Death Can Wait

Nobody believed in me. That was their first mistake.

I was sixteen years old and scared when I was admitted to the psych ward for the first time. I don’t remember too much about this time of my life because of how much energy I put into keeping myself alive. The strange thing about falling apart is how together you can look. Sometimes it doesn’t even have a look at all. It was routine for me to wake up, put on a smile and go to work. I can’t even remember where I was supposed to be on this day, but whatever my responsibility was, it was way too much for me to handle.

I was sitting alone at work scrolling through my phone and it was like everything hit me from the inside out. It was so hard that I couldn’t even cry.

I was sad, I was broken, and I was scared. I was scared because I knew I was about to be really brave.

I slipped my phone into my pocket, stood up and walked a few metres to my colleagues office where she was typing on her computer. Let’s call her Lily.

The door was ajar so I opened it gently to make my presence known:

“Hello, you alright?” Lily asked casually.

“Can I talk to you, please?”

“Yes, just let me finish this email real quick.”

A few seconds of silence and typing later, she looked up at me with those big brown eyes:

“Right…what’s up?”

“Can you take me to hospital, please.”

No question mark, I meant it as a statement, not a question. Take me.

Lily knew my history. She knew about the bad days. She didn’t hesitate—just asked, gently, “Why?” I told her the truth:

“I don’t want someone to come back to school tomorrow and find out somethings happened to me.”

Saying it out loud made it feel real—factual. I remember Lily asking if I felt ‘that bad’. I nodded and she took me downstairs to the school nurse who called Mental health services. There was a long wait, they said.

Of course there was.

Lily, the nurse, and I sat in a small private office while waiting for a phone call back. Lily asked me to look at her and I tried, but eye contact felt unbearable. We only went about five minutes without the phone ringing when Lily decided that was enough.

“Let’s go.” She was taking me herself.

Lily grabbed her stuff and we headed to her car. She started driving and I started crying, looking out the window to try to hide it. Not that there was any point, surely she could’ve heard my heart as it cracked and the pieces fell in parallel to my tears. She held my hand the entire drive, only letting go at roundabouts. Even in the middle of my life collapsing, I noticed that.

At the crisis centre, Lily walked up to the receptionist to inform them about my state and that she had called ahead. We were told it would still be an hour before they could see me. Lily decided we were gonna go find a café to wait—a change of scenery could be good.

We drove for about five minutes and parked outside a café. While walking inside, with tears still rolling down my face, Lily asked me what I wanted to eat. I didn’t care. I left it up to her to decide and found a seat outside. I cried the entire time with my head resting on the table, under the weight of my own sorrow. People stared, but I couldn’t care less. My pain was so big that embarrassment didn’t stand a chance against it.

Lily sat down across from me and tried to talk to me, I answered briefly but I couldn’t say much through my tears. Her phone rang, the mental health team were trying to get as much risk information about me as possible to prepare. They tried to speak to me directly, I vividly remember holding the phone up to my ear and attempting to form words but I physically couldn’t. So they spoke to Lily, she asked me the questions, I whispered answers back, and she passed them on. It felt like I wasn’t even present in my own life—just watching it be reported.

Eventually, the service rang Lily back to say they were ready to see me.

As we walked back to the car, my legs gave out. I fell to my knees on the pavement, sobbing. I lay there in the middle of it all—the sky, the ground, the ache. Held up only by the hands of Lily, who was so desperate to fix me. Like I was a glass shattered on the sidewalk, and she didn’t know how to put me back together, but couldn’t bear to leave me there—the shell of human I felt I was.

It was as though she was begging me to spare my own life, to spare her a lifetime of grief.

Back at the crisis centre, we were put in a room. I stayed in Lily’s arms the whole time just crying on her lap.

Social workers, psychologists and a doctor came in and out questioning me, I barely answered. It wasn’t anything I was unfamiliar with—risk assessments, safety planning, rating the severity of my emotions from 1-10. Until:

“There’s an inpatient bed available. We think you should go.”

I signed some forms. It felt like signing my life way—but not in a death way, in a survival way.

And in that moment, living was much scarier than anything else.

I was escorted from the crisis centre into the backseat of a white electric car with two social workers sitting in the front seat. We drove for about 45 minutes in near silence except for small talk about the weather, and the background radio. The car stopped outside the hospital. We got out, and the social workers led me around to the back of a building where we waited for someone on the other side to let me into the ward. I handed over most of the things in my pockets before a nurse led me to my room.

Plain walls, a single bed, a locker, and a life to fight for.

Everything was sloped, edges curved, corners softened, windows that didn’t open–leaving me to watch the world I was missing out on. My bedroom door had a window so staff could make sure I was safe at all times.

I sat on the edge of my bed for hours, just thinking. Thinking about anything and everything, all at once. Especially the little version of me sitting at the dinner table just trying to finish her plate. I wanted to tell her how valid her emotions are. Whether you’re confused at the dinner table, in an office, or on the edge of a hospital bed, help is the strongest thing you can ask for.

A nurse knocked on my door at some point and told me dinner had arrived, but I didn’t feel like eating. I went to bed with an empty stomach and woke up the next morning with what felt like an empty soul. But I was alive. Saying those four words: “Take me to hospital.” was me telling death for the first time in a long time, that it had to wait.

I didn’t think anyone believed in me, that was my first mistake.

Original story written by, Summer Rodger