So I started a new job 6.5 weeks ago and let's just say that it hasn't exactly been smooth sailing. I have generalized anxiety disorder, persistent depressive disorder, distorted thinking, and pretty constant imposter syndrome. Add to that a job that is very intense and demanding, and you get one really messed up Kim. I have been strung-out, stressed, and having daily panic attacks since I started training in February and on Thursday, when I was dumped by my partner, I broke. The floodgates opened and I couldn't stop crying. I had my last day of mentoring (stage 2 of training) on Friday and I couldn't even get on the phones - I was crying too much. I cried through Saturday. I called in a mental health day on Sunday and didn't go to my first official day out of training. I proceeded to cry through Sunday too. I turned on the computer on Monday at 8:55am, intending to work, but I felt the tears starting and I just couldn't do it. I was exhausted, depressed, tense with anxiety, and wishing that I could just throw myself down the stairs with some guarantee that it would spell the end. Oncoming cars looked like possibilities. I wanted to disappear. I did what seemed smart, called out once more, and took myself over to the emergency clinic.

The nurse triaged me, then sent me into a private room instead of back into the waiting room (she was worried I'd leave). The doctor spoke to me for 5 minutes, and said he was sending me to the ER. In his words, "I have two options - I can let you see the psychiatric nurse here, and give you a referral to a therapist which could take months, or I can send you to the ER and have you be seen by a psychiatrist today. I don't think that first option would be smart at all, do you?" I was given a yellow slip, and sent across the street to the hospital.

Upon arrival, I took a number and waited for the triage nurse. When she called me I gave her the yellow slip, my medicare card, and a quick recap of what I'd gone over with the doctor. She told me she was getting a stretcher, and that I was to undress, put on the hospital gown, and put all my clothes and personal effects into the bag that they had provided. Kindly, they let me keep my phone.

I cried as they wheeled me into a different area. I hate hospitals, they make me anxious. I was alone and depressed and so tempted to go home, but a couple of friends kept me company through it (C and T, I love you both so much). They did blood tests and asked questions. One nurse lectured me. And then, after hours of waiting, the psychiatrist came to talk to me. She asked me questions about my life, about my relationships, about my mother and my father and the death of my aunt. She seemed to really care, and it allowed me to open up to her. And then she said I needed to be sleeping, and that she could help, and was there anything else that she could do for me that would help right now? I asked her to give me something to get rid of the panic attacks.