Emergency Department & Thought-stopping

Emergency Department and Thought-Stopping

“You should really try thought-stopping,” the female doctor in charge of emergency said,

How about you try shutting the fuck up?! I wish I’d replied.

After waiting for hours late at night,

To get into this little room and then being quizzed by a young intern,

And now I had to deal with this woman,

Help didn’t seem to be on the horizon anytime soon, that’s for sure.

“Indulging in this kind of negativity is not healthy,” she continued.

Thanks doc, I AM in the hospital bed, can you fuckin’ help me? I thought.

“Stopping thoughts is a really good technique - I do it,” she exalted!

Woopity-doo! Good for you!

“Yet, I’ve been told by my doctor for anxiety at Flinders,

to allow the thoughts, confront the thoughts,

and be exposed to these -

as a process of exposure therapy!” I said instead.

My dose of a nightly anti-psychotic was quickly kicking in and

I was getting drowsy and slowing down like a flailing automaton,

About to fall asleep; those drugs will knock you right out.

“Right, well I don’t know about that,” she responded.

“So, now I don’t know what to believe..,” I groaned.

She kept glancing first at me and then at my mum,

Who was sitting down in the corner of the little room,

Just staring like I was the most pathetic specimen she’d come across.

I followed her telling eyes and then looked down,

on the hospital bed I was sitting on.

Then Silence. Stop talking down to me and my mum, I thought.

Rage was starting to boil.

We want help, not you glaring at me,

with those eyes of judgement.

You don’t know anything about me.

“I’ve got the severe anxiety, the depression and the OCD,

with the paralysing intrusions in my mind - I told her,

These terrifying intrusive pictures and thoughts I cannot control,

that send me into panic and disassociation,

So, ‘thought stopping’? I just don’t know?..” I said calmly.

I wiped my eyes, drained and emotional,

and feeling that I was about to pass out from the drugs.

“Look at you - just sitting there - crying in bed, with his mum!”

“If you could see yourself,” she said with distain.

“Get out! Get out!” I jumped out of bed - lunged at her!

Pointing my finger in reprimand violently towards her face,

She stepped back towards the door.

“Stop demeaning me!” I screamed. “Get out! Get out!

The doctor leaves the room, and mum who was sitting down,

Bursts into tears and walks out.

While dad quickly enters and pacifies me, I can hear the doctor bitching about me outside,

I have super-hearing abilities when I need to use these.

And then the Security comes.

“You’re going to need to leave NOW,” they say.

My blood is boiling.

Fuck you motherfucka -

You spiteful ignorant cunt, I thought. That woman, that horrible woman.

Now you want me to leave? Again, getting no help nor respite,

From this sky-rocketing disorder, that shows the limitations

of emergency departments for mental health,

I was edging so deeply into suicide, it’s all I ever thought about.

I couldn’t be at home alone anymore,

But we have to send you off now. Goodbye!

You don’t know me, I thought.

You don’t know anything about me.

Do you even know who I am?!

I picked up my backpack, grabbed my jumper,

and quietly left the emergency department.

2019.

* Thanks for reading my (very) free verse poem. If you liked it, please let me know by hitting the heart and commenting to help encourage and support further poems and stories of mine. Many thanks.

You can also check out my recent poem “Intrusions and OCD” here: