I Am Safe

Yesterday, I texted my psychiatrist:

“I’m suicidal and I”m scared”

“All I wanna do is cry, I can’t get up to eat. And I’m trying to see the light”

I hadn’t eaten or slept well in 2-3 days. My body was exhausted, and my feet felt like they had rug burns from pacing my carpet, contemplating if I could survive another hour in this world.

He called a few hours later, I was relieved, but scared, and still struggling to choose life. He was calm and directed all his attention on getting me to do as he said.

“You have to let me know you are safe”

“You have to say you are safe”

“I need you to tell me you are safe”

I was so out of it, looking for empathy, for someone to make the pain hurt less, to make me believe living a bit longer would be worth it, I forgot my support system could never be safe.

“You have to tell me you are safe, or I have to call the ER for you”

I felt my civility slipping away as my insanity took over: “Why are you threatening me?!!!”

“I’m doing my job”

“I’m not threatening you. Don’t raise your voice at me.”

But you are. Being sent to the ER when you’re suicidal means you’ll be institutionalized, you’re rights are taken away because the doctors will decide you’re too insane. You’ll be locked up. It’ll be on your record forever, and DHS will hold it against you. I know because I was institutionalized when I was a teenager for an eating disorder. When 2 teen relatives of mine were found at the border, DHS sold them to a Sourthern Baptist woman in upstate New York. They didn’t tell us this until they had already done it, so it would be too late for us to do anything about it. I was still a teenager and was angry about it. The agent sitting on our kitchen table smirked at me, ignored me, and asked my parents about my meds, therapy, and how I was doing after being institutionalized. I have never been put in my place and violently silenced so swiftly in my entire life. She was letting me know that my mental health would be used against me to prove I was a threat to the United States of America. My experience with the mental health industry would never be about my safety. It would be about tracking me, and controlling me.

I have health insurance, but it doesn’t cover therapy and psychiatrists. Most mental health professionals prefer being out of network and being paid out of pocket. I was paying mine $400 for 45 minutes. If I didn’t cancel an appointment 48 hours in advance, I would be charged the full cost. And I was, I missed our last appointment because I only gave them a 24 hour notice.

I knew in our sick society he was trying to protect me, but it felt like cruelty. He was trying to protect me from what he had to do. He had to protect himself from legal responsibility for my death, and protect me from legally forcing him to lock me up. Where it would be the job of another doctor to decide if I would ever be allowed freedom again, and under what conditions. My job as the patient would be to figure out the secret phrases to say, and how to behave to meet all their boxes for what a ‘healthy and sane’ person who deserves freedom are in the clipboards they hide from me.

I knew this and yet it took me several exchanges before I finally gave in. “I am safe”.

My soul felt so weak it felt like it was leaving. He was telling me to schedule an appointment so we could ‘sort this out’. I heard his wife and children playing in the background.

“No, after today I don’t want to see you anymore.”

“ok, that’s fine”

He sounded so calm, so unbothered. Would there be no moral responsibility? Does this help mental health professionals sleep better at night? Does it at least weigh on their conscience? I’ll never know.

He hung up.

I did what everyone said you had to do. Just reach out for help.

And I was hyperventilating realizing I would have to start the arduous process of getting meds again from a new doctor. All the knives I had in my kitchen presented themselves in my mind as options. I kept repeating:

“I am safe”

“I am safe”

“I am safe”

“I am safe”

“I am safe”

I was hyperventilating, and sobbing, losing more sanity.

“I am so goddamn safe”

“I am so fucking safe”

The phrase wasn’t to protect me, but the system.

I could fainting hear the laughter of his wife and children taunting me with the love, safety, and home that eluded me

It was like I was being strapped to a medical exam table, and the doctor was turning on his surgical light in my face. And all I could do was guess the secret phrase to escape his “care”. I would be safer in hell.

Langston Hughes had warned me that I could never escape the white shadows.

I’m looking for a house
In the world
Where the white shadows
Will not fall.
There is no such house,
Dark brothers,
No such house
At all.