Mental Health = Physical Health

TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE

This is my experience with the suicide hotline and behavioral health wing at a hospital so it’s not indicative of how the hotline may be. I don’t want to discourage people from contacting the hotline or receiving help from professionals.

On the night of January 27th, 2021, I had spoken to a couple of friends and browsed through LinkedIn, finding out that many people had recently been offered internships and more. I had started to panic. I immediately started beating myself up for sitting around and moping for three months while suffering from depression. I had flashbacks of staring at my laptop and iPad, thinking about all the work I could've done instead of sitting in bed and sleeping or crying. I was beating myself up harder and harder. I started to spiral and spiral. It felt like I would never be successful. Thinking about all the school work I kept falling behind on, the lack of internships that I had applied to, the lack of concentration and motivation, just everything- I couldn't handle it. On top of that, I felt like a terrible person while my social circle decreased and decreased. Everything felt like it was crashing down; I felt like I had no purpose and that there was no point in trying anymore. I didn't want to take pointless prerequisite business classes and apply to all these finance internships; I didn't want to spend any more time at my desk looking at my computer. I didn't want to interact with anyone or have any friends anymore. I felt like all I was doing was messing up over and over again. I felt like I was just a burden on everyone around me and that everyone would inevitably leave me. I wanted to be done. I wanted to die.

At the time, I was texting my boyfriend in a panic. I couldn't handle it. Nothing was helping, and I felt helpless and pathetic. I wanted to rip my clothes off; I wanted to run out of the house; I just felt trapped and suffocated and wanted to leave. My boyfriend quickly got worried and urged me to call the suicide hotline. I refused to at first, but after some time, I caved. I thought it might help, and I wanted to do it for him. I thought the hotline might've been able to help me calm down; I thought I would be able to talk to a professional openly and calm down a little because I couldn't expect my boyfriend to make me feel better. But I wasn't expecting what came next.

I called the hotline and had to listen to an automated message first and then click a number. When I had to do that, I considered hanging up and trying to figure it out independently. I thought to myself, what if someone was in a far worse situation than I was in and hung up and just decided to commit suicide. Nevertheless, I waited till they connected me with an operator. I expected the operator to be calm and kind, but he met me with a tired and dull voice. He asked me why I was calling and several questions about my personal information just in case someone needed to be sent over. When I started to open up about why I wanted to die and what exactly contributed to my mental health issues, he almost guilt-tripped me. "You're only 19. How do you think this would make your family feel or your little brother." While I understand his point, it wasn't something I wanted to hear at the moment; it made me feel worse, it made me feel more inadequate, and that I was only going to mess up more. I had told him that the pressures of college and career success made me feel anxious every day and that the falling out I had with one of my friends made me feel like a terrible person worth nothing. I had told him that if I were going to kill myself, it would've been in a month after my boyfriend's birthday. He kept telling me to hold on because he was talking to his supervisor about what to do. When he had decided that it would be best if he spoke to my parents or send someone over, I decided I would wake my mom up and have him talk to my mom. They spoke on the phone for about 15 minutes while I sat with my dog and played with him on the staircase. All I overheard from their conversation was my mom saying, "she's always been a good student; she got As in high school and has been doing well in college too." After their conversation, my mom told me that we were going to the ER to be evaluated. I took the phone back, and the guy said he'd call back in 2 hours to check up and told me where to go. I hung up, updated my boyfriend and best friend, and put on socks.

My parents were shocked. They knew I had been seeing a psychiatrist and that I was on medication, and they knew I had struggled with mental health for years, but they had no idea it was this severe. My mom tried to get me to open up to her a little even tho I dismissed her, but my dad was silent. Rudo was excited because he thought we were taking him on a walk, LOL, but he stayed back with my brother and grandma. The whole car ride to the hospital was silent and nauseating. We got to the ER, and luckily it was empty. We had to sit in the waiting room for about 15 minutes before someone came to take me in. While we were waiting, my mom was trying to get more out of me. But I was just upset and not in the mood. A couple of weeks before, I had gone to my parents' room crying, asking to move out for this semester because I felt trapped and suffocated at home. I wasn't met with a friendly response, and it caused tension between my family and me and caused me to feel more depressed and stuck. I kept this memory in mind and told my mother to stop and that she could've done something a couple of weeks ago, but instead, she and my dad had just told me to stop the drama.

