Daring to see

Are self-awareness and personal knowledge helpful? How much do we need to know about ourselves as seen through others' eyes? Do I want to know the conclusions that have been drawn about me? What do I gain by facing someone else's interpretation of me and my circumstances?

In late 2006, I was hauled off to the ER for an unnecessary psychiatric evaluation. The incident was humiliating from start to finish, and it left me so traumatized that I have been unable to look at a cop or even to eat in the fabulous Thai restaurant across the street from the hospital. Some nausea-and anxiety-producing form of PTSD still has me in its grip three years after the fact.

When memories of that night begin to slide into my conscious thought, I immediately snap to attention and force myself to think of something--anything--else. For months after the event, however, it was the only thing I could think of. It consumed me in my waking hours, and I spent hours going over it in my mind, working out more assertive dialogues and alternate endings. It didn't really help--I just felt more frustrated and overwhelmed with bitter anger.

The last year has been an improvement. My palms don't sweat quite as much if I see a cop car when I'm driving. The dialogues in my head were nearly put to a stop. The entire memory is allowed to surface only in generalized terms, and only when absolutely necessary.

Until last week.

Because I've spent such a tremendous amount of time in doctors' offices in the last 18 months, it is necessary for me to assemble a comprehensive file of my medical records. When I set out to do this, I was thinking only of the most relevant care I have received: for pain, for pelvic syndromes, gynecological issues, GI issues, neurolgical problems, orthopedic care, physical therapy, and the long, long list of labs and imaging procedures I have been put through.

While looking online for the forms and instructions to get copies of my X-rays, CT scans, and the brain MRI, something in the instructions caught my eye. The hospital where I endured the ER visit is owned by the same organization as the hospital where all of my current medical care takes place. It hadn't occurred to me until right then, but I could request my medical records from that night. Free of charge.

I checked off the appropriate box, filled in the date, and submitted the form.

The other day, a reasonably thick envelope arrived in the mail from the hospital. I slid it out of the pile and dropped it into the tote bag I take to work. It stayed there for a few days, until I moved it to the dining room table. It's still sitting there. I can't bear to look. I want to know, but I'm afraid to see how I was actually judged among the harsh realities of a forced psychiatric evaluation.

I felt so small, worthless, invisible, and dismissed at the time. No one involved had any interest in anything I had to say, although I was lucid, rational, and very much in control of myself. No matter what I said or how articulately I said it, the people who had put themselves in charge of me reacted as if any utterance from me was going to be a lie.

I was appalled to be unnecessarily put in an embarrassing situation that was initiated by someone I had never met. Any stranger (any stranger) can call the police and accuse you of being suicidal, and from that point on, you have no right to control your destiny. You are considered to be not dangerous, exactly, but too brain damaged to have anything meaningful to contribute to any conversation concerning you or your welfare at that point. I was a non-person reduced to the status of a housepet. I could say I had no credibility, but that would imply that at some point someone was aware that I was producing intelligent speech or even speaking at all. I was nothing. I was nobody. I had no rights. I was the defective thing put in the corner for a time out.

Even Frank let me down when he made it clear he would not be accompanying me to the hospital--I was on my own. So on my own.

It took five hours of sitting in a room by myself under the watchful eye of an armed guard, but someone eventually showed up to do the actual evaluation. I thought he was running late, but it later became evident that making the patient just sit and wait is actually part of the overall humiliating punishment meted out to a potentially suicidal person. I'm pretty sure the idea is to demean you so severely, you make sure you never again even breathe the word "depressed" to anyone within hearing distance.

The evaluation was anti-climactic, and I passed it with no problem. It took another hour to get discharge papers, but I was eventually allowed to go home and think about how I was going to come up with the thousand dollars I would be forced to pay for my hospital-based incarceration. I use the word incarceration because I was there very much against my will, I wasn't allowed to wear my own clothes, I wasn't allowed to use the phone, I certainly wasn't allowed to leave, and I had to submit to a drug test (at my own expense, of course).

I learned a lot that night. I learned that I can still remain calm in the face of a personal crisis; I can hold my temper when I'm being subjected to intensely unfair treatment; it doesn't matter how pleasant and cooperative you are--you're screwed; I know that we are all, ultimately, on our own and when you most need those you love, they'll bail out on you--not that it matters because if you get into this particular situation, you're considered to be so toxic, protocol dictates that you sit alone, isolated from everyone, even those who would give you comfort, so, I assume, you have the opportunity to think about the behavioral gaffe led you to be experiencing such punitive measures in the first place.

I developed such a deep fear and mistrust of the police that I think I can say I will likely always loathe them--collectively--and because my trust was so callously betrayed, I will never voluntarily speak to one ever again (if you want to know the definition of patronizing, go through a similar experience--the cops talk to you like you're mentally retarded or a very small child incapable of intelligent thought--and they will not answer your questions or help you understand your rights or even what to expect in the next few hours--oh, no--can't divulge that to one of "those people.") There will be no neighborhood-watch-good-citizen calls coming from me, no accident reports, nothing. If I witness a murder, I will not admit it. It is highly unlikely I would report my own assault. I realize that were a cop to take the report and run my name through the computer, I would likely be dismissed or blamed for my own rape. I now have very, very clear insight into how police think, and as a result, I understand that I will never have any credibility with them. Once you have a psych evaluation, that is the only thing the police will ever care to know about you. Nothing else about you can override that, and it is this truth that makes me want to lie down and quit. It has been three years, and yet, when I see a cop in near proximity, my heart races hard, my mouth goes dry, my throat feels like it's closing, and I struggle to breathe.

The envelope containing my medical record is still sitting here, unopened. When I can tell this story without feeling oppressive sadness and defeat, when I can look back on that night without feeling humiliated, and when I can see a cop and not have to avert my eyes to avoid a rush of painful nausea, then maybe I'll be ready to open the envelope and see the details of my judgment.

It seems I'm not there yet.