Police Should Not Conduct Wellness Checks or Respond to Mental Health Calls

Police are not mental health professionals. They should not be asked, expected, or trusted to respond to mental health crises. When I was 17 I was going through my 3rd year straight of crippling clinical depression, suicidal thoughts and tendencies, multiple anxiety disorders, an eating disorder, and self harming, as well as living in an abusive home environment. The police were called on me while I was having a mental health crises and panic attack. I was rocking back and forth on the ground. They were not reassuring, they were not a calming presence. Instead of being anything I needed or at all helpful in the moment the 2 Ottawa Police officers who stood in my bedroom loomed over my small body, wouldn’t even look me in the eyes, were not kind or understanding, and they asked if I was “done now and was gonna relax or if they needed to take me away to a treatment center”. They didn’t ask this in a caring way, they were evidentially annoyed to have been called to my house to ‘deal’ with me, and they were condescending, and made me feel de-humanize and scared. They made me feel ashamed of having a mental health crisis, ashamed of being sick, and it led me to stop dealing with my issues at all, and shortly thereafter I turned to drugs and alcohol for just over a year before a friend helped me get sober and clean up my act. It felt like if even police officers (who are meant to protect and serve me and the community) thought that I was a waste and an embarrassment, then why was I even breathing. It was something I fixated on for a long time, it caused me as much shame as surviving rape (which recent at the time of this interaction with police). I am just lucky that I am not a visible minority, and that they arrived after I was screaming (which happens in some mental health crises and is not shameful or wrong), because if it were someone else, or they had come earlier, I may not be here today. Instead there should be a special unit of social workers that deal with mental health calls, as well, everyone needs more FREE access to mental health care, most of the issues in society would be gone if people’s mental health care (including psychology because psychiatry doesn’t cut it for most) were made a priority