Documenting my journey through the mental health system

Death is on my mind lately. I am surrounded by it. It walks the halls of my hospitals, and I swear I can see the reaper the moment a patient dies.

I’ve had two patients die on me this week. I have another circling the drain, but he’s a full code and the family won’t change that. Now he’s agitated and in restraints because we live too long and we have all these machines that ensure we live too long, suffering.

I am only 39 and I’m certainly not a full code. I’m a DNI, chest compressions are fine but no intubation. Once you’re intubated, the chances of ever living a normal life again drop drastically. No tube feeds, no life sustaining measures, none of that. I will be fully functional, or dead. There’s no in-between.

It’s not lost on me how funny it is that I can have such a fear and distrust of our medical system, such skepticism for the majority of invasive medical procedures, and yet I work in this shit, no problem. It’s okay for others, but not for me. I can’t imagine going through some of what these patients in med/surg go through, some of them willingly. It’s too much. Too many tubes and wires and beeping and alarming. Why do we cling to life so desperately? Would people really rather live sick, shitting in bags, than die in peace? Is life really that great?

I suppose it is, to some. Our lifespans are so short, and this implies we should get all the life we can, at any cost. But I would rather have short quality over long quantity. Everyone says that, but few people actually live by it. The truth is, we cling to life desperately.

I know what it’s like to want to let go. To be rid of life. I will never see life as sacred or any such nonsense like that. I don’t think we have any inherent purpose or value. I can feel and hear the whispers that call me to suicide and remind me of the despair that sits deep in my core. I could never cling to life as a desperate man, rather, I fight to stay alive as a suicidal man.