Parenting a Child Who Wants to Disappear
A suicide safe-tea plan
There is literally shit on the walls of the bathroom. There’s no seat on the stainless steel toilet bowl, no paper holder, nothing that could be removed and used as a weapon or to hurt yourself. Not even soap. I’ve visited multiple prisons, but this emergency room at Western Psych is worse. A guard had to unlock the restroom door for me, and now he’s banging on it to see what’s taking so long. I’m trying to unclench enough to go, looking at the brown smears on the tile, and stifling great heaving sobs. My youngest son, my baby, my beam of summer sunshine, is suicidal.
I’m used to emergency rooms. I’m good at them. How many times have I bundled up this little cherub in the middle of the night, as he struggled to breathe with an attack of croup, and hurried off to Children’s Hospital? Or taken his brother for an x-ray. You pack books, work to do, toys, a snack. You know you’re going to be there a while, but the lobbies are bright and colorful, full of iPad stations, fish-tanks, interactive displays, and comfy furniture.
This place has armed guards, bulletproof glass, metal detectors, body wands. They took my bag at the door with my computer and notebooks. Made me remove my scarf. Can’t even have a pen. We’re escorted beyond more locked doors to a place with no windows, and walls in…
