suicide prevention actually works.
I probably had one of the scariest moments in my life tonight.
we have a female TSgt in our shop who has been under some stress lately. she's a cross-trainee from the medical field into weather, and is from the guard, not active duty. she doesn't have a lot of weather experience at all. so she's not feeling as good about herself as she was hoping to on this deployment (we got here the same day).
she's been in for 13 years, and just had her 32nd birthday on the 17th. she's been having some problems not only with lack of experience/job, but other issues too. she butted heads w/ another female, and is having some dorm roommate problems. nothing big, but she's just way outside her comfort zone.
she's had minor breakdown moments here and there recently, where she's cried to me or another member of the flight. saying she just feels like she can't hack it.
well tonight, it was 855 and she was on shift by herself, and she calls my room, crying...saying she doesn't feel right, she's not right in the head....and i'm like, "i'll be there in ten minutes"...change back into uniform, drive over (trying desparately not to speed and cause an accident). get there, and she's bawling in tears, saying she doesn't know what's wrong with her, and she's super unhappy...this goes on for about 20 minutes and then she said she wants to kill herself...i was like, "oh nononononononono" and called one of my guys to come into the shop and relieve her shift; and i called the chaplain to bring her over to him as soon as i could.
chaplain said all he could reallly do is try to get her to mental health on her own and because of privacy stuff, he couldn't talk to me at all about anything. so he even suggested, if you have a suicidal patient, call mental health. so called them, brought her over there...and i guess she has some other deep seeded issues with things back home. i don't know the extent of them, but she kept saying she wanted to talk to her sister.
this whole thing creeped me out, cause i basically had someone's life in my hands. i mean, even when i was on the phone w/ the chaplain and mental health offices, i was trying to watch her hands to make sure she didn't cut her wrists or anything. she had bought some sleeping pills (unisom) already.
crazy thing is, she broke down a few days ago to me and my flight chief, and she said she made an appointment w/ the chaplain, and she had also bought some sleeping pills because she wasn't sleeping well at night. the next night, she came in looking better; said she slept better last night than she had in a long long time. i thought she was making progress....we were working on getting her a new room, and things seemed to be moving in the right direction. but tnoight, she was at a complete loss. she kept banging her head with her fists. very scary experience. i kept trying to console her and tell her i was glad she called me.
they're working on getting her back home, like tomorrow. the doctor at mental health said she has some severe issues that need to be addressed back home, ASAP. so she's gonig to basically leave in a day or two.
even MORE crazy thing, now that i look back....we had a flight pow-wow about two weeks ago and i told everyone, if you have any problems, you can talk to me about them. i'm so fucking glad i said that....cause what if she didn't call me? would she have called someonee else? or just gone back to her room and taken the pills? so damn freaky to think about. and the other day too when she broke down to me and my chief, i even asked her if she had suicidal thoughts and she said no. but if you keep poking at someone about it, they finally come out about it. just glad it came out w/ a phone call and crying; not an actual attempt.
been a long night....and much more longer days to come.
hope all is well back home. rest assured, i'm not feeling anything like she is. it's stressful and all out here, and i miss you all dearly; but i'm trucking along just fine.
=)
we have a female TSgt in our shop who has been under some stress lately. she's a cross-trainee from the medical field into weather, and is from the guard, not active duty. she doesn't have a lot of weather experience at all. so she's not feeling as good about herself as she was hoping to on this deployment (we got here the same day).
she's been in for 13 years, and just had her 32nd birthday on the 17th. she's been having some problems not only with lack of experience/job, but other issues too. she butted heads w/ another female, and is having some dorm roommate problems. nothing big, but she's just way outside her comfort zone.
she's had minor breakdown moments here and there recently, where she's cried to me or another member of the flight. saying she just feels like she can't hack it.
well tonight, it was 855 and she was on shift by herself, and she calls my room, crying...saying she doesn't feel right, she's not right in the head....and i'm like, "i'll be there in ten minutes"...change back into uniform, drive over (trying desparately not to speed and cause an accident). get there, and she's bawling in tears, saying she doesn't know what's wrong with her, and she's super unhappy...this goes on for about 20 minutes and then she said she wants to kill herself...i was like, "oh nononononononono" and called one of my guys to come into the shop and relieve her shift; and i called the chaplain to bring her over to him as soon as i could.
chaplain said all he could reallly do is try to get her to mental health on her own and because of privacy stuff, he couldn't talk to me at all about anything. so he even suggested, if you have a suicidal patient, call mental health. so called them, brought her over there...and i guess she has some other deep seeded issues with things back home. i don't know the extent of them, but she kept saying she wanted to talk to her sister.
this whole thing creeped me out, cause i basically had someone's life in my hands. i mean, even when i was on the phone w/ the chaplain and mental health offices, i was trying to watch her hands to make sure she didn't cut her wrists or anything. she had bought some sleeping pills (unisom) already.
crazy thing is, she broke down a few days ago to me and my flight chief, and she said she made an appointment w/ the chaplain, and she had also bought some sleeping pills because she wasn't sleeping well at night. the next night, she came in looking better; said she slept better last night than she had in a long long time. i thought she was making progress....we were working on getting her a new room, and things seemed to be moving in the right direction. but tnoight, she was at a complete loss. she kept banging her head with her fists. very scary experience. i kept trying to console her and tell her i was glad she called me.
they're working on getting her back home, like tomorrow. the doctor at mental health said she has some severe issues that need to be addressed back home, ASAP. so she's gonig to basically leave in a day or two.
even MORE crazy thing, now that i look back....we had a flight pow-wow about two weeks ago and i told everyone, if you have any problems, you can talk to me about them. i'm so fucking glad i said that....cause what if she didn't call me? would she have called someonee else? or just gone back to her room and taken the pills? so damn freaky to think about. and the other day too when she broke down to me and my chief, i even asked her if she had suicidal thoughts and she said no. but if you keep poking at someone about it, they finally come out about it. just glad it came out w/ a phone call and crying; not an actual attempt.
been a long night....and much more longer days to come.
hope all is well back home. rest assured, i'm not feeling anything like she is. it's stressful and all out here, and i miss you all dearly; but i'm trucking along just fine.
=)