Be careful what you say on Facebook!

An interesting call happened yesterday...an young female- who shall of course remain nameless- decided to get a 'rise' out of her boyfriend for some reason or another and posted on her Facebook wall that she was going to "take a bunch of pills" and "end it all" and various other suicidal phrases. She then turned her phone off so when he called he got no answer; thereby escalating his emotions. He was so escalated that he called 911 and once we arrived she was quite stunned by the response. She repeatedly stated that she "didn't mean it" and that she "never took anything" but it was too late by then.

At this point I should explain a couple of legal issues. In the US (it varies somewhat state to state) if anyone makes any statement to the effect of wanting to hurt or kill themselves then they temporarily lose their right to refuse medical care. The logic being that if you want to hurt/kill yourself than you're not in a rational state of mind since rational persons don't wish to hurt/kill themselves. Ergo~if you're not rational than you're not legally competent and can't make decisions for yourself until evaluated and cleared by a physician. And if you're a minor then you can't make any legal decisions for yourself at all; that's your parent/guardian's job.

So when persons make fake, dramatic suicide threats then they get to be legally (sometimes forcibly) taken away against their will to the hospital until it can be determined whether or not they're actually rational. So when she posted on a potentially INTERNATIONAL site she effectively told the world that she wasn't rational and since she's a minor she never had a choice after she made those threats.

Even if we decided to allow her parents to keep her at home what if she had been serious and had taken something or would do so later? I don't want to be that worldwide mascot for negligence because some teen wanted to piss off her boyfriend.

Hopefully, she's learned a lesson about what NOT to post on FB and her parents get to spend several thousand dollars to remind themselves to keep a closer eye on her internet usage. It's the internet age people~ if you choose to forfeit your privacy then be careful what you wish for!