My experience predates the internets back to my former manner of making a living. Policing in a nation that had decided that the mentally disturbed should be freed from institutions and placed in the warm and loving care of, well, nobody, meant that cops often had to deal with the disturbed with almost no resources. Performing that function in a city and counties that were totally unprepared for the role of dealing with people who were whacked out to a degree or two less than that legally requiring them to be locked up to prevent harm to themselves or others left one with very few alternatives. No magistrate would sign a commitment order for someone without a clear explanation of just how they were a danger to others, and "crazy as a bedbug", or "freaking out the whole neighborhood" were not sufficient in their minds. Although the woman who shot a hole in my car one night was found deserving of commitment.
So, what does one do? Improvise!
That old cop standby used for situations in which the closer-to-sane could be warned off from continued disturbing behavior not quite deserving of immediate jail therapy - "If I get another call back here, somebody is going to jail!" - was totally useless. You can't fix imaginary problems without imaginary solutions. So, I've chased herds of imaginary snakes out of houses, performed exorcisms, convinced evil imaginary friends to go away and never come back, analyzed the markings on spaceships hovering overhead to determine that they were actually from a friendly planet, and occasionally made a tinfoil hat to block the crazy rays.
Things work much better now, but back then it was do-what-you-can with whatever you had handy. When it's 3 AM and the whole neighborhood is up in arms, and no facility is going to take the disturbed person, you have to come up with something to calm things down and restore peace.
Similar field-expedient fixes worked with the closer-to-sane but far-from-intelligent as well. I've performed marriages, decreed divorces, property settlements, created child-visitation schedules, and even determined paternity a few times.
