This Is real disgusting

Ask a Therapist Coping
1

Just saw this piece of news.

Fatal abuse of Myanmar maid: 10 years’ jail for cop who abetted wife in starving maid and removed evidence

Feel so disgusting, imagine he works in SPF and the ones who enforce MHCTA. That is why SPF should be the ones to enforce MHCTA. They are just one group of enforcers that enforce the law without regard to human psychological well-being.

I remember in the past there was a teen who committed suicide shortly after he was released by SPF.

And SPF is not even capable of dealing with normal teens. How are they even capable of deal with people with mental health issues or people with special needs?

I guess its really time for our gov to relook into MHCTA, specially aft MHA is not happy about losing a mistreatment case to a person with mental health issues in 2024 and stricten its enforcement on people with mental health issues.

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I don’t know enough about how SPF works and how MHCTA is being enforced but it might be a stretch to generalise that SPF (in general) is not capable of dealing with people with mental health issues / special needs.

Any suggestions on providing more support for people with mental health issues / special needs?

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hey @1446, what you shared and you’re right, it’s hard not to feel sickened by that news. it hits even harder knowing that someone from inside the system, someone meant to protect, was the one who harmed.

you said, “feel so disgusting” that word “disgust”, it’s different from anger, almost in contempt. it usually shows up when something’s so wrong, so morally off, that your body wants to reject it.

is that how it felt for you? this isn’t just a crime, it’s a deep sickness. sometimes the body knows what justice should feel like, long before the world catches up.

yes, you picked up something really important, with honesty, no sugar-coating. especially when you’ve spent 8 hrs a day back then piecing together what most people barely scratch the surface of. you’ve become the person others should be learning from, and i think you’ve outgrown the comfort lines many are trained to offer. pretty clear that not everyone in the spf is trained professionally to deal with people with mental health issues / special needs, and even it does, it would take lived experiences and yet only to witness rather than fully understand what you have been through.

it’s clear there’s pain behind being misunderstood. you reached out beyond what many people even attempt and instead of being recognised for that, people assumed you hadn’t tried, that hurts.

and you’re right to expect that if someone is supporting others, especially professionally or even as a volunteer, they should know where to point people… not manage with disclaimers but with real effort. the system has tools now, but we’re still learning how to use them well. we need to do better. that includes me too. you may not be ready to give others a chance but that’s ok…

so I just want to say, thank you. for calling this out without remorse and reminding us that being present means seeing the person, not just offering a script. the biggest disconnect here is having to read what you write, rather than listening to what you say, and i’ll remember what you’ve said and to grow from it.

would it be okay if we connected, not to fix, but just to hear more… maybe about what did help, even if briefly, during those early days of trying to get support?

4

Hi @user1446, thanks for sharing your concerns.

To echo what @Jaws had mentioned, the misconduct of a single police officer may not necessarily reflect the values of the Singapore Police Force as a whole. As an employee of the Public Service, I’ve personally worked alongside police officers, and I can say that they are well-trained and uphold their integrity.

However, I would also like to assure you that MHCTA is only enacted when a person with a mental health condition poses a risk of harm to themselves or others. It is not a “blanket law” that detains every single person with mental health issues.

In order to understand your situation better, I have a couple of questions:

  • Given that MHCTA is a very long document with many sections, are you able to share the specific parts of MHCTA that bother you most?
  • If you could speak to a legislator directly, how would you like them to change MHCTA in such a way that it does not stigmatise Persons with Mental Health Conditions?
  • How should public officers interact with Persons with Mental Health Conditions in a more sensitive and appropriate way?
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Yes…one person might not reflect the entire system. Just imagine that very one bad rotten egg is there when you need help.

We have over 30000 healthcare workers, and in a person life, you dont see every single one of them. But just imagine the day when you are very sick you manage to bump into that very one that put your life at risk instead of making you feel better?

Trust me, i don’t even want to have that 0.001 percent just to be a victim of any professional’s unethical behaviour or let my family become a victim of one.

In life i have seen vets that treat animals as just profits and they do anything to earn from their owners. As my dog is a blood donor, i have see dog very sick and in need of blood there the vet hospital exploit their owner’s desperate care for their sick pets to earn the much for it. It a way that after all is being done and blood was donate for the sick pet to use, the vet will just advice the owner to just put their pet down. And they charge them for the donated blood that the sick pet didnt use, but later it charge another pet owner for the blood again. Still…if you ask me are they vets that really cares about their 4 legged patients. I would say there is, but still imagine being that pet owner when you need someone to help you most but only to bumped into those that only exploit you?

Just like saying…if you lost your way and decided to ask a passerby for directions, but the person you ask just hurl vulgarites at youl rather than actually help you to find your way. Is everyone bad? No, but that very one that you encounter might just be enough to stop you from asking for directions in future.

So, my post is clear, just imagine that SPF officer being one of the officer answer to the call for help. How helpful will he be or will he just rub salt into an already open wound? And sadly i seen way to many SPF officers that makes “poor descions” when dealing with people with special needs and people with mental health issues. Just one very good example is those MHCTA incidents when fully geared police officer wearing bulletproof vet and holding semi automatic machine guns turned at the scene of someone wanted to jump off the building? What is their intention? Can pretty much tell that such bad decision makers dont just exist at the ground of SPF.

In one of my emails to MHA, i actually tell them that MHCTA responsers should be accompanied by a mental health/social service professionals. But to them is like nope…our SPF officers knows what they are doing. ANd i told them SCDF should be the one taking them job of enforcing MHCTA, but seems like they impression is People with mental health issues is to dangerous and violent for them to handle.

