I have to get this mess out of my head so that I can sleep. I could choose not to publish it & yet, because I am who I am, I need to publish the ugly with the good, otherwise you will have a view of me that is skewed like the view through an antique glass window. This post is ugly. I tried to leave the ugliest details out. Feel free not to read further.
The call was from an emotionally disturbed older male that we have dealt with many times in the past. This time he was angry & frustrated and had decided to end it all--with a knife to his chest. Now, side note, if you are going to do yourself in, this method is not the one I would advise. So, he tells me that he needs an ambulance (he doesn't want the police because he isn't real fond of them) because he tried to stab himself in the abdomen but after getting the butchers knife in about an inch it got stuck (he actually had it in his rib cage & probably hit a rib). Anyway, so I'm listening to this extremely bitter angry man rant and rave his homophobic hateful spew of filth (he kept saying that he was a good man--I couldn't argue because well, I was trying to keep the status quo, but it made me ill. He kept suggesting that he should A) try to push it harder to get it to go all the way in or B) pull it out (so he could try again). In order to keep the status quo I suggested that if he moved the knife at all he would end up in more pain & could very well die a horrible death (nicking his lungs which would then fill up with blood and he would slowly drown--I know probably not what you should say to a suicidal subject with a knife in his chest but you know... it worked). He was hoping to die quickly and painlessly.
Finally, after what seemed like an extremely long time, I hear some voices that sound far away talking to him so I hung up the phone. They tell me that after I disconnected they talked to him for a bit & at one point it looked like he was going to fall on the kitchen floor on the knife to succeed in his attempt to end his life...what a helpless feeling to be watching that. Finally he just pulled it out & they were able to take care of him. Gross, I know. I'd like to think that he will get the counseling and help that he needs, but I don't think that he will. I struggle with feeling like the world will be a better place if he succeeds next time. My heart really wants him to get help & hope, but his spirit was so resentful & full of hate it is hard to have hope for him. I feel bad for thinking these things but they sneak in. All I can do is pray for the best outcome, right?
Sometimes the effect of a call is compounded because it brings up memories of previous calls that we had stuffed and forgotten still clung to us somewhere. Way back (five years or more ago-it was after the new Goodwill store went in on Fourth Plain) I was part of a call (I think I was dispatching, but I cannot remember clearly) when a suspect slit his throat in front of the officer. It was the most horrible thing that had happened in my experience up to that point. All those feelings and fear that A) tonight's subject would proceed with his plan to kill himself while he was on the phone with me or B) he would do so in front of the officers when they arrived welled up again and compounded the effect of this call. It is never just one thing. It is one thing and all the other one things that came before (and were stuffed and forgotten, but not completely).
Hopefully you won't read this, but if you do, hopefully it doesn't stay with you. Go watch youtube videos of silly animals or people. look up "fuzzy fuzzy cute cute." Hug your kids, tuck them in, read them a story, remember that you have the power to affect little lives so that hopefully they won't grow up to be dark hurting souls. It helps.
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