Tag: suicide

ER
Autobiography · Mental Health

ER

Ruby Pipes11 Comments

Last night I went to the ER for an infection. A burn I got on Thursday, instead of healing, started to get red around the edges. Spreading up my arm, swelling. The intake nurse flew through the questions they always have to ask. “Do you feel as if you are a danger to yourself or anyone else?”

She didn’t notice the pause. Where I weighed out if it was worth another ambulance ride, another week in a psych ward, another stack of bills I’ll never be able to pay. More missed work, another set of unanswered phone calls. Hours in hospital beds waiting for social workers, doctors, nurses. Was it worth it?

“No,” I said. And she moved onto the next set of questions.

“How tall are you?”

What I should have said was, “Of course I am. I was released from a psych ward at the end of October and it’s not as if much has changed since then. They turn you back to the real world with no more coping skills, just a different set of medication and legs in need of shaving. Of course I’m a danger to myself. I sat in front of my sister’s house for forty-five minutes before I convinced myself I could drive home without jerking the steering wheel hard to the left and smashing into a barricade. Of course I am. My brain is a running list of ways to stop existing, interspersed with a few warm thoughts of my family, my partner, my friends. But how long before those aren’t enough to keep the fire burning? Of course I am. I’ve been toying with the idea of suicide since I was twelve-years-old and I’ve still yet to learn how to keep those feelings at bay for any significant amount of time. Of course I am. I am always a thread away from throwing myself off a bridge. But I haven’t yet, so maybe I never will.”

Instead I kept answering questions and waiting for a doctor to come look at my arm. Kept on point for what that visit was about, then Googled more inpatient psychiatric facilities as soon as I got home. I keep wondering if I’m going to have to give up my job, my apartment, my life in this city for another stint in a psych ward. For an outpatient program. For something else than what a therapy appointment a week and a monthly check-in with a psychiatric nurse practitioner can offer. But I guess we’ll see, won’t we?

For now I just keep my nose down. Play Taylor Swift albums loud. Try to remember to eat well, not sleep too much. I focus hard on existing. I’ll figure it out.

Photo courtesy of Samuel Zeller.

Fuel
Autobiography · Mental Health

Fuel

Ruby Pipes5 Comments

They crawl out of the woodwork. People with baked goods and checks in the mail. Text messages to remind me I’m loved and phone calls from old friends. I’m surrounded. Held.

I imagine them at my funeral. Lined up listening to a collection of songs someone decided represent me. Watching some cheesy slideshow that covers the various lives I’ve led. Each person in the crowd failing to recognize at least one of them.

But then again maybe not. Maybe the turnout is better when you stick around. Easy to send some money, a message, make a phone call. Harder to take a day off work and a long drive south.

Doesn’t really matter.

At some point in the last week I decided to live. Had to decide to continue forward despite the dull ache of existence. That’s what people ask when you are committed. “Where did this come from? What happened? This seems so sudden.” But it’s a slow chipping. An erosion of everything I think should make me want to keep on living.

No. That’s not it, either. It is not so simple as saying everything hurts all the time and it’s always been this way. That simply isn’t true.

There are joyous moments. When I lay in bed with my partner. When I see my sister and best friend’s bellies swelling with children. When I share a simple phone call with my father. When my mom hugs me. When I make my brother laugh. When the whole family (yes, Chuck, you, too) sits down to dinner. When Vinnie and I take a smoke break. Long walks in the rain. New rap songs on headphones. Old rap songs of crackling car speakers. A new friend teaching me origami. My coworkers all talking about how much we love our job. Board games. Pizza. Rummy. My roommate asking me to a kill a spider for her. Simple things. Little ones. Depression makes it easy to not notice them. Makes it hard to start noticing again.

They’re right when they call is an emptiness. But it’s really like a slow leak. A dribble. And one day you notice you’re all out of fuel again. When that happens you don’t just stop, though. You get out and you start walking to the next station.

Photo courtesy of Paulia Jadeszko.

Please Help
Autobiography · Mental Health

Please Help

Ruby Pipes6 Comments

This last week involved a visit to the ER, two ambulance rides, an overnight stay in the hospital, and six days in a psychiatric ward as a suicide risk. Two weeks of missing wages and astronomical medical bills puts me in a very financially stressful situation. If you would like to help me get back on my feet please visit PayPal.me/RubyPipes.

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Andrew took my knife from me before I went to the IHOP bathroom. I guess that’s what happens when you buy a bottle of bourbon after close to three years sober and whisper on a cell phone call, “I just don’t want to exist.”

We gorged ourselves on product barely passing as food and made our way to the parking lot. He cried on my shoulder and told me he didn’t know what to do.

Text Nadine. Call Leif. By the end of all the communication I don’t think I had a choice in whether or not I would end up in the ER that night.

When we walked in we were both shell-shocked. Long night. “My therapist told me I should come here because I’m a danger to myself.” I didn’t even recognize my own address as the receptionist repeated it back to me.

You’ll never get service in a hospital faster than when you say you’re going to kill yourself. They swept me back to a secured room. A doctor and three nurses made me change my clothes and hide all my belongings and the medical equipment behind metal garage doors. Just a bed and a chair. Andrew and me.

Social worker made his way in and asked Andrew to leave. The usual questions, like “Do you have a plan?” and “Are you still feeling this way?”

“Yes. Yes.”

Talked for awhile before he went into the other room and spoke with Andrew. Came back and told me I could go to inpatient care voluntarily or he would turn me over to the county and I could go against my will.

Andrew slept on the floor in the ER while they tried to find me a bed in a hospital where I could stay before they found me a bed in a psych ward.

Ambulance ride. Another secured room with paper food trays and a nurse who had to sit next to me at all times. Leave the door open when you use the restroom. We don’t trust you with yourself and for good reason.

Another ambulance ride. Check in. Turn over all my belongings. Cell phone, sobriety necklace. Strip down in front of a nurse. Squat and cough. Escorted to my room and then left alone for the first time in two days.

Three girls come in. “Will we overwhelm you if we introduce ourselves?” Exchange names and “What are you in for?” questions. Everyone here is dangerous. And I’ve never been so safe.

Photo courtesy of Priscilla Westra.