Why don't the police actually help people?

[Marktheghost]

I was told by the police that if I need help I can contact them. They don't help me with anything though.

I contacted them yesterday and asked for some help/advice etc, and they came to my flat and, I think they actually said the main reason they were here was that I'm suicidal. They offered to phone the NHS for me. They didn't say much about what I'd e-mailed them about. Then they asked me if there was anything I wanted to ask them, and I asked a couple of questions about what I'd e-mailed them about. And that was it.

I'm not sure they'd have bothered at all if I hadn't mentioned that I'm suicidal, which they know anyway. The actual problem that I contacted them about was basically treated as an afterthought. And I still haven't got answers to the questions I asked in my e-mail.

Their idea of help seems to be contacting the NHS, sometimes even when I don't want them to, and contacting social services who don't do anything to help me either. They never do anything that's actually helpful!

 

[JustAMatterOfTime]

"help", I hate the police they don't help anyone, I read a news story about some city that sent social workers out to mental health calls and arrests went way down. Even the nicest willed policeman in the world just isn't trained for that kind of thing.

 

[Pain In The Ass]

I was told by the police that if I need help I can contact them. They don't help me with anything though.

I contacted them yesterday and asked for some help/advice etc, and they came to my flat and, I think they actually said the main reason they were here was that I'm suicidal. They offered to phone the NHS for me. They didn't say much about what I'd e-mailed them about. Then they asked me if there was anything I wanted to ask them, and I asked a couple of questions about what I'd e-mailed them about. And that was it.

I'm not sure they'd have bothered at all if I hadn't mentioned that I'm suicidal, which they know anyway. The actual problem that I contacted them about was basically treated as an afterthought. And I still haven't got answers to the questions I asked in my e-mail.

Their idea of help seems to be contacting the NHS, sometimes even when I don't want them to, and contacting social services who don't do anything to help me either. They never do anything that's actually helpful!

I had this same issue with the NHS in general. I felt so angry for a while that they couldn't seem to care less about my issues. I realized after a while that the reason I was so angry was that I felt I had been lied to my whole life, and the idea that my 'society' or 'community' cares about me and is there to help me when things get rough is a complete myth. Society doesn't really exist; it's just a collection of people, and people only really care about their own problems involving their own family and friends. SOME people, if they have nothing too troubling going in their own lives, will be willing to expend a bit of their valuable time and energy on a stranger, if they haven't already expended it on some other stranger in the recent past. But don't count on it. Everyone - nurses, doctors, therapists, police - go to work primarily to make money, to feed and home themselves and their families. They are so used to dealing with death and people dying, they won't lose any sleep if you die on their watch. Once I accepted that people are like this, and that I am like this too, I stopped being so angry at them. I am still angry I got lied to about the idea of 'society' though. Telling people there is a safety net if things get bad, I believe, made me complacent and robbed me of that sense of urgency that is required to make people take life more seriously.

 

[LoneMisery]

Ftp. They have a job and thats to create revenue. And like one said theyre not trained for that theyre trained to find anything and everything youve done wrong by law and charge you. I would never call the police.
Ever notice when you do call 911 for a medical emergency and drugs are involved an officer shows up to cuz its not your health they care about. They want to slap cuffs on you too

 

[BurnBurnBurn]

The police are woefully inadequate when it comes to mental health calls. Seems to me they're more concerned about putting you in cuffs than they are about the well-being of people in a mental health crisis. Guess it's just not in their training which says a lot about the state of the police force here in the UK.

 

[whatevs]

I had this same issue with the NHS in general. I felt so angry for a while that they couldn't seem to care less about my issues. I realized after a while that the reason I was so angry was that I felt I had been lied to my whole life, and the idea that my 'society' or 'community' cares about me and is there to help me when things get rough is a complete myth. Society doesn't really exist; it's just a collection of people, and people only really care about their own problems involving their own family and friends. SOME people, if they have nothing too troubling going in their own lives, will be willing to expend a bit of their valuable time and energy on a stranger, if they haven't already expended it on some other stranger in the recent past. But don't count on it. Everyone - nurses, doctors, therapists, police - go to work primarily to make money, to feed and home themselves and their families. They are so used to dealing with death and people dying, they won't lose any sleep if you die on their watch. Once I accepted that people are like this, and that I am like this too, I stopped being so angry at them. I am still angry I got lied to about the idea of 'society' though. Telling people there is a safety net if things get bad, I believe, made me complacent and robbed me of that sense of urgency that is required to make people take life more seriously.

