A Cry for Help

Trigger warning: suicide

"Alright and what issues are you seeking counseling for?"

"I...I don't want to be alive anymore." I feel my body heat up as I finally say the words I've held back for months. I can hear the weight of my admission travel through the phone and land on the intake screener's desk.

"Oh." She says. I get the sense that she's pulling out the 'what to say' binder and flipping through the pages. "I have a few follow-up questions to ask you if that's okay."

"Okay." I say. I feel numb, like I'm having an out-of-body experience watching myself make the call that I hope will save my life.

"Please try to answer honestly." She is the perfect blend of professional and empathetic.

She goes on to ask me several questions about the frequency and detail of my suicidal thoughts. I feel embarrassed because I'm 32 years old, I should have a grasp on this shit by now.

Do I have a plan?

Do I have access to a gun?

How often do I have these thoughts?

How badly do I want to die?

I tell her how I fantasize about crashing my car into a telephone pole. About how I drive too fast down the roads I know to be infested with deer this time of year. About how every time I hold a knife, I imagine stabbing myself in the stomach, the blood soaking my shirt and hands, the paramedics putting me on a stretcher.

I tell her how I'm hopeless and angry all the time. Nothing feels good. Most days I feel sad, angry, or hopeless. On the occasional "good day" I just feel blank. Not good, but a break from feeling so awful. I am the hollow man, a ghost that haunts my own life.

"Do you have a support network?" she asks after I finish explaining how I probably wouldn't call 9-1-1 for help other than to ask them to collect my body before my family returned home.

For some reason that was the question the hurt the worst. "No," I said, "I don't think so."

She thanks me for my honesty and explains that the therapist that I need to talk to is in session, but she will send him the intake notes and forward me to his voice mailbox so I can leave my information to schedule emergency counseling. He should reach back to me later that day, she tells me before swapping me over.

Two weeks pass before I sheepishly leave another voicemail for the therapist. "Hi, it's me again, I uhh, never heard from anybody and I'm sorry if I'm wasting your time. I just thought I should have heard back from somebody by now, but maybe my case isn't as serious as some other people so I get it if I need to wait. I'm not trying to jump the line or anything. I'm off work today so I'll be available all day to talk."

The next morning I get a call back from the therapist, J. He says for whatever reason, my voicemail was lost in the mix and never made it to him, so he is glad I called. We schedule a consult for that afternoon.

During the consult, we discuss treatment options. The most appealing one is something called PHP, a "Partial Hospitalization Program." It seems like suicide daycare, a ten-day program from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. with lunch and group sessions as well as one-on-one with therapists and psychiatrists.

I am concerned about whether my insurance will cover it, since they fight me each year when it is time to re-authorize my Renflexis infusions for my ulcerative colitis. My doctor has to fight with them each and every time because my insurance company insists they are not actually medically necessary.

J assures me that with my intake notes, "this is a slam dunk for PHP. SI? With methods? I've only seen insurance decline one PHP request in ten years, and none with this level of severity. I don't want to alarm you, but you're on the edge. The line between you being alive and fine today and killing yourself tomorrow is razor thin."

But what about my job? It's Thursday today, if the program starts Monday, that's hardly any notice to cover my shifts for the next two weeks. J points out that I were to get covid and need to stay home, there would be little warning as well, but they would be fine. I give in and tell him to put me down for Monday.

It's Sunday morning at 2 a.m. I feel like I've run a thousand miles with a broken leg and now I can see the finish line. I just have to make it through one more day. I've already explained to pretty much everybody at work where I'll be and why. They are all surprised, "You seem so happy. I never would have guessed." I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to say in return, but they are supportive and happy for me.

I did it, and I didn't think I could.