Nearly every direct experience I've had with police has been markedly negative. I was once held on the floor of my VT Hotel Coolidge room before dawn with a cocked pistol at the back of my head and an irate officer kneeling painfully into my back on suspicion of having raped someone in a neighboring community despite the fact the individual being sought was over a foot taller than me and a different race. But police are above accountability. And when the highest court of the land ruled "police have no constitutional duty to protect someone," I knew it was over. The police in general are agents who act to protect the interests of the state, not citizens. I don't trust them in any capacity and I certainly don't trust them to be benevolent towards me if I were to suffer a breakdown. I have had enough experience with therapists of all stripes--religious, LICSW, PhD/clinical psychologists, MD/psychiatrists, private practice, university medical center...--to feel confident therapy can do nothing for me. Adding in hyper-aggressive, beat-into-submission, state-sanctioned discretionary executioners would be like throwing multiple lit matches into a TNT keg. And don't even get me started on ANY online or phone-based "help lines" that feel entitled to send uniformed torturers to my door when I'm at my most vulnerable.
