Psychiatric Wards: First US House Representative or US Senator to pass a bill in the US Congress and...

...get it signed by the US President (or override her/his veto) that makes it illegal to send a person to another psychiatric ward after that person has been refused admissions to another psychiatric ward without an independent third party review by a board-certified psychiatrist recommending admissions to another psychiatric ward.  This law must specifically state that the US military must obey it.

[While in the military, Jack Decker, BTC's creator, experienced depression so he went for psychotherapy from his base's psychotherapist.  Unfortunately, she was an incompetent psychotherapist who didn't ask one of the most basic questions any psychotherapists should ask a patient saying they are feeling depressed: "Tell me about your sleeping schedule."  Because she didn't ask this simple basic obvious question, she never discovered that the then-18-year-old Jack was depressed because he was experiencing sleep deprivation because he was stupidly eliminating a night of sleep every week to "enjoy" his days off after being assigned to grave shift (see the explanation in the Grave Shift Challenge for more about this).  Instead, she put him on a psychiatric medication (lithium) and had he come in for counseling sessions.  Needless to say, because the root cause of his depression (e.g., sleep deprivation) wasn't addressed, his depression didn't get better but got worse as Jack became more and more sleep deprived.  Eventually, he started to feel slightly suicidal (thinking of it but not acting on it) and said so when calling a depression hotline.  He was then immediately sent to the naval psychiatric ward in Charleston, South Carolina.  Jack was based at Charleston Air Force Base.
 
When Jack Decker arrived at the naval psychiatric ward, the chief psychiatrist did his induction screening.  The psychiatrist must have spotted signs of sleep deprivation right away for his first question to Jack was, "Tell me about your sleeping schedule."  After Jack revealed he was eliminating a night's sleep every week, the psychiatrist smiled, shook his head, explained what sleep deprivation was, how sleep deprivation caused depression, how strong tea didn't make up for sleep (Jack used it to stay awake to enjoy the daytime instead of going to sleep after his "Friday" grave shift and then again used it to go back to work after his "Sunday" was over instead of going to sleep), and told Jack that he just needed sleep and to stop eliminating a night of sleep out of every week.  And that was it.  Jack was not discharged from the ward.  He was not even admitted to it.  Jack was then sent back to his quarters with orders to get some rest and maintain a good sleeping schedule.
 
Unfortunately, the USAF captain who was the psychotherapist at Charleston AFB (the naval psychiatrist was of much higher rank, either a commander or captain [naval captains are the same rank as Air Force colonels]) was now in a bind.  She was shown up by the naval psychiatrist as clearly being unbelievably incompetent.  But instead of admitting she was in the wrong and had been doing a disservice to Jack Decker, she sent Jack to an Air Force psychiatric ward in Florida.  But when Jack arrived at the Florida psychiatric ward, the induction interviewer couldn't find anything wrong with Jack (who had in the mean time gotten some much needed sleep) and said so to him.  The induction person didn't know why he was there.  Unfortunately the head of the Air Force psychiatric ward didn't care about Jack.  He only cared about protecting the career of the incompetent psychotherapist back in Charleston.  The head psychiatrist thus kept Jack in the psychiatric ward until Jack admitted he had something mentally wrong with himself.  Jack refused, demanded to be shown that there was something mentally wrong with him, and, if not, to be released and let to go back to his life.  This stand-off lasted weeks.  Eventually, the head psychiatrist threatened to recommend Jack be medically discharged from the military unless he admitted there was something wrong with him.  Jack refused.  As Jack's father had recently died of leukemia, the head psychiatrist said that Jack was experiencing "unresolved grief" over his father death, discharged him from the ward, and recommended he was medically discharged from the military.
 
Jack Decker was sent back to Charleston AFB, was demoted to janitorial service of his barracks building (he had been on the fast track after being promoted to Air Terminal Operations Center {ATOC}, which was when he was put on grave shift), and then was thrown into the long bureaucratic process of the military working to get him involuntarily discharged.  Jack fought the discharge and the process dragged out for months.  Jack never got a fair hearing during the whole process.  No legal counsel.  No advocate whatsoever for him was appointed.  His First Sergeant never even tried to figure out what all had happened to this once rising star in his division but simply took what the USAF psychiatrist said and discounted what the naval psychiatrist said.  [The First Sergeant was even the one who picked Jack up from the naval psychiatric ward after the head psychiatrist refused to admit him.]  It was a by-then-19-year-old against the military bureaucracy.  Eventually, his last recourse was a direct plea to the base commander.  But before he did that, he was ordered to go and see the base chaplain.  The base chaplain told Jack that the military will discharge him whether he wants to be or not.  The chaplain said that what Jack was presently offered was a honorable medical discharge and that he should take it.  The next discharge wouldn't be a honorable discharge and he wouldn't then receive any veteran benefits.  Believing the chaplain and not having anyone assigned to him as a legal advocate to tell him otherwise, Jack finally accepted defeat and took the honorable medical discharge.
 
The above nightmare should NEVER have happened.  A promising military career was nipped in the bud.  Jack Decker experienced the horror of trying to defend himself against charges of insanity while WITHIN a psychiatric ward.  An incompetent psychotherapist and the head of a psychiatric ward covering the ass of the incompetent psychotherapist severely damaged Jack, which took him years to recover from and still haunts him to this day.  Self-doubt.  Shame of being discharged in this fashion.  Anger at being mistreated.  Upset at the injustice done to him.  The only bright outcome of Jack's trials and tribulations was that it was largely responsible for Jack becoming a libertarian.  He experienced first-hand the ugliness of a totalitarian state (which is the military once you're in it) and that opened his eyes to the true nature of government and that led him along a self-educational path that eventually ended in him becoming a libertarian.
 
But, again, the above should never have happened.  This challenge is to try to make sure it doesn't by putting in place a check-and-balance that will hopefully prevent other people from being abused by the mental health industry and, more specifically, the military's mental health branch.]
 
The part of this challenge that deals directly with the US military can be achieved by the US military putting into military regulations what this challenge seeks as far as mental health reform within the military.  However, there is still this problem in the civilian sector which the legislation that this challenge advocates is also trying to address and remedy.

Discussion:
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