To My Next Therapist

September 30, 2017

To My Next Therapist,

I think about killing myself a lot. Swerving into traffic at the last minute, not caring if I’m driving too fast, or maybe “accidentally” taking too many Klonopin. The thought crosses my mind multiple times a day. But, I can’t tell you this without being immediately put on a 72-hour psych hold. I can’t talk to anybody at home without fear of someone calling the cops on me because I’m “a danger to myself.” I can’t have an honest conversation about my suicidal thoughts and the demons that provoke them without being reprimanded and detained.

I can’t commit to a future because I don’t know if I’m going to be alive. Right now, I want to go home because everything about San Diego makes me ache. Depression is in my joints all day, every day. My head pounds trying to absorb feminist theory I don’t understand; the incessant throbbing telling me that maybe I’m not meant to get it. My heart aches for home, a thousand miles away. I cannot sleep because my diaphragm catches in my ribcage with every breath I try to take, and a lone trumpeter performs Taps outside of my window, followed by a 21-gun salute. Mourning. But I am not dead yet.

If I stay, will I make it through the program? Will, somehow, the stars align so I can get my mental health in check, support myself, and maintain a 3.0 in graduate school? I learned about betting this weekend in Vegas, and the odds aren’t in my favor. But if I go home, I lose the potential of ever knowing what could have happened here. And then I have to plan for life there. The hand I have doesn’t look promising either way. I don’t want a life here, or there for that matter.

In high school, as my mental health plummeted, I cut myself with my mom’s sharpest pair of sewing scissors. On my left thigh, right below my hip. On August 31, 2011, I celebrated “One Year Blade Free.” Six years later, that date is only the 243rd day of the year, no longer relevant to my life. Johnny Cash sang, “I hurt myself today, to see if I could feel. I focus on the pain, the only thing that’s real.”

From the outside, I sometimes look and act like a healthy, productive human being. Strangers would never guess that I battle with demons, and on those days, I don’t see it either, which makes me question the legitimacy of my own insanity. Am I making it up? Hypochondriasis in the purest form. I don’t need to be in therapy. Hospitalization seems unnecessary, but then the demons inside of me come out to play, torturing me; I sob and pop blood vessels in my eye from screaming, letting out my intense internal distress. The demons spread darkness through each crevice in my brain.

I don’t think that suicide is an “impulse decision,” like I have been taught in prevention courses and how it is romanticized in society. Suicide always rests in the back of my mind. It is like a cup of muddy water that artists use to clean their brushes. Every action, reaction, or consequence influences the amount of water in the container. The water is dirty, bruised, and dark. It is my emotional state. There’s always water in the glass, even on my best days. When the cup fills, suicide seems like the best option. My demons and my rational emotions bicker. Reason convinces me to stay; the demons show me every reason why I should go.

My mom thinks my crippling emotional instability is fake and a manipulative ploy to move home so that I can be with Her. I think my dad has the suspicion that’s the case as well. When She called to cops to take me to the hospital because I was trying to have this honest conversation with Her, I was angry, but She took me seriously.

When the cops showed up, he asked me where I had cut myself, first looking at my wrists. I told him I self-harmed on my thigh. He responded, “I’ve never seen you guys do it there before,” like I was just another broken soul he picked up off the street and carted to the hospital. To him, I was just another “arrest,” and a shift wasted in the emergency room.

I sat, handcuffed in the back of his squad car as we drove the short distance to the hospital. The backseat had virtually no legroom. Quietly, I tried to adjust myself, but the handcuffs scraped against the plastic seat. The cop heard me squirm and began talking to me. Awkward small talk. However, it made me feel a little bit better. The man who heartlessly handcuffed me up against a cop car had a soft spot in him. We talked about how long I lived in the apartment and about moving from Colorado. When graduate school came up, I quieted. He sensed the tension and focused on driving.

We arrived at the hospital, and I was taken through a separate entrance into the main emergency room waiting area. Handcuffed, I was put through triage and had my vitals taken. The other people in the waiting room stared at me. My head hung low in embarrassment. Once I was through triage, we had to wait for a bed to open. The nurse told us it could be ten minutes, or it could be four hours. I laughed nervously. Four hours in handcuffs. The officer and I talked while we waited for a room to open up. After a while, I asked him if he could take the cuffs off: “I’m not going to run away, but I think this is really unfair. I'm already suicidal, and now I am shamed by the metal clamps holding their hands behind they’re back like they’re a criminal.” I took a breath, trying to regain composure. I whispered, “I am not a criminal. Wanting to die isn’t a crime and sitting here like a prisoner only makes it worse.” Hot tears ran down my cheeks as my voice grew more desperate, but I couldn’t wipe them away. He solemnly shook his head in agreement and freed my hands. I rubbed my wrist where the skin was indented and red from the sharp metal cutting into it “Thank you,” I murmured.

Every day, I battle between wanting to be taken seriously and want to slip out of sight, so no one has to worry about finding me. I’ve never been genuine about the glass of suicidal ideation. An overnight stay in an emergency room forced the realization that it is time I start being honest about how I actually feel. So here I am. Thank you for having me.

Sincerely,

Your next patient