5Ws Wednesday
In the past, when I have posted on social media about my experience with mental illness, I sometimes get asked how I got through it. What did I do that helped me heal? My first answer is always that I had a psychiatrist who changed my life. I may have written about Dr. Simpson before, but I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately.
For context, in 2001 I was hospitalized in the psychiatric ward of two different hospitals at two different times of the year. I was put there because I was cutting my arms intentionally. My first hospital experience was awful and did absolutely nothing to help me. The second experience was bad too, but only in the sense that I hated being “locked up”. The psych ward of a hospital is kind of what you see on tv. They really do take your stuff away at the risk of it being used as a means to hurt yourself or others. No shoelaces, nothing metal, etc. But that second time I was admitted, I was assigned to Dr. Simpson.
I saw him regularly when I was released. He wasn’t like other psychiatrists. And even now, after 26 years of experience seeing various psychiatrists, he still remains the best one I ever had. Most doctors now will ask you the same list of questions at each appointment, refill your meds, and then you’ll be on your way. They’ll ask about how you’re sleeping, your appetite, do you want to hurt yourself or others, etc. Dr. Simpson would ask those questions too, but only after about 10-15 minutes of just talking to you.
Dr. Simpson offered advice that genuinely helped. He offered his own perspectives on what was making me upset or whatever was going on with me. It didn’t take too long for Josh and I to take Dr. Simpson’s word as gospel.
Which is why during one appointment with him, I didn’t argue when he told me I had to take the rest of the semester off school to have ECT treatments.
That day, there was about an hour wait for my appointment even though I had gotten there on time. Dr. Simpson made sure to give every patient his total attention and care. I never minded having to wait a while if he was running behind. So when I was told there was an hour to wait, I went down the road to the local Walmart. I bought a pack of razor blades from the hardware section, a box of tissues, and a long sleeved shirt. I cut up my arm while waiting in my car. Then I changed into the long sleeved shirt before going back into Dr. Simpson’s waiting room.
When it was finally my turn with him, I sat down in his office and before either of us could say a word, I started crying. I sat there and cried uncontrollably for I don’t know how long. And he sat back in his chair and watched. I don’t remember if I showed him my arm where I had cut it, but I’m thinking I probably did. Because as soon as I stopped crying, that’s when he told me that I was going to take the rest of the semester off and have the treatments. I had no choice in the matter. In fact, my only choice was whether to do the treatments on an in-patient or out-patient basis.
I wrote about the first treatment I had in this post:
I had four treatments that fall. And they saved my life. As Dr. Simpson explained it, the purpose of the treatments was to jump start the part of my brain that wasn’t working properly—the part that was causing so much emotional distress. It worked exactly as he said it would.
Granted, my mental health is not perfect, but it has never been as bad as it was before those treatments.
I owe Dr. Simpson my life. If I hadn’t connected with him, I’m afraid to think how far I would have taken my self-harm behavior. I was never suicidal, but left unchecked, I may have gotten to that point.
Dr. Simpson eventually closed his practice. Something about the local hospital system wanting to take it over. He didn’t want that to happen, so he shut it down. On my last appointment with him, he said of all his patients that he had to tell this news to, I was the one he was the least worried about. I had improved that much.
I bring him up now because I want to include him in my book. My book is not going to be strictly all my journal entries. There is a lot that I plan to write in between those sections. When I get to the part where Dr. Simpson comes into my life, I want to be able to share some insight and quotes from him. Basically, I’d like to interview him for inclusion in my writing.
A Google search let me know that he has an office in the little town I went to high school in. I think his focus is substance abuse counseling now. But there was an address. So this week, my goal is to write him a letter. An honest-to-goodness, handwritten, not typed, not emailed, letter. I want to thank him for saving my life and I want to fill him in on what his good work for me back then has helped me to be able to do now. I’m also going to ask him if he’d be willing to answer a few questions for me. I don’t know what those questions will be yet, but if he responds, hopefully I can get an email address for him and we can communicate that way. I need to hurry though. Dr. Simpson wasn’t a young man 25 years ago when I first met him. I don’t want to miss my chance to reconnect with him before old age and retirement takes him.
I’ll be sure to post if I hear back from him. Even if I don’t, I hope he’ll at least get my message and know just how profound of an impact he made on my life. As a teacher, I love hearing good updates from former students and parents. I’m sure as a doctor, he would like to hear that too.
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