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mothergwendoline-blog · 5 years

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Disclaimer: This blog contains discussion of suicide and depression. If this makes you feel unsafe, please leave.

The Greatest Act of Kindness

So I made it back into the psych ward. The funny thing about talking to emergency psychiatric services is that they’re often wrong when it comes to environmentalism. Which is hardly their fault, but it makes for difficult conversation when they ask why I want to kill myself. I tell them the planet is dying. They tell me;

“But you don’t have to worry about that! Good people are working hard to protect the planet. And even if they weren’t, human civilization won’t end for hundreds of years!”

This is heroically naïve. So I correct them politely. I tell them that young people like me can’t expect to live until old age, that the world will see two billion climate refugees by the end of the century, that the ice caps and permafrost are melting, the seas are rising, heatwaves ravage arable land, fresh water is running out, plastic fills the oceans, insects are facing their Armageddon already, the Arctic is literally on fire, the Clathrate Gun has likely already been fired, we’re in the middle of an extinction event and, to put it bluntly, we’re all going to die. Then I get told to go to the hospital.

I presume I’m admitted primarily for suicidal ideation as opposed to apocalyptic visions but to me they are inextricably linked. I want to die primarily because the world is ending but all emergency services hear is “suicidal”. I wonder how many other calls are made due to climate grief and if I have any siblings near me in the death throes of despair. The world is overpopulated, I contribute nothing to actively benefiting the planet and halting climate change, I may as well be dead.

So on Wednesday around midday a staff member from the psychiatric ward paid a visit to my home and picked me up to be voluntarily admitted and watched so I can’t kill myself. I have a bedroom to myself, everyone here does. It’s actually reasonably large, warm, cozy and the bed is big enough for someone as tall and fat as me. I’m not allowed to vape in the patio or garden, the smoking area is a dirty little patch of concrete out the front with three deck chairs. The other patients here are quiet and all as sullen as I am for the most part. I get checked on every hour to make sure I haven’t made an attempt on my life and we get notified when food is served. The food is not vegetarian but I am too depressed to care. I wonder about the other patients and check my privilege. For although my family is poor, I have a roof over my head, clothes on my back, three meals a day and basic hygiene. Do the other patients have this at home? My guess is some of them don’t from the things I can hear. For them, the psych ward must be almost enjoyable.

Because I’m voluntary, I’m not placed in the secure ward and I’m allowed to leave during the day which is essential for maintaining my exercise regime. Wednesday is my rest day but otherwise I have maintained regular exercise and intermittent fasting. Thankfully, I have not gained weight. I haven’t lost weight but I’ve managed to maintain a balance, which is fairly normal for the first few weeks of concentrated diet and exercise.

I don’t know if I feel any better; not really for the most part. But I have people watching over me making sure I can’t do anything. It’s petty little solace but I am determined to reach my goals before I kill myself on the footsteps of government. That’s the sole reason I admitted myself. Not to prevent suicide entirely but to postpone it. Of course, this I cannot reveal to psychiatric services or they may commit me.

In the meanwhile I have little to do and am driven mad with boredom. There are no activities in this house, I occupy myself solely with writing. I have little peace other than words in this place, my blog and my stories. Hospital time moves slower than usual days outside. I feel itchy with restlessness but as it is I am already living life an hour at a time, trying to make it through the minutes without planning to kill myself. I want to drag my fat fatigued body into one of the bathrooms, lock the door and lay myself down on the linoleum and slit my wrists open under the shower and watch the blood go down the drain. That was how I did it the last two times I attempted, it’s a peaceful and humbling way to go.

I do not know when I will be discharged from the psychiatric ward, perhaps in a week’s time they say. My medication will be checked but as it is I’m already on a powerful dose of anti-psychotics and anti-depressants. I am being enrolled in a group therapy service and first need to be assessed to see whether I am suitable for group therapy.

The nurses on the psychiatric ward differ greatly from the incredibly helpful and homely to the jaded and bitter drones just working a paycheck. I’m told that whenever I feel suicidal I must go to the nurses, talk to them and try have a conversation about my troubles. “They are trained professionals” my counselor told me. So today when I saw an article about the arctic wildfires and heatwaves in the Northern hemisphere and fell into a deep depressive anxiety, I did what I was told and sought out help.

“Have you taken your PRN meds?”

“Yes” I say.

“What usually helps when you are in a state like this?”

“Talking to people about my fears”

“What else?”

“Nothing” I answer truthfully.

I’m told to take some more PRN and sit in the lounge and try distract myself with writing. So much for professional therapy. I hate it in the lounge, the other patients only ever watch the most mind numbing dribble on TV. Friends, The Chase, The Simpsons (the bad new episodes, not the golden years), other game shows, and the news. I hate the news. I can’t stand it. It sickens me and hits something deep and existential in my brain. Seeing the flashing play-by-play repeats of global horrors drives me insane.

It’s gotten to the stage where I no longer know what a healthy environment and lifestyle is to me anymore. Whenever they discharge me, what will I occupy myself with other than diet, exercise and seeking employment to fund transition? These are all worthy goals but they are not purpose or belonging, and where to belong is harder still to discern. And I know whatever menial employment I find myself in will hardly suffice either. Writing is all I have. It is my world.

I think what makes my life so draining and complicated is that I know suicide is my inevitability, so it is hard to think of any future or purpose other than death. Whenever I take my medication, go to therapy or get admitted to the psych ward, I only see it as postponing the inevitable. I know I’m going to kill myself in about five years’ time and I know where I’ll do it. In the meanwhile, everything I do feels like idle busywork passing the time. My life is an ethereal state of prolonged palliative care, only I am the only one who knows I’m terminally ill. But it doesn’t feel like an illness and I wonder whether it is. I feel calm, collected and certain. The planet and society are sick, not me, I am merely a symptom of a broken world. When humans rape and pillage nature so brutally and selfishly as they have done, what can be expected but for people such as myself to seek escape? To me, suicide is the greatest act of kindness I can show myself.

Mother Gwendoline

#Apocalypse #Climate change suicide #Climatechangesuicide #Environment #Environmentalism #Fitness #Hospital #LGBT #LGBTQ #Lifestyle #Medication #Psych ward #Psychiatry #psychology #Suicide #Trans #Trans woman #Transgender #weight loss

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