I was packing for a visit to my sister's house when a relative called me this morning, in tears, asking me to come to her. When I arrived there, she sobbed out her woes to me. I already knew she had been in the process of breaking up with her boyfriend for several months. She kept going back and trying again, and he would be nice just often enough to string her along. Our whole family knew he was using her, and, deep down inside, she knew it, too, but kept hoping he would change. Then she found out he had been having sex with another woman while claiming to be "working things out" with my relative. The accusations flew back and forth. He blamed it all on her, which is not at all fair. But then, he has a track record for not taking responsibility for his own behaviors.
The other woman spread some lies, and dragged other friends into her drama, and they got mad, and my relative and her ex had yet another blowup via social media and texts. In the end, my relative felt completely worthless, hopeless, and ready to die. She told me she has been considering suicide for several days. She went for a lot of drives just to distract herself, but the thoughts persisted. She just wanted to be dead.
So I called the suicide hotline and asked what to do. As a result, I drove her to the hospital emergency room. We didn't have to wait long to be taken to a room, but everything else took forever. First, the nurse came in and asked hundreds of questions. Then the phlebotomist came to draw blood, which was not easily accomplished because my relative has not been eating or drinking much for a few days. (Whenever she tried, it just came up again.) Then the doctor came in, and then another one.
Eventually she was moved to a small room in the far corner of the E.R., with something closer to a real bed. Someone from behavioral health came to talk with her there, and to discuss admitting her to their wing of the hospital for a few days for further evaluation and medication adjustments and such. She agreed to it, albeit reluctantly.
By then, we had been in the E.R. four hours. The next step was a Covid test, because she couldn't be admitted if she had that virus. They call it a "quick test,", and it certainly was a lot quicker than 2-3 days, but when you are sitting in the E.R., an additional four hours seems like a very long time. That's how long it took to get her negative result back. Then another half hour wait for the behavioral health nurse to come with a wheelchair and take her away.
During all that waiting, my relative had time to have second thoughts about being admitted. She was understandably afraid of the unknown, doesn't like new situations, figured she wouldn't get any sleep, thought they might make her participate in group therapy, and didn't want to be alone. She just wanted to go home to her dog and her own bed. The nurse assured her that her feelings were normal, and that she would not be alone, and that she wouldn't have to participate in anything that would make her anxious.
My relative kept looking at me with those pleading puppy-dog eyes, but I remained firm in my resolve to not ask them to discharge her. After all she has been through, and after the suicidal thoughts and talk, I was not going to just take her back to her home. Lord knows she has made me uncomfortable many times, and I've lost a lot of sleep because of her attitudes and behaviors. She needs professional help, and if it isn't all sunshine and roses in the process, maybe it's her turn to feel uncomfortable for a little while. I hope that sounds like tough love, not heartlessness.
It was a long nine hours at the hospital. I am going to go to bed now, and I hope I sleep well. I hope she sleeps well in the hospital. I hope and pray she gets the help she needs, and stays as long as she needs to be there. I hope and pray she gets her life in order and can come to terms with her past and then leave it behind her. She is a precious child of God, with so much potential. My heart aches for her.