Tag Archives: Health Care System

God Is A Better Blogger Than I Am

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An interesting thing has happened since I started this blog. I have had to face my own suicidal impulses in front of the world so to speak. For example I would start a blog on resources for someone who is coping with suicide. But in the background I would be talking with God about why I am feeling suicidal. Finally I would stop the blog I was writing and write about the conversation I was having with God. There have been several breakthroughs with this technique. First I discovered that I needed to move both my home but especially my church. I found that I wasn’t getting what I needed in either of those situations. Once I made the decision to move the suicidal thoughts left me and haven’t come back. I don’t think the thoughts will come back because since moving to a new church I realize that the lack of nourishment in my original church really made me feel unwanted and unfed. This is nobody’s fault but my own. My unwillingness to face that I needed to make a big change and leave behind what little support I had left me clinging to my old church and unwilling to move on. God used this blog to help me see it.

Yesterday I was blogging on prayer and suicidal thoughts and I sensed my heart wasn’t in it even though it is the central issue for people facing this problem. I stopped the blog and opened a new screen and knew I needed to write honestly about the rage that had come on me in the last few days. I felt deeply ashamed of the rage and though I didn’t want to write about it I felt God was urging me on. I prayed as I wrote, just telling about the rage.

Suddenly an answer materialized as I wrote. That I was in a rage at a former therapist whom I felt deserted me when I needed him most. God gave me that missing and vital piece of information. I had no idea that was the source of my rage. As I continued to write about the situation I kept blaming the therapist but God kept calling me back to my accountability in the situation. From my perspective the therapist let me down but how I chose to use it was up to me. God wouldn’t let me off the hook. Finally I wrote “it is what it is” and the rage fell from me. I am not accountable to the therapist and he is not accountable to me. I could let go of the situation and by the grace of God I did. The rage that was pushing me to kill myself fell from me like a cloak from the shoulders.

Unfortunately I published the blog last night instead of waiting until this morning and re-reading it. In it I said that the therapist is not a good man. I can’t know that. That isn’t even my experience of the man. I don’t know why he did what he did. It may have been with the kindest of motives which I can’t even imagine.

So I ask all of you who read that blog to forgive me for saying the therapist was not a good man. I was not being a good Christian when I published that.

Aging and Suicide

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Today a release in the Albuquerque Journal Staff Wire headlined “Brother, Sister Die in Likely Murder-Suicide.” Police identified the victims as Kenneth and Shirley Robson, both of whom were in their 60′s. The brother was a caretaker for his sister and they lived in a mobile home. Police detectives speculate that either health or financial problems prompted the murder-suicide.

Perhaps their problems might have been spiritual. I wonder if loneliness and fear were the motivating factors. Our society is one that promises a “safety net”. But what is the safety net for despair? Did the brother in seeking help for his sister get handed a lot of forms with stern admonitions about qualifying for help. Was he met with hard faces at the agencies where he went for help? Did he belong to a church? Did the church look beneath the surface to see the despair? Or were they just overlooked by all these organizations of help as a an unnecessary impediment to their mission.

People over 80 have the highest rates of suicide in the country. Why? They are too often left alone to cope on insufficient incomes and illness without people who befriend them.

While there are many people genuinely trying to help people like the Robsons, I don’t think that government agencies or even churches are the best way for them to get help. Neighbor’s who look out for warning signs, who visit even though they have busy lives, who try to understand the neglected and desperate are the foundation of help. It is so easy to turn a blind eye to the desperate.

How often when I have tried to help someone who seemed needy have I been rebuffed or perhaps my help was abused; the need was feigned. As a consequence I have found myself looking away from problems and letting myself grow cynical. When I do this I miss the chance to help someone genuinely in need that God is calling me to help. I am sure that what I have done is a terrible thing in th<a
Let's look around us and notice those in need. Those who aren't visited, who remain alone day after day and remember what our Lord said about helping our neighbor and the widow and the orphan. Let's not wait for the agency to step in but get them the help they need.

Please let me know what you think about the Robson's. It may be that nothing could have been done. Yet again something might have been done and wasn't. God forgive us if that is true.

All I Did Was Ask for a Prescription

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Yesterday I once again entered the Kafkaesque medical world. After going to a nurse practitioner at my doctor’s office and to the grocery store I returned home to find two cop cars in front of my house.

I parked and went up to the police and yes they had an order to take me to the hospital for evaluation of being at risk of suicide. They allowed me to put some things in the frig and I called a neighbor to ask her to board my dogs.

The police took me to the hospital in the back seat of the cop car. My neighbors were gawking, and I, of course, was totally humiliated. Once at the hospital they told me to strip naked and put on a hospital gown with no shoes, no phone and no glasses. Next they put me in a room on the psych ward with no door and I then waited 20 hours before being evaluated.

It all started at my Monday morning appointment to see a nurse practitioner about another problem. I had decided to bring up the problem of depression after my episode on Sunday. Previously I have been reluctant to take yet another antidepressant since they have so many side effects. I explained the problem of depression to the nurse and she asked if I had thoughts of suicide.

I carefully answered that yes, I had thoughts of suicide, but I had no intention of taking my life. On the contrary I told her of my dedication to not doing so. I even told her about my blog. She was not impressed.

While I was speaking the nurse was typing every word I said verbatim into her online computer. She continued asking questions that were almost accusatory.

I was becoming extremely uneasy with her typing. It wasn’t a normal health care visit, it was more like she was taking my deposition. She didn’t meet my eye, she just asked questions and typed. Finally I asked her why; she said that’s the way she did it. I asked her to stop and she said no.

I told her that I thought my visit with her was a mistake and that I was leaving because I did not want every word I said available to the entire health system and any other person who gained access to it. My very own Nurse Ratchat asked if I was coming back and I said no, not to her.

The good part of my incarceration was that I prayed for most of the 20 hours I was there and regained my composure. Finally the counselor interviewed me and agreed that I wasn’t suicidal and had not needed an evaluation. After about an hour and a half they released me and I gladly walked the three miles home in the hot Albuquerque sun.

The first thing I did when I got home was call my health care provider and tell them to give me a new primary care physician. They asked me who I wanted and told them I didn’t care just so I got rid of the one I had.