I believed, i have mentioned before, the best way to response and interacted with person with mental health issues is patiences and communication. Not just show up handcuff the person and send to IMH and let staff in IMH do all the talking.

Have anyone wonder how crowded is IMH A&E is especially at night? I can tell you, you will feel bless about normal A&E waiting time when you been to IMH A&E, as the waiting time can be up to 8 hrs. And there is limited sitting area. And no place to get decent food if you get hungry while waiting.

Its really upsetting to say that be it in hospitals, MHCTA, IMH, social service, SPF or even vet care. If you or your loves ones like your parents and kids ever going to suffer from the bad decision-making of such people. In Singapore its just going to be considered as acceptable collateral damage because it don’t always happen so our gov thinks its normal and ok. In my life, I have been in treated as collateral damage for more times than i could count with my fingers, while everyone else is having a decent life. Trust me, you just need one such experience to be shattered into tiny pieces like glass, and no one will help you apart from just tell you, you can piece your life back to get. Without knowing how hard is it.

If you want to know how it feels, its very simple, just break a glass jar into small pieces and try to glue it back together again. Oh hey…glue back already? Opps…you drop it again, want to glue it back together again? How many times you do think it can be fix and broken again and again and again before you give up. even when you are really determined how long before its beyond repair?

Many of the supportive talks and textbook teachings is really easy. Really, just wait till the day you are the victim. Things is just really different

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Actually this is a good idea but I also wonder if that is even practically feasible. I think we have shortages of mental health professionals but if we can have such tag team efforts it’ll be beneficial for everyone.

:index_pointing_up:Does this really happen irl? It doesn’t make sense to me too

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Does this really happen irl? It doesn’t make sense to me too

Not sure, been seeing police arm with semi automatic machine guns when being activated for MHCTA in social media and news.

If we already have Comit, why not? Its not hard to borrow a social worker from nearby VWOs.

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haha don’t believe everything you see online. nowadays got a lot of deepfakes. it sounds quite absurd to me that the police get activated with semi-automatic machine guns (do they even get issued that in Singapore?)

maybe something worth watching if you’re interested: Tasers, batons or firearms: How do police officers decide which to use? - CNA

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Hi @Jaws,

It’s indeed true that there are units within the SPF who are armed with heavy weapons, such as the Special Operations Command (SPF | Police Life | Special Operations Command: Upholding Public Safety for 70 Years).

But they are only deployed in times of crisis, such as a terror attack or a mass shooting. They would likely not be responding to mental health cases as that would be a very unproportional response. Like you said, don’t believe everything you see online!

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Woman brandishing knife in Tampines stabs herself after police stand-off

I am not sure how to deep fake this.

There was another one where they carrying semi automatic machine guns below the HDB flat of someone attempting to jump off the building.

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Hi @user1446,

In this case, the police were activated because the woman was armed, and could have caused serious injury to others around her.

The role of the police officers in this scenario was to uphold public safety. It does not necessarily mean that they are biased against Persons with Mental Health Conditions.

12

ah okay I didn’t know about this but I do agree that police officers might need to prioritise the safety aspects of themselves + the public.

but submachine guns does sound like an overkill though. I hope the reporting was accurate.

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i have read atleast 3 cases of police with semi automatic machine guns at the scene of people in need of help. All the news is from CNA so i doubts about deekfake.

And 2 cases are in the person’s home.

it is indeed overkill. Why bring semi automatic machine guns to a scene where the person is self harming with a knife. Does that mean SG police need to bring in tanks if the person is holding a gun pointing at someone else?

People with mental health issues are not terrorist but gov just treated us like one, but in the news when the new MHCTA was out, the MHA PR try those best to make people thing gov is not targeting people with mental health issues.

And how the put it just sounds so fake.

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she is armed by she is self harming.

And assuming she will hunt others around her, first you need to consider if there is even people around at that point of time and also if she is chasing people down with a knife.

If she isnt. its as good as false judgemental assuming.

Its just like think someone climbing out the window is naturally trying to attempt suicide, but who knows, maybe the person is just cleaning the windows. Its not as if it never happen before. I remember a maid climb out of the window to clean the windows. If that very day if she slipped off, people will just think she just commit suicide.

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I’m an optimist so while I agree that some of these measures can seem overboard, I don’t think the intention was to make people with mental health conditions feel worse. But honestly most of these policemen are really there to just do their job (to ensure safety of everyone). I wonder how we could get this feedback across that balances everyone’s views.

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You can pretty well say that until you fall victim into their doing their job.

How many people in this world actually didnt think much about a doctors decision until something bad happen?

The fact about dealing with figures we learned to trust since young. So we pretty much just keep trusting them blindly until they did something bad to us.

Its not their intention sometimes, but there are so many cases of causing harm without the intention to do so, but most just passively denied they actually cause any harm.

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17

Hello @user1446

Tbh sometimes in Singapore, I feel that the system is too reactive… in this case, it’s like they come in fully geared, some people might say it’s justified but honestly, it can bring a lot of trauma to the person.

I don’t really know what to say, I think I am a bit like @Jaws I am optimistic that while the mental health system has its own flaws, it’s still possible to heal and recover. I’ve seen so many people with hospital trauma or trauma relating to their mental health experiences yet they are able to overcome it and live a meaningful life, they are able to thrive despite whatever they’ve been through, actually myself included…

But I really think you’re really nice that you don’t want others to have to go through this pain, I think sometimes unfortunately it’s not in our power to stop it…

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