Today, I am watching a friend who trusts me enough to share that she is being pulled deep into the abyss of depression.  Few know about this, as this person is hiding, like many do.  This person has revealed that it is not that she wants to kill herself, she just wishes that someone would kill her.  And here I am faced with a dilemma.  I could call the authorities, who won't put her into the hospital because she is not a "danger to herself or others."  She says she isn't going to kill herself; she just wants to die, and for the Psychiatric Emergency Screeners, that's not enough to go on.  So, she is forced to suffer without getting much help beyond her regular psychiatrist appointment. 

But, the other part of the dilemma that I face is even deeper; even if she were to go to a hospital, I am not quite sure that she would find it helpful.  For most illnesses, when one is sick, he or she ends up going to the hospital, receiving treatment, and then coming out when they are well.  Well, not so in a psychiatric hospital.  There, the main objective is this:  to keep you safe, and then when you say that you won't take your life or someone else's, they send you home- cured or not. 

I remember my first hospitalization.  I was 18 years old, and had come home from Emory University in Atlanta for "treatment."  I had worked hard to get into Emory, and thought that I had ruined my life by having to come home,  and I wanted to die.  And, verbalizing this earned me my very first hospitalization at Carrier Clinic in Bellmead NJ.  So what did I win?  Well, I remember saying goodbye to my family, and the doors locking behind me on the ward that people who had come before me affectionately named "Crazy Eddy's."  It was dark and run down.  I remember one guy deciding immediately that I was "the one," and following me around everywhere asking me to marry him.  I told the nurses, and they told me to "stop flirting with him."  I was scared out of my mind.  Nothing locked.  Not the bathrooms, the showers.  Nothing.  You could easily get raped in a place like this, and although I was somehow protected, I heard stories upon coming out that others had, in fact, been raped there.  You could hear men publicly masterbating with no one stopping them.  Nurses remained behind thick glass windows, where you were responsible to go to get your medication.  They didn't come out to make sure you were ok.  Frankly, they were probably too scared.  Those who got to aggitated were strapped down and injected, with what, I don't know.  Every day, the doctor would come around and ask me if I was "safe."  Of course, I told him no.  Who was "safe" in a place like this?  I learned after being there for a while that "safe" was code for, "have you given up on the notion that you want to kill yourself?"  It took me at least a week to learn this and be transfered to a calmer unit. 

So, why the hell was I placed on a unit like this?  I don't know.  It wasn't so that I could come out "cured" from my depression.  The trauma that I suffered left scars in me that I still have to this day.  Having been hosptialized many times since then, I must say that the first was the worst.  Or, was it just that by the 10th or 12th time, I got used to it, and toughened my skin?  I don't know. 

But, here I am today, trying to advise a friend who is crying her eyes out.  She feels alone and like it never will get better.  And the last thing that I want her to do is go to the hosptial for treatment.  Something is WRONG with this system.  Why can't mental hospitals be places for people to go to get the respite that they need, and the proper medication to return to the world well?  Why is it that some of my clients claim that they would rather die than get hospitalized?  It's not just the stigma of being in a mental institution, it's the fact that those places are SCARY AS HELL!  If we don't improve treatment for those who struggle with a mental illness, how do we expect people to get help?  Is this the best that we can do for people?  I think not.  The trick is, that more people have to stand up and say that the system is mistreating people.  Don't do it for me; I'm well.  Do it for the 25% of your friends that you know that have or will struggle with a mental illness, and should not have to suffer while trying to get treatment to get better.  

Be Well
~Emily