TW: Suicide, anxiety, sexual assault
Guess I’m posting here to vent and maybe get some kinda validation. Also want to ask, has anyone else been helped by the police before because someone tipped them off about self harm, but found the police to make things worse than better?
And anyone else feel like sometimes police/ tele support workers who are there to help are trying to just tick off their list of things they’re meant to do to help people who feel suicidal because it’s their duty of care, but don’t end up being very helpful because they have time constraints/ they’re not well trained enough?
I’m feeling incredibly empty right now. There are so many things I need to get done- applying for jobs, getting my car fixed, see the doctor, doing laundry, among other random small tasks. But I just can’t seem to get anything done. It’s a struggle just getting out of bed in the morning and making something to eat for breakfast. This year, I was sexually assaulted and have had no stable place to stay for some months. Each time things get better, I get sexually harrassed by a “friend” or someone I know that’s in a position of power over me. And so it’s an endless cycle of getting better and dropping back down to the bottom again. This is on top of previous childhood trauma with parents that I’ve been trying to heal from- but just don’t seem to have the time or energy to because of all the shit that’s been happening. This unsurprisingly has given me lots of suicidal thoughts, but I think I have been handling it all quite well, until a recent run in with police who was supposed to be there to help me.
A few days ago the police knocked on my door and announced to my housemates they were looking for me because someone tipped them off about me wanting to self harm. I was struggling pretty hard that day, but was still hanging on. Eversince the police came, I’ve been doing really badly. I hadn’t wanted to tell my housemates I’m suicidal. I’ve only been living with them for 2 months and I didn’t know them before I started living here. I generally have a pretty good control of my emotions, but I was so angry the police would just announce to my housemates that I’m suicidal. They ended up taking me to the hospital because they wouldn’t leave me alone. I wanted to just sit outside my house for a bit to calm down before going back inside, but because of duty of care, they said I had to either go back into the house or they were going to take me to the hospital. It was so uncomfortable they put me on the spot. They kept telling me to hurry up and decide because they had important work to do. They put soo much pressure on me! I didn’t want to go with them to hospital right then but because they were potentially going to barge into my house to get my things before dragging me off to hospital with them, I had no choice but to go with them to hospital.
It was horrible. I felt so uncomfortable sitting in the hospital, I had to wait for a long time to see someone too. At least there were 2 paramedics waiting with me, but the entire time I felt so much anxiety and couldn’t stop shaking. After an hour or so, finally there was a psychologist who came to see me. I told her about everything that happened, and while I appreciate she spent her time listening to me, I don’t feel it helped much at all. I was given some pills to help me sleep better and she booked someone to call me over the next couple days. But honestly I don’t find any of that helpful at all. By the time I finished up speaking with the psychologist it was 11pm and I had to walk a good 30 minutes before I could catch the bus to get home. It was cold and tiring. And when I got home it was so bad I had no choice but to drink a shit ton to numb the pain a little.
I am doing much, much worse than I was before. While the morning after bad incidents (usually yet another sexual harassment incident or just a bad episode recalling things that have happened), I find it difficult to get out of bed, when I finally do and do something I enjoy, I can relax and slowly get better. However, I’m now feeling constant anxiety. I can’t sleep, I struggle out getting out of bed every morning. And the reason for all this is because police decided to come to my house and announce to my housemates that I’m suicidal when I never wanted to tell them in the first place. I can’t seem to get everything together. I have barely any support because the one person I talk to about my problems is constantly busy and I feel so exhausted when the people from the hospital call me. I don’t find any of their check ups on me useful. I’m tired of having to constantly explain to someone why I am having problems and then having to assure them I’m not about to kill myself after they get off the phone with me.
I think I would be doing much better now if the police didn’t spin things out of control for me by informing my housemates I am suicidal and pressuring me into making a decision to either go to hospital or going back into my house (when I still didn’t feel comfortable to) by guilt tripping me saying they had other important work to do. I seem to be stuck with constant endless anxiety now. Usually at least anxiety is only there for a couple hours in a day, but now it’s there day and night and it doesn’t go away. I’m really tempted to drink some more to make it better (even if temporary). Honestly not sure what to do anymore. But I hope the police never ever comes to "help"me ever again.
If you have something encouraging to say, that would be really nice. I don’t have the energy to deal with trolls trying to tear me down so please keep it to yourself.
