It is tempting to glaze over what happened next, but by sharing it, I hope that someone else out there in cyberspace will find strength when things get tough. I knew I would have to give up my apartment - there was just no way to keep up with the rent on my disability check. What's more, there were always snags that would delay my check for weeks. I had to start borrowing money - another huge afront to my sense of independence. I knew I was depressed, but with no health insurance I didn't know what to do about it, except to try and stay positive.
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| Three days on lock-down. |
The more I smiled, the worse I felt and after several days fantasizing about how nice it would be to go to sleep and never wake up, I realized I needed professional help fast. I asked my best friend to drive me the 50 miles to a private hospital in
Loma Linda that I knew would help me even without insurance. With tears in my eyes, I was processed in the emergency room and soon transferred to the mental health facility on a 72-hour hold.
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| Collect calls only |
How do you make that one collect call to your mother and say "oh by the way mom, today I checked myself in to a lock-down unit for the severely depressed and suicidal, but don't worry, I'm fine"? (To her credit, she took it well). I was stripped of my personal belongings, shoe laces, and medications and assigned a sterile hospital bed with a roommate who never emerged from under the covers. Surrounded by drug-addicted teenagers, most of whom had tried to kill themselves a number of times, I was soon singled-out by patients and staff as the Den Mother.
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| Yummy hospital |
What a joke. I needed help - as badly as the rest of them. Almost immediately I began to seriously doubt my decision to sign over my rights for three days of hell - especially when I was informed that I would
not be released if the staff felt I was a 1) a danger to myself or others 2) non-participatory or uncooperative in group "therapy" or 3) did not follow all the house rules (like eating all my meals). That was the longest weekend of my life and despite my exemplary citizenship, my release was still delayed by half a day!
Like a prisoner out of jail, I'll never forget walking out of those doors and the immense relief I felt. In the spirit of
Martin Luther King Jr, "I was free at last, free at LAST. Thank God almighty, I was free at last!" The experience was not all bad, however as I was then provided with after-care therapy which, three years and three
amazing therapist* later, have put me on the road to recovery.
Special thanks to Dr. Jennifer Kawase, Dr. Denise Persichino, and Dr. Desiree Montez.
Violet, your story, your strength, are a testament and an inspiration. Thank you for being willing to open up, to be vulnerable, to be human - and by doing so, to give the rest of us permission to admit that we, too, are fallible. Blessings!
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