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elizagraver · 3 years

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I think an extremely important part of mental health awareness and intervention is acknowledging that no, help isn't actually always available. Or the "help" that is, isn't actually helpful.

When I was 22 I hit a wall. I called the suicide hotline from my car so my roommates wouldn't hear me crying. I explained that I could barely shower, feed, or dress myself. I needed immediate intervention.

They asked me if they could send an ambulance for me. They wanted to hospitalize me. I explained that I was a week away from finals. And graduation. If I were hospitalized, I couldn't graduate. The inpatient program also didn't allow phones or visitors, and I knew how disastrous it would be for me to lose contact with my family support system.

I didn't need to be hospitalized. I needed daily solutions. Simple ones, even. I needed a few precooked meals in my fridge so I could use my menial energy to keep my body going. I needed a doctor to contact my school and ask if I could have some extensions on my class assignments. I neededna few excused absences so I could catch up on my lost sleep.

They told me there was an intensive program that allowed residents to live in an inpatient care facility and get daily help with tasks like eating, therapy, medication, and showering, while still leaving for work and school, but it cost $30,000. I told them half the reason I was calling them was because of my financial pressures and fear.

In about 10 minutes of back-and-forth, it became clear that they had no true solution for me. I could go into the hospital and an inpatient program which would interrupt my entire life, and which I knew did not create very good results and had traumatized some of my own friends, or, well, I couldn't even go into debt for the other program. They didn't accept any new patients without half of the cost upfront. So it wasn't even an option.

No therapist or psychiatrists or social workers could fit me in for 3-8 weeks.

So I said thank you and hung up, emotionally spent. I felt utterly empty.

Sitting in my car I realized I had a choice, to live or to stop. Nobody was going to save me. Nobody was going to help.

So I went inside, and I cried myself to sleep, and when I woke up I still hadn't made a choice. So then I did. I chose to live no matter how terrible, just in case things turned around down the road.

It was unspeakably difficult. I didn't shower. I barely ate. I either slept too much or not enough.

But I did survive, and a year later I got with a therapist who started to make things a little lighter for me.

I still struggle now, but things are usually much better, and I'm glad I'm still here.

I just think it's important to acknowledge that for many people, especially in rural areas, and for people without money, which is most people, that the "help is always available" line feels hollow. Because often times it isn't, actually.

But that doesn't mean there will never be.

Overall, we need to build an entirely new system for mental health support in this world.

But for now, ask yourself or your friend in crisis what might make things a little more bearable until help actually is available.

A meal? Emailing a professor? Clean laundry? What might make things a little lighter?

I know that on the very brink, things like this may seem totally pointlessnor trivial. But if you can't stop yourself or someone from falling, sometimes the only way to save someone is with a softer landing.

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elizagraver · 4 years

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Why

By Eliza Graver

It has been exactly a year since I graduated, this exact day. I do not know exactly what purpose God has for me yet, but from the looks of it, it is not what I had initially thought. I want to make a difference, not necessarily for my own benefit, but I genuinely want people that have felt the way I had to feel better. I live to help other people, when they feel better it makes me feel so good, but often I get caught up in the negative and become frustrated. I dislike that, and often I become carried away with my own frustration and my motivation becomes more selfish. I want to make something that resonates with people, I want to be able to say that I accomplished something, I want the power to say the things that matter. No matter what I do, though, I recognize that there will be people that do not listen. No matter how influential the person, there will always be “haters.” Their motivation being jealousy, disagreement or frustration or more, but still being obstinate. This is inevitable, people don’t listen and when they do, it is very selective. Our focus and attention spans are not all encompassing unfortunately. There is one thing that we can all agree on, no matter who we are, where we are or how much money we have someone we think: “they don’t listen to me, they don’t care what I have to say, they will always disagree.” Every single person in this world has a group of people or a person who they will think this about, the examples are endless. This is one of the reasons there will always be conflict. And when we try to get closer and mediate and come to agreement, another party appears or we alienate our initial agreeables. There is no “ultimate win.” The moral of the story is there will never be a perfect scenario, but here is a good reason for why life will always be interesting. We will always have a battle to overcome, a new perspective to learn, a friend to gain. We often forget that other people have different circumstances and we get frustrated instead of treating it like a new obstacle to overcome and a new lesson to learn. Positive redirection will help us change any problem into a goal and any step into a milestone. It is cheesy, yes, but it does make our days feel more worthwhile, simple psychology. Yes, your opinion matters, maybe it’s ethically wrong, but it gives someone else the chance to overcome and win for the good side. Life is like a dance, at first we see someone else do it and we think that we could never do that, but every stumble, every offbeat response, every moment of frustration, makes the graceful success even more sweet, and once we master one part there is always another and it can be more frustrating to realize you’re not done, but in the end we can look back and see how far we have come from knowing nothing to “this.” The dance is now a reflex reaction and we can learn so many more, but we can’t forget what it took to get here or we will forget the dance itself and we will become arrogant. When the wind blows, all the seeds on the dandelion will be gone, but the dandelion has a purpose which will be remembered and those seeds will blossom into something new.

#purpose #composition #writing #poetry #dandelion #god #love #humble #dance

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elizagraver · 4 years

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