An observation

Let’s say you’re feeling like life is completely hopeless, and you just want to end it all. Some well-meaning person drops you off at the psych ward where you’re greeted with more pills, more doctors, and depressingly weak coffee (I’ve been there). There’s nothing terribly interesting to do, so you get bored. Maybe your new medications have terrible side effects. Maybe you get frustrated about being treated like a crazy person and you tell yourself, ‘I have sunk to a new low; I’m screwed’. You notice how odd it is that a facility designed to treat severely depressed people is so depressing.

Occasionally the doctors ask you how you’re feeling. At first you’re honest, but then you get to the point where you’ll say anything to be discharged. So you start lying to the doctors. You tell them you’re doing fine, when you’re actually feeling even more suicidal. They remark on your progress, and you’re on your way home.

You have a fleeting moment of ecstasy when you are freed from the hospital, but you’re still dealing with those destructive feelings that got you into this mess in the first place. You also have some psych-ward trauma under your belt.

You realize that your time in the hospital did nothing to help you in the real world. You feel stuck and you don’t know what to do.

Now you’re feeling like life is completely hopeless, and you just want to end it all.