Trigger warning: suicidal ideation, ranting about the mental health field system, self harm

I’ve been experiencing rapid cycling of strong emotions this past week. I’ve experiencing a lot of extreme highs, which made me “feel good” but it felt like a form of mania. After realizing it was a form of mania, I reached out to my therapist and told her what was happening as I started to feel extremely low realizing I have some sort of mood or personality disorder. 

My therapist said she also wonders if the rapid cycling of extreme emotional highs and lows is related to my psychiatric medication, my disability that caused my accident to become quadriplegic, or if I had a mood disorder like bipolar.

After doing a lot of reflecting and digging deep into my psych, I realized I might’ve developed a personality disorder or some type of mood disorder, or potentially mix of both, due to my upbringing as a child,  childhood trauma, and two back to back abusive relationships I have endured over span of seven years from the ages of 16 to 24. I am now 26.

After having a very difficult conversation with my mother yesterday, I don’t know if it triggered me after feeling grounded for a little bit, I started to feel a very deep rapid cycling of strong emotions of suicidal ideation. I physically wanted to hurt myself, but I’m smart enough to not do that, so I tried my best use coping skills as grounding mechanisms that I’ve learned recently and through previous therapy.

Since I had a very difficult conversation about my childhood trauma with my mother, and her seeing me physically reacting to me being suicidal, I begged for her to take me to a Boston hospital where they know how to treat me properly as a quadriplegic, but she was unwilling to because she wasn’t emotionally able to handle it. The other local hospitals I’ve been to, have told me that I was unable to do a voluntary psych ward evaluation in December 2020 because I’m quadriplegic, but I wasn’t feeling suicidal at the time, so I sat in the ER for five days and was speaking to a psychiatrist from the psych ward who help me adjust my medication‘s at the time to help me sleep and eat and have less anxiety.

After trying to ground myself, I was feeling pretty OK. And then I started having intrusive thoughts about wanting to sell harm which I haven’t felt since July 2020. Before I called 911, I called of the Boston hospital to see if they take care of me or let me talk to someone for an evaluation or someone in crisis. They said they would talk to me as I’m already a patient there for other medical reasons. But the operator for the emergency department set if I don’t have a ride, to call 911 and be asked to be sent to the Boston hospital. I tried explaining to her that the ambulance usually won’t take me to Boston hospital, only a local one. She told me if I explain my situation to them about me being quadriplegic and Boston being one of the only hospitals who know how to properly take care of me (since I got surgery done a few weeks there before and have to be specially treated), that the hospital who the ambulance is taking me to should be able to transfer me to the Boston hospital.

So I called 911, and explain to that my situation. And they told me the same thing, that I can only go to a local hospital and explain to them a situation, and if I talk to crisis, they’ll assess it and will most likely be able to send me to the Boston hospital. Even one of the nurses to spoke to while sitting in the ER, told me the same thing, if I talk to crisis explain to them my situation I’ve been wanting to self harm but wanting to go to a Boston hospital, the crisis lady is the one to decide if they’re willing to bring me to a Boston hospital.

I told the lady who worked in crisis they had strong rapidly changing cycles of emotions, of extreme emotional highs an extreme emotional lows. She didn’t understand what I was talking about. I told her I had intrusive thoughts about wanting to physically sell far myself threw a knife by cutting or overdosing on a bunch of pills. I’ve been told her last year that I’ve tried to overdose, and suffocate myself last year but yet failed.

I laid in the stretcher of the ER hallway from 2 PM to 8 PM, just to get discharged. The crisis lady told my mom that she wasn’t sure why I was there, which is complete bullshit because I told her I wanted to physically self harm myself and wanted to die. I’m not sure if they think because I’m quadriplegic I am unable to find ways to self harm myself, but I certainly am if I have very intrusive thoughts and impulsivity.

I am disgusted about how I’m treated when it comes to my mental health, especially when it comes down to me and my disability. When I get the energy to, I’m going to write to the board of medicine because the way I am treated by the healthcare system for mental health is not OK. And I need to see someone right away and be properly evaluated if I’m having these intrusive suicidal thoughts. And I cannot wait for my therapist to go over all the messages voice memos I’ve been sending her over these past few days, just to talk to her in a 30 minute session. And I cannot wait to see my psychiatrist, as she’s booked until the middle of September.