Issue 11.1 Fall 2015

11.1 cover image

 

 

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Alyssa Dohse

 

 

“Do you have a plan?” is the first question they ask when you say you want to kill yourself.  


And I did.

 

But I couldn’t decide which way would be less painful on my family- on my mother. Would “accidently” taking too many pills or “loosing control” at the wheel into oncoming traffic be less painful? Or would the cliché jumping off of a bridge or out of a window bring fewer questions up. I couldn’t decide. All I knew was I had hit rock bottom.

 

I was a minor. I was shy of being an “adult”. Two months away from being 18. It was Friday, November 22, 2010.  I was sitting in a firm, uncomfortable, cold emergency waiting room chair waiting for my name to be called for them to check my vitals. My mother was sitting next to me. I was a minor; she was required to be with me.

 

Sitting in the chair, waiting for my name to be called I tried to replay the past couple hours in my head. But realistically it was the past couple months. How had my life gotten so out of control? It began when I got home from school. It was Friday. What senior in high school isn’t happy it’s Friday? Me, apparently. I confessed to my mom that I was suicidal, that I hated my life and that I needed help.

 

That was a huge step for me.

 

The once close relationship I had with my mother grew apart during this time. Maybe that was a symptom of depression, or maybe we really did grow apart.

 

Mayb---“Alyssa Dohse?” my thoughts were interrupted by the on-call staff nurse. I stood up and followed her to the back. Normally when I have been in the emergency room they take me to a small room to take down my medical history, check my vitals, all that fun stuff, but this time was different. The nurse led me down a winding hallway, a hallway I had never been. We stopped at a room with a tall, slender man in uniform standing outside of it.

 

The nurse handed me a plastic bag, “Take off all of your clothes, put this gown and put all of your personal belongings in here.” And she exited the room closing the curtain behind her. I did as she said and sat down on the bed when I was done.

 

I looked around the room. There was a cabinet that had a lock on it. There was a TV on the wall that also had a lock on it. I looked for a remote but there was not one attached to the bed, like the other emergency room beds.

 

What was I doing here?

What am I doing here?

Why am I here?

All these things are locked?

Why are these things locked?

 

Knock, knock, knock.

 

My mom entered and sat down in the same familiar, firm, uncomfortable chair we were sitting in in the waiting room. I didn’t want to look at her; I didn’t want to see the disappointment in her eyes. I didn’t want her to see me like this. I didn’t want her to look differently at her only daughter.


I again began to think of how I got here, why I am here in this strict, locked protected room. It wasn’t stress; I normally handle stress pretty well. My school load was the same. My after school activities were the same. No recent stressful event or trigger had happened. So why was I sitting here wanting to kill myself?


One trigger I could think of was when I got two minor concussions within two weeks my sophomore year. Even though my concussions were minor, with them being two weeks apart they were to be treated as regular concussions because my brain had not healed properly from the first.


I saw doctor after doctor, was recommended to neurologist after neurologist. Tried different types of medication to try and get rid of the daily headaches and migraines the concussions resulted in. I missed days, most likely added up to weeks of school because I was unable to function as a human.

 

Yes, those were some of the worst days of my life. I was missing out on living because I was stuck with physical pain internally. I had migraines, 6 out of the 7 days of the week. It wasn’t like a broken arm or bone that you could see the healing process. It was all-internal pain and the only way others could know how I was feeling, was based what I told them. It was my word against everything else, against all test or science out there. MRI’s were ran, CT scans, so many tests and medications were tried yet nothing was working. I was so desperate for answers; at times I wished it were a brain tumor just so I had an answer. I was dealing with pain every single day and no one understood.

 

At times, I wish on the MRI that a rare brain tumor would appear, that that was the cause for my migraines. That all of this pain and agony I was experiencing would be solved, and I would be taken away from the life I was currently living. In my unrealistic thinking, it made sense. It was a win-win, in my head.
Maybe my thought process was just symptom of depression? Or maybe I truly wished for all that. 
Knock, knock, knock.

 

A psychiatrist entered. We talked for what seemed like hours. Deciphering, analyzing, understanding why it is why I feel the way I feel. Her and I both concluded I didn’t need to be admitted because I was not actually suicidal; that I did not in fact have an actual plan to kill myself. And I didn’t. They were all thoughts and hopes in my head but I never had actual intentions to act them out. The psychiatrist, my mother and I made a plan to put me in the outpatient psychiatric adolescent program.

 

One week later, on November 29th, 2010 was my first day at the outpatient program. The first day was “orientation”, getting acclimated to the place with their schedule and daily routine along with paper work. During the paper work process, the nurse said the average stay for outpatient members was 5-7 days.

 

I was there for 21.

 

 

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