Documenting my journey through the mental health system

“How are you feeling, Angel?”

“Shitty. I want to die.”

“Are you still thinking of suicide?”

“All the time.”

“Do you feel safe in the hospital?”

The morning of my assessment, the next day on a Thursday. The very nurse who took my bedding and shower curtain was conducting it, and it was curiously early. I knew what “safe” meant.

“I know exactly what to do. It’s so simple. I just need a minute, just a minute between their room checks. I’ll merely hang myself from the door.”

Immediately, I cringed. I couldn’t believe what I’d just admitted. I knew it would work too. The room’s second bed’s mattress would make a perfect jump off point. I only needed a minute. But I had no filter.

“Every second…of every minute…of every hour…is pain,” I sobbed. “God I can’t do it anymore. I just want to die.” She was signaling another nurse through the window of the assessment room.

The other nurse came in and sat down. They conferred with each other.

“Angel is going to need an enhanced safety plan.” She turned to me. “To be completely transparent with you Angel, we’re going to remove all the items from your room, including your clothes, and place you in an anti-suicide smock.”

I didn’t even look up, just cried harder. I got up and went to my room, but it was locked. I sat on the floor by the door, sobbing, and another patient sat across from me.

“Do you want someone to sit with you?” I just shrugged. But she did sit with me, and I muttered how I would never get better. I swiped my wet face with my hands, tears dousing me.

They came with the smock and made me strip down to nothing. “We’ll try not to look, Angel. You step into it from here,” and she turned her head. I was barely able to do this, heaving as I cried. The smock was heavy, thick, and cumbersome, made of the same material as the anti-suicide blanket.

They took my socks, the two sets of hospital pajamas I’d been issued, even my underwear. The room’s second bed’s mattress!! I was allowed to keep my journal and the couple books I had, as well as the earplugs I’d been given for my sensitivity to noise.

I’ve been through some extremely challenging mental health emergencies I barely survived, but the humiliation of the suicide smock was among my lowest points in life. I curled up on the floor right where I’d been made to put it on, heaving with sobs, desperate for death, oh god let me die… I did not think I could cry so much; I did not think I could feel any more despair and hopelessness, I did not think I could lose every shred of dignity I had left.

They came in after several minutes to pick me up off the floor. They put a pill in my mouth and I swallowed it. “Lie down,” and I felt them pushing me into my suicide blanket. I wouldn’t be able to move again for another 36 hours.