The lady called me in, and I had to give my phone and jacket to my mom. One more nurse accompanied the lady, and they brought me into a small room. Neither of them had directly addressed me; they were talking about me. They were very dull and carefree and had just ordered me to do things. I had to give them my rings and strip naked. They were instructed to watch me as I stripped naked to make sure I couldn't carry anything that I would kill myself with. The entire time, neither of them had said a word to comfort me or ask how I was doing. They didn't even give me alternate underwear, just a gown, and uncomfortable socks. They bagged up my belongings, gave me a cup for my urine, and led me to a room. On the way to my room, I saw another girl, probably in high school, watching TV with her father next to her. The room was dirty, dusty, and had a twin-sized bed with raggedy sheets. I sat on the edge of the bed uncomfortably.

Soon a nurse came in; she was the only pleasant interaction I had had all night. She was sweet and had asked me how I was doing. She took my vitals and told me the bathroom was being cleaned and that I had to wait, and then she left. I had a few more run-ins with her and another nurse who came to conduct an EKG. The bathroom finally opened up, and I gave them my urine sample. I waited in the room for about an hour, or so I think; time was going by extremely slow. I had double-masked, but I could still smell the faint smell of the behavioral health wing- it smelled like a clean dog? Finally, the nurse that had initially taken me in came in to ask me some questions. I told her the entire story from my last blog post, and halfway through, she kind of just stopped listening or taking notes. After I had finished explaining what had happened that night and what I had been going through, she asked me, "do you talk to your mother?" I was confused by the question, but I thought, "she's a professional just answer," so I answered and said "a little bit." She then went on to talk about how she had just spoken to my mother and that she felt heartbroken watching my mother cry because I don't open up to my mom. Again, I understand, but why on earth would she tell me this at that point in time. As if I didn't already feel pathetic and like a disappointment. I just said, ok, I'll talk to her. Next, she explained the next steps. She said she had to speak to the psychiatrist on call and ask him what he thought. She said that I would either be discharged and sent home for outpatient care, which was just what I was already doing (seeing my psychiatrist and therapist), or they would take me to inpatient care at a facility. She then explained that if I refused to go to inpatient care, I would have to be committed and that it would be on my record and would hinder any plans of getting a gun...or a job. I said ok, and she walked out.

I had to wait for what felt like another hour before she came back in to tell me that they would discharge me. She told me to call my mom and dad in the parking lot and let them know while waiting for discharge papers and my vital results to come back. I had to wait ONE MORE hour for them to get everything finalized. In that hour, I walked around the room, read signs in Spanish to work on my Spanish, and got hand sanitizer 2796492 times, and I panicked and felt pathetic. I also witnessed a black woman getting mistreated in a different room and had another dull and unpleasant conversation with an ER doctor about what had happened that night. Soon, I was finally given my belongings and clothes in time to be discharged. They gave me the bag, closed the door, and let me change. The nice curse first closed the blinds, but then I noticed the camera behind me in the room, and then the other nurse came back 2 seconds later and opened the blinds. I felt like I was on display and as if I was a child. I quickly tried to put on my clothes without being seen through the blinds or the camera, opened the door, and waited to be escorted. The lovely nurse came in with a bundle of papers about the hospital, my discharge papers, blood work, and some resources and told me to continue seeing my psychiatrist and therapist. Finally, another nurse escorted me out to my parents, and we drove home, and I tried to go to bed despite this traumatic experience.

Ugh, where do I even start? Mental healthcare in the U.S. is absolutely fucked. Excuse my potty mouth, but I don't know any other way to say that. I've never felt so pathetic and mistreated in my life. Even now, the night is such a traumatic experience that haunts me. The problem with mental healthcare is that it's scarce and it's not the best, and the problem lies in that people don't treat mental health as they do physical health. I remember senior year when my mom was looking for a therapist that dealt with teens and eating disorders; she couldn't find ANYONE. It took us a month to find a therapist that took our insurance or to find a therapist at all. You would think that there would be many therapists that dealt with eating disorders in adolescents since it is an issue that almost all teenage girls experience. I've been hospitalized before for gastritis and problems with asthma, and quite frankly, I enjoyed the stay. The rooms are much cleaner, the nurses are nicer, and I was just treated better. But this entire behavioral health wing felt like a prison. From my first interaction with a nurse, till they discharged me, the whole thing was just terrible. Let's start with the hotline operator. While he was a nice man, he could've had a much more welcoming and calm tone when speaking to me. Instead, he sounded bothered and like he wanted to be anywhere else. Additionally, I don't think the hotline should have an automated message or anything like that because, in the 1 minute that it took to connect me to an operator, I could've just hung up and killed myself. Second, the operator should NOT have guilt tripped me while I was in the state. I was saying that I would just hurt my family, which made me feel worse.