Again, you fucking nailed it. This is a very important realization to make. In fact, to me it is a crucial part of becoming an adult. I like how Arthur Schopenhauer put it too:

"For what is our civilised world but a big masquerade? Where you meet knights, priests, soldiers, men of learning, barristers, clergymen, philosophers, and I don't know what all! But they are not what they pretend to be; they are only masks, and, as a rule, behind the masks you will find moneymakers. One man, I suppose, puts on the mask of law, which he has borrowed for the purpose from a barrister, only in order to be able to give another man a sound drubbing; a second has chosen the mask of patriotism and the public welfare with a similar intent; a third takes religion or purity of doctrine. For all sorts of purposes men have often put on the mask of philosophy, and even of philanthropy, and I know not what besides.

Then there are general masks, without any particular character attaching to them like dominoes. They may be met with everywhere; and of this sort is the strict rectitude, the courtesy, the sincere sympathy, the smiling friendship, that people profess. The whole of these masks as a rule are merely, as I have said, a disguise for some industry, commerce, or speculation. It is merchants alone who in this respect constitute any honest class. They are the only people who give themselves out to be what they are; and therefore they go about without any mask at all, and consequently take a humble rank.

It is very necessary that a man should be apprised early in life that it is a masquerade in which he finds himself. For otherwise there are many things which he will fail to understand and put up with, nay, at which he will be completely puzzled. Such for instance is the favour that villainy finds; the neglect that merit, even the rarest and the greatest, suffers at the hands of those of the same profession; the hatred of truth and great capacity; the ignorance of scholars in their own province; and the fact that true wares are almost always despised and the merely specious ones in request.

Therefore let even the young be instructed betimes that in this masquerade the apples are of wax, the flowers of silk, the fish of pasteboard, and that all things—yes, all things—are toys and trifles; and that of two men whom he may see earnestly engaged in business, one is supplying spurious goods and the other paying for them in false coin."

I was told by the police that if I need help I can contact them. They don't help me with anything though.
Their idea of help seems to be contacting the NHS, sometimes even when I don't want them to, and contacting social services who don't do anything to help me either. They never do anything that's actually helpful!

You are lucky if an interaction with the pigs is useless instead of painful and expensive.

 

[Pain In The Ass]

Again, you fucking nailed it. This is a very important realization to make. In fact, to me it is a crucial part of becoming an adult. I like how Arthur Schopenhauer put it too:

"For what is our civilised world but a big masquerade? Where you meet knights, priests, soldiers, men of learning, barristers, clergymen, philosophers, and I don't know what all! But they are not what they pretend to be; they are only masks, and, as a rule, behind the masks you will find moneymakers. One man, I suppose, puts on the mask of law, which he has borrowed for the purpose from a barrister, only in order to be able to give another man a sound drubbing; a second has chosen the mask of patriotism and the public welfare with a similar intent; a third takes religion or purity of doctrine. For all sorts of purposes men have often put on the mask of philosophy, and even of philanthropy, and I know not what besides.

Then there are general masks, without any particular character attaching to them like dominoes. They may be met with everywhere; and of this sort is the strict rectitude, the courtesy, the sincere sympathy, the smiling friendship, that people profess. The whole of these masks as a rule are merely, as I have said, a disguise for some industry, commerce, or speculation. It is merchants alone who in this respect constitute any honest class. They are the only people who give themselves out to be what they are; and therefore they go about without any mask at all, and consequently take a humble rank.

It is very necessary that a man should be apprised early in life that it is a masquerade in which he finds himself. For otherwise there are many things which he will fail to understand and put up with, nay, at which he will be completely puzzled. Such for instance is the favour that villainy finds; the neglect that merit, even the rarest and the greatest, suffers at the hands of those of the same profession; the hatred of truth and great capacity; the ignorance of scholars in their own province; and the fact that true wares are almost always despised and the merely specious ones in request.

Therefore let even the young be instructed betimes that in this masquerade the apples are of wax, the flowers of silk, the fish of pasteboard, and that all things—yes, all things—are toys and trifles; and that of two men whom he may see earnestly engaged in business, one is supplying spurious goods and the other paying for them in false coin."

You are lucky if an interaction with the pigs is useless instead of painful and expensive.

That's really cool. I haven't read any Schopenhauer. I'll watch some YT videos on his work. Apparently he is quite readable. He seems like the ultimate cynic! I'm currently reading a few books by Enoch Powell. He's buried not far from me. I sometimes visit his grave and tell him about what a shit-show this clown-world has become since he died!

 

[Looooser]

It's pretty much the same thing in the US. Police get called, usually to do a wellness check, but they can't really do anything except make you go to the hospital to talk to a psychiatrist to then just to get sent home. I've actually told the police the next time they come to my place in going to make them shoot me. And I don't call suicide hotlines anymore for help.