If a mentally ill person has threatened you, your first priority is physical safety. Put distance between yourself and the person, avoid escalating the situation, and call for help if you believe the threat is serious. What you do next depends on whether the danger feels immediate or ongoing.
Create Physical Distance First
Keep at least four to six feet between you and the person making threats. Do not stand directly in front of them. Position yourself at a slight angle, which feels less confrontational and gives you a better path to move away quickly. Keep your hands visible and relaxed in front of you rather than crossed or in your pockets.
If you’re indoors, stay near a door or exit. Never let the person get between you and your way out. If you’re in a room with others, try to signal someone nearby without drawing the threatening person’s attention. If the situation feels immediately dangerous, leave. You can sort everything else out once you’re safe.
Recognize When Violence Is Imminent
Not every verbal threat leads to physical violence, but certain signs suggest someone is close to acting. Watch for rapid pacing, clenched fists, sudden shifts in mood, or an intense, hypervigilant focus on you or the surroundings. A person who is responding to voices or deeply held beliefs that you are a threat to them, and who is visibly agitated and hostile, is at a significantly higher risk of becoming violent.
If you notice these signs, do not try to reason with the person or prove them wrong. Attempting to argue with someone who is experiencing a break from reality tends to escalate the situation. Your goal at that point is to get out safely and contact emergency services.
How to Talk to Someone Who Is Escalating
If you can’t immediately leave, how you speak matters more than what you say. Roughly 90% of emotional information in spoken English is communicated through body language and tone of voice, not the actual words. Keep your voice calm, low, and steady. Speak slowly. Avoid commands like “calm down” or “stop it,” which sound controlling and can make agitation worse.
The most effective approach is collaborative rather than authoritative. Instead of trying to force someone to calm down, help them calm themselves. You can do this by acknowledging what they seem to be feeling: “It sounds like you’re really upset right now” or “I can see this is overwhelming.” You don’t have to agree with what they’re saying to validate their emotional state. Feeling heard can reduce the intensity of a crisis faster than anything else you can do verbally.
Use short, simple sentences. Offer choices when possible (“Would you like to sit down, or would you rather go outside?”) because choices restore a sense of control that agitated people often feel they’ve lost. Avoid sarcasm, dismissiveness, or any tone that could be interpreted as mocking.
Who to Call for Help
If you’re in immediate physical danger, call 911. But it’s worth knowing that police response to mental health crises carries its own risks, and the outcome isn’t always what you might expect. In many areas, you now have alternatives.
The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988) connects you with trained crisis counselors and can sometimes dispatch mobile crisis teams. These teams typically include mental health professionals who can respond in person and de-escalate without police involvement. Check whether your city or county has a mobile crisis team, a community action team, or a peer respite center. These resources exist specifically for mental health emergencies and are often better equipped to help than law enforcement.
If you do call 911, tell the dispatcher that the situation involves a mental health crisis. Some departments have officers trained in crisis intervention, and the dispatcher may be able to send one. Be specific about what the person is doing, whether they have access to weapons, and whether they’ve made a direct threat.
Set Clear Boundaries Going Forward
If the person who threatened you is someone in your life, such as a family member, neighbor, or coworker, you’ll need to establish firm boundaries once the immediate crisis has passed. This isn’t about punishing someone for being ill. It’s about protecting yourself while being honest about what you will and won’t accept.
Use “I” statements that focus on how their behavior affects you: “I don’t feel safe when you say things like that” rather than “You’re being threatening.” Frame boundaries as concrete limits with clear consequences. For example: “If you threaten me again, I will leave and I will call for help.” Then follow through if the boundary is crossed. A boundary without a consequence is just a suggestion.
You may also need to take a break from the relationship entirely while you figure out your next steps. That’s not abandonment. Spending time away from someone who has threatened you is a reasonable and necessary form of self-protection.
Document Everything
Start keeping a written record of every threat, including the date, time, location, what was said, and whether anyone else witnessed it. Save text messages, voicemails, emails, or any other evidence. If the person threatens you in a public place where there are cameras, note that as well.
This documentation serves two purposes. First, it creates a paper trail if you later need to seek a protective order or file a police report. Courts will ask you to describe the threats in detail, and having contemporaneous notes is far more credible than trying to recall events weeks or months later. Second, it helps mental health professionals who may be treating the person. A clear record of threatening behavior can inform their risk assessment and treatment decisions.
Legal Options for Protection
If the threats are ongoing, you can petition for a restraining order (sometimes called a protective order or harassment order, depending on your state). The process typically involves filling out court forms that ask you to describe the specific threats, stalking, or harm you’ve experienced. A judge will review your request and may grant a temporary order quickly, with a full hearing scheduled within a few weeks.
You don’t need a lawyer to file for a restraining order, though having one can help. Many courts have self-help centers that walk you through the paperwork. Your documentation of threats will be your strongest evidence.
In situations where someone’s mental illness is causing them to be an immediate danger to others, most states allow for involuntary psychiatric evaluation. The general criteria include having a mental health condition with serious symptoms that pose an immediate safety threat, and that the person would benefit from hospital treatment. The specific process and criteria vary by state and sometimes by county. You can initiate this by contacting local emergency services or a crisis line, which can guide you through what’s available in your area.
If the Person Is Already in Treatment
Mental health professionals have a legal obligation known as the “duty to protect.” If a patient makes a credible threat to harm a specific person, their therapist or psychiatrist is required to take action. That action can include warning the intended victim, notifying police, or hospitalizing the patient. This obligation overrides the usual rules of patient confidentiality.
For this duty to apply, the threat generally needs to be a clear statement of intent to kill or seriously injure a specific or reasonably identifiable person, and the patient needs to have the apparent ability to carry it out. If you know the threatening person is seeing a mental health professional, you can contact that provider to report what happened. While the provider can’t share information about the patient with you, they can receive information from you, and it may trigger protective action.
If you don’t know whether the person is in treatment, reporting the threats to police or a crisis service creates an official record that can connect to their care down the line.