance/elevators when I noticed some commotion near one of the elevator doors. I went over to see if everything was cool but I was horrified to find three small dogs being pulled down by their collars into the closed elevator doors. They were flailing for dear life as the elevator had started to go down to the platform with their collars still attached, which was strangling all three of them. There were people around but either they didn’t notice or didn’t know what to do. I quickly bent down to them and started digging my thumbs under the collars to pry them off and was thankfully able to get two without too much issue. But the third dog was proving much more difficult. It’s possible the elevator had gone further down in that short time. I used all of my strength to try and get the extremely tight collar off but I just couldn’t get my fingers underneath. The dog was losing strength and I stopped hearing its wheezing, desperate voice. I turned around and there were a few people behind me screaming and yelling out of horror. I don’t know German and it seemed that everyone there couldn’t speak English; I made a sign for a scissors but nobody seemed to have anything sharp. But in that moment an older gentleman quickly bent down and pulled out his pocket knife. He was thankfully able to cut the collar off for the third.

After all of that, I just sat there with these three tiny dogs all climbing into my lap shivering and still breathing heavily. I stayed with them for a bit until two police officers showed up (who also didn’t speak much english or just chose not to). The group of people that formed around the elevators were holding the dogs and I just kinda left at that point. Seeing that the dogs were good and that the police showed up and were talking to the locals, I just left to meet up with my friend. We had a nice breakfast after that.

I thoroughly appreciate everyone’s responses. In hindsight, I probably could have put the question in clearer context to avoid sounding like I was just trying to cherry-pick justifications for involuntarily committing someone without the legitimate grounds to do so (and it’s become ever more clear that this is a deeper philosophical question about how much control we should have over a person’s autonomy when they display signs of extreme mental distress). Ultimately, I share the same concerns that many of you have about how this could be misused to hold someone against their will when a third party deems their life isn’t “normal”. There are of course people in our society that would like to use such allowances to involuntarily treat people who are NOT suffering from a mental illness but fit some categorization they deem as “abnormal” -or- treat people who are suffering from a mental illness but are content with their lives (sorry, I’m sure there’s a clearer way to phrase this but I’m struggling how to elucidate it; hopefully this is clear enough).

I was mainly curious to hear of other peoples experiences, what the outcomes have been, how things could be improved, i.e. get a better understanding of how it works, NOT try and use it as a justification. And I hope anyone that reads through this thread takes extreme care and consideration with this stuff, since it is such an extreme course of action to take.

I’m admittedly a bit worried that this post might make people feel targeted themselves or feel unsafe in someway, which was definitely not my intention.

From the Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges

That’s entirely possible and, yes, I ultimately fully want to respect their autonomy and do not want to commit them against their will. In the past though, they have talked about plans of ending their life and have seriously harmed themself in an attempt. And I can’t really say that there’s anything ‘wrong’ with their life but they do seem very, very miserable. While don’t wish to make a judgement of the quality of their life or insist on how they should be living, I do want them to feel less torment. Its sometimes hard to be sure of the extent of their anguish, because they’re so unwilling to talk about it.

Thanks for that. That clears up a lot of what I wasn’t sure about. I’m curious, from your experience in that job, did you ever feel like certain steps in that process could’ve been different to better help people? Genuinely curious

Appreciate you sharing your experience. Unfortunately, the person in my life is so staunchly opposed to getting any kind of care, partially out of stubbornness but mainly because of semi-delusional thoughts (I say “semi-delusional” because it’s no delusion that mental health care in our state is incredibly lacking – but also there’s actual delusional “I’m being targeted” type stuff too). It sucks bc it just feels like we have to wait around for something really bad to happen before they can get the care they very clearly need.

What kind do you have?

Cooking chopsticks are the best!

Bought myself flowers and beignets, supported a friend who was feeling mopey. I’m depressed but it helps to do things for myself and others

You’re going to kill some people or threaten to do so and expect that to make the world a better place?

Thanks again

Thanks for sharing.

I feel like my brother has been on similar shit with internalizing self hatred to the point where he has like a complete inability to see himself as a person. I keep trying to push him to go to therapy despite his constant refusal — can I ask, what happened for things to change for you / what caused you to get diagnosed? (you don’t have to go into detail of course)

Waltz to Heaven - David Murray

One that I’ve been enjoying is a blog by Nick Dvoracek who is a photographer and avid pinhole camera maker: https://pinholica.blogspot.com/?m=1

I’ve made a few cameras using his designs!