Now for the hospital. I understand why they have specific protocols in place for more severe cases than mine. They probably have had patients bring in objects to hurt themselves with, so I understand. But, to not give me underwear and not even address me publicly and ask me how I was doing? As if I was some lab rat they talked about right in front of me, it was de-humanizing. Now, I know all doctors' offices and hospitals are guilty of making patients wait hours and hours, so I guess I can't comment too much on that. But the state of the room I was possibly supposed to stay the night in was disgusting, and I don't understand why. It genuinely felt like a prison; it was dusty, the sheets were dirty and old, it was just terrible. I'm a person with severe allergies and eczema, and if not for my masks, I probably would've had a sneezing fit. The black woman I mentioned before did have allergies because of the room she was in, and no one was helping her. At one point, she had to sit outside of the room because of her allergies, and all the nurses were yelling at her instead of just giving her Zyrtec or something; it was utterly ridiculous. This is just proof of the disparities in healthcare for black women. Let's talk about the nurse that had come to evaluate me. She was cold the entire night, especially when she had asked me to strip naked, she had opened the blinds while I was changing, and she had offered me no help. I don't understand why the nurse would disregard anything I had told her about my mental health and talk about my mother. I do care about my mother, and I don't want her to feel the way she did, and I can't even imagine what it feels like almost to lose your child, but the nurse's focus that night should've been me and only me. She made me feel like I was being dramatic for feeling the way I felt and that it could just be solved by talking to my mother, who doesn't know a lot about mental health or how to deal with it. Not to mention, she said that if I refused care, it would go on my record as if it was something criminal I was doing. To almost threaten me like that made me realize just how fucked the entire system is. It isn't my or anyone's fault for suffering from mental health issues, and if they are forced to receive the care, they shouldn't be penalized for that in the future when they're healed. The hospital offered me no help; I had just spent 4 hours panicking and feeling de-humanized only so they could bill my parents and tell me to do exactly what I had already been doing- going to a psychiatrist and a therapist. They did not check up on me or offer more intensive care. They did absolutely nothing for me that night. Again, mental healthcare in the U.S. is absolutely fucked.

Now I don't blame my boyfriend for asking me to call the hotline, and I wouldn't discourage anyone from calling it or asking a loved one to contact it if you believe you have reason to, but I don't think that course of action was right for me given the extent of my issues. It was more traumatizing than helpful. But again, if you have a probable reason you should call the hotline or go to the ER, it's better to be safe than sorry. And this one experience at this hospital is not to say that all hospitals are the same, but Penn Medicine needs to fucking do better. These "professionals" should learn how to talk to someone in crisis- if I was met by someone like the nurse that was nice to me on the hotline and at the waiting room, maybe this experience would've helped. Also, my parents didn't need to spend god knows how much money, and I didn't need to waste 4 hours of my life to be told to DO THE SAME THINGS I HAD ALREADY BEEN DOING. Ugh. The moral of the story is: mental healthcare in the U.S. needs work, and disparities in healthcare for black women need to be addressed. My psychiatrist had an appointment for the very next day from her home even though she wasn't working that day and talked to me about increasing my dosage and minimizing stress factors in my life, which helped me not completely lose all faith in mental healthcare.

Finally, I want to mention that my parents are great and have always supported me and never pushed me to the edge. They have poorly reacted in the past, but they did not know the full story. My mother has always been there to support me, and she's helped me when I needed it. Ever since that night in the ER, my parents have been more caring, attentive, and helpful, and it shows. So I guess one good thing did come out of that night.

Again, please call the suicide hotline if you or a loved one is experiencing suicidal tendencies, don't let this post deter you as everyone can have different experiences, and it may help.

If you or someone you know needs help, visit our suicide prevention resources page.

If you need support right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386, or text "START" to 741-741.