Tag Archives: Health

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.

Treatment of Grief in the Therapeutic Community

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Currently the American Psychiatric Association is in the process of classifying grief as an illness. I wonder if grief isn’t essential to being human  My own journey through the mental health system may shed some light on how it sees Christianity as a barrier to mental health and how that system seems to have lost sight of the welfare of those it is treating.  I invite your comments on this posting. Please let me know your own experiences.

After my husband took his own life I resumed therapy with a trusted therapist.  He was extremely helpful in the beginning.  He was supportive of my grief and helped me with my fears that I had neglected to see the signs of my husbands decline.  I worked with him for over a year.  In addition to the grief over my husband’s suicide I was dealing with the loss of my Christian faith which became a frequent topic of therapy. I often expressed to my therapist that I was grieving for God more than I was for my husband. My therapist failed to pick up the signal that the loss of faith was a major reason for my depression. I don’t know if his failure was due to incompetence or simply if he saw this as a chance to enlighten me with his view which was secular and saw meaning as relative.

I believe that though I was questioning my faith even before I met with this therapist, it might have been a simple step back to faith had I been encouraged to look at my doubts without relativist preconceptions.  I might have avoided a mental  breakdown.  Instead I became suicidal.  I was definitely planning to commit suicide at that time.

At this point the story becomes Kafkaesque.  My therapist called the police and reported that I was suicidal.  A Swat Team arrived at the house.  Though I made no attempt on my life the police forced me to go to the hospital for evaluation.  When I arrived there, I called my therapist as he had asked me to do and which I assumed was out of  concern for my welfare.  Instead he arranged with the head psychiatrist to force me to admit myself.  The nurse who had evaluated my mental state was ready to release me.  Instead I was admitted to the hospital  involuntarily. Later when I met with the psychiatrist he told me he was going to put me away in a state hospital for a month which was the maximum amount of time for an involuntarily admission.  He then told me I wasn’t going to like it.  He was definitely angry with me.  I believe this stemmed from what my therapist had told him.

Eventually I was able to get released on condition of out-patient treatment.  My therapist told the hospital that he would no longer treat me.  When the hospital released me I was without any support.  I had appointments with an unknown psychiatrist for medication and a social worker for therapy.  Both proved incompetent.  When I called my original therapist, he refused to talk to me until I had another therapist so that he would no longer be responsible for my care.  Then he would only say that he didn’t want to see me further.  When I asked for referrals to proficient therapists he gave me a list out of a directory most of whom didn’t take my health insurance or were not taking new patients.  He made no effort to help me find genuine help.

This experience was worse for me than my husband’s suicide.  The loss and humiliation left me feeling helpless.  The disillusion at the hands of my therapist was devastating.  At least my husbands desertion was because of illness.