Mental health emergencies, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, mobile crisis teams, dual diagnosis, trauma and PTSD — care for the moments when waiting isn’t an option.
Hannah was nineteen, a sophomore at a state university in Pittsburgh, when her roommate found her unresponsive on the dorm room floor at 2:30am on a Sunday. An empty bottle of acetaminophen was on the desk. The roommate called 911, then called Hannah’s mother in Erie. By the time Linda arrived at the hospital five … Read more
Diane was forty-four, a bookkeeper in Cleveland, when she got the call about her son Eli at 11:47pm on a Tuesday. He was twenty-two. He had used heroin in a parking lot behind a Dollar General with a friend, and the friend had recognised the blue lips and called 911 instead of running, which was … Read more
Priya was thirty-four, an associate at a corporate law firm in Houston, when she had what she was certain was a heart attack on a Wednesday afternoon at 4:18pm. She was in her office reviewing a draft contract when her chest tightened, her hands started tingling, her vision narrowed at the edges, and her heart … Read more
Priya was thirty-four, an associate at a corporate law firm in Houston, when she had what she was certain was a heart attack on a Wednesday afternoon at 4:18pm. She was in her office reviewing a draft contract when her chest tightened, her hands started tingling, her vision narrowed at the edges, and her heart … Read more
Marcus was twenty-eight, an investment associate in Chicago, when he collapsed on a Friday night at a friend’s loft party in River North. He had been doing lines off and on for eighteen months, mostly weekends, never thinking of himself as having a problem. Around 2am he stood up to refill a drink, said he … Read more
The Three AM Question It is three in the morning. You cannot sleep. Your chest feels tight. Your thoughts are spiraling. The anxiety that has been building for weeks has finally become unbearable. Or maybe it is not anxiety at all. Maybe the depression has shifted into something darker, something that makes you wonder whether … Read more
The Three AM Question It is three in the morning. You cannot sleep. Your chest feels tight. Your thoughts are spiraling. The anxiety that has been building for weeks has finally become unbearable. Or maybe it is not anxiety at all. Maybe the depression has shifted into something darker, something that makes you wonder whether … Read more
Priya, a 26-year-old graduate student in Boston, Massachusetts, had been bingeing and purging multiple times a day for almost five years. She had told one therapist about it, briefly, four years ago. Her boyfriend knew, more or less. Her family did not. The Saturday night that ended her secret began like most Saturday nights: a … Read more
Priya, a 26-year-old graduate student in Boston, Massachusetts, had been bingeing and purging multiple times a day for almost five years. She had told one therapist about it, briefly, four years ago. Her boyfriend knew, more or less. Her family did not. The Saturday night that ended her secret began like most Saturday nights: a … Read more
Eleanor, a 64-year-old retired schoolteacher from Asheville, North Carolina, had been quietly drinking three or four glasses of wine every evening for almost two decades. Her family knew about it, the way families know these things and do not quite know what to do. The bigger worry, until that week, had been her appetite. She … Read more