I hate that so much. Every single doctor or therapist I go to has to have an emergency contact person. I have to either make up someone or explain that I don’t have anyone. There isn’t a single person to call to help me.
Most of the time I just make up someone and list my own phone number. No one ever checks these things. It still makes me feel ashamed for being alone.
One therapist rejected me for listing no one. Don’t you have a friend or priest or neighbor you could call if there was a crisis? She said her license wouldn’t allow her to treat me. That made me feel really pathetic, so I mostly lie now just to avoid that conversation in the future.
8 comments
bullshit!
ok now that thats out. if you dont have anyone then they should be working harder to help you not leaving you on your own. where does that even make sense.
“im only gonna help the people that already have help” what why?
Maybe, the rules are designed with liability in mind. I understand why they are there. But I agree with you…
It reminds me of the song “The Shape I’m In”
I just spent 60 days in the jailhouse
For the crime of having no dough
Now here I am back out on the streets
For the crime of having no where to go
My therapist and I had a conversation about this once. She pointed out that during therapy feelings can really get stirred up in us. This is true. If during therapy I got really agitated and she determined I was enough of a threat to myself, or just too distracted to be out and about, and that I needed someone to come get me at the end of the session and watch after me for a while after therapy, this contact was that person she would call. Basically a way for her to avoid calling the authorities, or a facility, or having to make a second appointment for me on the spot, and at the same help me stay safe. I was married so I listed my wife. Had I been single I would have listed the only friend I could trust to understand such pain as we have on here.
As it actually worked out, I would tell my therapist near the end of the session that I would not drive until I felt composed enough to do so. Even seven years into therapy now I still take a walk of about 30 minutes after about every other therapy. For the first several years I would go hang out at a coffee shop for an hour after most therapy sessions.
There is value in knowing that at least one person is worthy of being your e-contact because they can acknowledge their pain enough to acknowledge your pain and that you are worthy of having that person in your life.
I agree there is value in knowing someone can be an emergency contact. I would want to have someone in my life that could be that. However, I don’t. And I never have. And as much as I try to change that I have failed.
Sorry you have to fabricate on this answer. For whatever it is worth, in all my life, I have only been contacted once as a contact. The irony of it was that it was an individual who was outwardly suicidal that I went to pick up at the request of a local fire department and I with all of my own suicidal ideation thought the whole thing entirely minor. Also, when my own farewell bid went south, many of my relatives were contacted and most of them just handled it like any other emergency, with dignity and calm.
I’m not sure it matters anyway. I think it would be funny if they called and got me.
What I find amusing is that even though the bulk of my time in therapy revolves around having no connections or relationships of any kind no one has ever asked about my in case of emergency person… Johnny Notaperson.
Johnny Notaperson *smile* That’s a good solution. Besides, like you said, you are there discussing what sounds like attachment concerns, and being on here we are all bound to have attachment issues of many kinds.
Actually all sorts of forms, for employment, finance, benefits, on and on, insist on collecting information we may not have ready access to. It is a frustration that has driven me to distraction on a few important occasions.
I would tell them my emergency contact is 911. Let them try to say no to that