From 5/11/ 16The secret: Some people take pleasure in pouring salt into wounds that they know are there. Wounds that they have been trained to re
Not everyone is compassionate every day.
They are gone now and you don’t know that they reached out for help.
Only, “help” failed them that day.
Saving Tonya
It was where I was seeing a psychologist for a long history of child sexual abuse.
For those who donât know, when you get treatment for trauma of this type you can feel worse long before you ever feel better.
It keeps people who are in a temporary state of pain from reacting in the moment. You just want this collection of dull, stabbing, throbbing, pinching, itching, and slicing pain to stop.
When it gets to that point, it feels like all of the evils of life are beating up on you at once.
You believe that suicide will end it once and for all. You believe that it is the only cure for the pain.
Hang on until help arrives.
I kept my end of the bargain.
I had been in counseling
I wasnât playing around.
In a room. A psychiatrist on duty comes in. One of their best. They say.
He is so demeaning.
He is so angry.
Wait. Wait. Wait?
He is a psychiatrist?
Iâm in college.
Iâm an A student. Really.
Iâm a single mother. (Save that for last. Stereotypes, you know.)
He knows Dr. Brown.
They are colleagues.
He says, “Yes, she is very good.” Sternly.
You’re not feeling better?” Accusingly. Suspiciously.
(He is accusing ME now. What is MY problem?)
“Not yet” ….. I try to explain.
“It takes time.” (Now, I’m trying to remind him of what the healing folks have been trying to convince me to believe. “You will not always feel this way. It takes time.”)
But then I stopped.
He is a psychiatrist.
He knows this.
Healing takes time.
That is what….. he should be telling me.
He was toying with me.
And now, we both knew it.
But Iâve seen that look on his face… before, then, and since.
No matter what I say……
I am young.
I am black.
I am not yet wise.
I donât have access to the financial resources that he may have.
I am black.
At first, it scares me.
But I embrace it before the next second hits.
I am angry.
I am in a storm cloud of rage.
This emotion I know.
It doesnât frighten me.
A lot.
I screamed.
I made threats……
That I intended to keep.
The female nurse who was in the room with us moved closer to the door.
Those threats could get me tackled and shackled.
One doesnât do that in a hospital setting.
Oh, but there are so many other words that one can use when someone f%(* with you at just the right time, you know.
I ordered him to get away from me. Told him that he was making me uncomfortable. This couldn’t be good for me.
Of course, he did.
I was damn near hysterical.
They both walked out of the room. Backwards.
I never saw him again.
About 30 minutes later maybe …he sent the nurse in with discharge instructions.
Coward! (probably standard practice but that is how I saw it.)
That could have ended horribly for me for ALL the reasons that I stated and then some.
All I can say is, BUT GOD.
Self Advocacy
Before leaving the hospital, I contacted a patient advocate to report him.
She wrote nothing down.
She just looked at me with a blank look.
I processed it with Dr. Brown days later and decided to focus on my own healing.
But I hate that people who
We will never know how many people we have lost who found themselves in a state of pain and lost that battle when they encountered folks like these. Suicide isnât one day.
Suicide can be a season. A long episodic season with bright spots and laughter in between.
But during my season, I encountered quite a few people who were not kind, compassionate, consistently patient, or skilled…. across various demographics.
When it comes to life and death crises like suicide, at least send in your best. Send in your most humane. Every single time.
READER DISCUSSION
Readers, have you had bad experiences when you reached out for help?
How can we make certain that all people who need help get the quality of care that they need?
Emotional and physical pain is excruciating and often hard to describe to others.
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