Talking to a Doctor in Private Saved My Life
Discreetly sharing my mental health problems with a doctor as a child helped me find treatment for my depression. Now, some wish to take away that right to privacy.
Disclaimer: this piece is rather dark, with themes of abuse, slurs, and talk of suicide. If that makes you uncomfortable, please do not read this.
Talking about suicide is never easy, especially if you are a kid. How do you tell your parents, ‘yeah I wanted to jump off a building’? Even for the most supportive parents it is a hard thing to process; that your child wants to end their life. In a recent viral tweet, January Littlejohn laments that a nurse tried to talk privately to her daughter about a mental health screening. She claims this is an affront to her rights as a parent to know about her daughter’s care. If January got the policies passed that she wanted, I would be dead. Talking to a doctor in private saved my life.
All my childhood I was bullied. I didn’t have a good grasp of my emotions (I would later find out this is because of an anxiety disorder). I cried a lot. It made me a target. Combined with a Catholic school that preferred to sweep bullying under the rug, my childhood was not particularly good. My parents were kind and caring and I did not have to deal with poverty, but being personally harassed day-in and day-out took its toll. I got called everything under the sun. Faggot was the big one. People would bump into me or throw balls at me because they knew I’d react and they liked watching. It got so bad I had to have a therapist when I was in third grade to help me through it.
My therapist was great and I used a lot of his advice to help me become a better person later in life (Dr. Stanley if you are reading this, thank you). My parents were helpful, but due to them being doctors they weren’t always available. However, I learned not all adults were on my side. My first boy scout troop leader was the father of one of my main bullies. He was a tank commander in Iraq and ran his family like it. He once yelled at me at summer camp after crying in the showers. I was crying because he told all of us we would never make Eagle Scout. His son the next year would torture me by brandishing knives. I had told on them for smuggling weed into camp, but his father covered for him, and he thought it fun to psychologically torment me, especially knowing he was protected from retaliation. My vice principal at the school also got mad at me for crying because I lost the election for SGA treasurer. She said, “Maybe it’s a good thing you lost, because you’re being such a bad sport about it.” Needless to say, I distrusted a lot of adults.
I became depressed. I felt I was worthless, weak. I didn’t deserve the blessings I had in life. I felt I was broken and unlovable. I was better off dead. I fell inward, eventually not opening up to my therapist nor my parents out of fear they might turn on me too. It was a very, very dark time in my life. Even after I finally went to a public high school and the bullying stopped, the scars were still there. I finally had friends and a support network, and everyone that hurt me before was gone. I finally felt I was safe, but I still struggled. I started cutting myself. I felt I deserved to be hurt, that this was punishment for me being such a failure. I’d even squeeze lemon juice into the wound to hurt myself more. The pain was my penance. The fear that I might hurt people later in life led me to the twisted logic that I should end it. It was the only moral option to stop other people from being harmed, I believed.
There I stood, at the edge of a building, tears in my eyes, ready to end it all. It wasn’t really that high, maybe 2 stories tall. The fall almost certainly wouldn’t have killed me, but I wanted it to. I was calculating how I could hurl myself in such a way that broke my neck. It was just after a dance on an extra-curricular field trip. I should’ve been happy. I had a decent time and danced with some girls. It was only when I was alone at the end of the night that I felt sad. My first girlfriend had just dumped me, and I was reminded of that. People were happy to have me around, but I was too repugnant to stay with. As I stood there, I realized I didn’t have a suicide note. I didn’t want to leave my family and friends wondering, I felt like that would be harmful as well. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I had to have a note, because if I had a note, people would understand and not miss me. Yet, there was no paper around. No pen either. I solemnly stepped down and went home. I was determined that next time I would write a note explaining everything. It would all be ok after that note.
Thankfully, I didn’t do that. I felt better the next day, but I was still so afraid of rejection and hurting someone emotionally. I couldn’t talk to girls without panicking. Talking to boys in that way was not an option, even though now I realize I was also attracted to them. I didn’t want my childhood bullies to be right. I didn’t want to be a faggot. Ironically, in the same place I wished to end my life, a year to the day after my darkest moment, I met someone special. A good friend whom I am still in contact with today, nearly 10 years later. She taught me to be open, to not worry so much. She taught me how to handle rejection too. I asked her out, she said ‘no’, but only because we lived on opposite ends of the state. I came to realize that sometimes, it wasn’t my fault. People don’t just reject you because they hate you or because you are unattractive, there can be other reasons. I shouldn’t assume people hated me for being me. I came to apply this to other aspects of life. I no longer fretted over texts. Before I would be afraid people were ignoring me because they wouldn’t text back immediately. I’d worry myself sick over it. Now I could rationalize it. I had no clue what they were doing at that moment, maybe they wanted to text but forgot. I know I did that. Maybe they were working or playing games. Who knows, why care? I was finally beating back my anxiety.
The most critical thing she taught me was it was ok to seek help sometimes. I was always afraid of being a burden, especially being raised by a family that prided themselves on self-sufficiency. I was told all about how people were lazy and mooching off the hard earned tax-dollars others made. They said to not be like that. But my friend taught me that there is a difference between asking for help and mooching. She said those tales weren’t always true, and that I deserved to be happy. I didn’t fully believe her, but I decided to give her ideas a shot. When I got my yearly check-up at 17, I took a mental health exam. This is the same ‘garbage’ exam January’s daughter took. I know because the question, “How often do you think your family would be better off with you dead?” was on it. For once I answered honestly. All the other times I took it I lied because I didn’t want to upset my mom or get put on medication. I was afraid medicine would make me numb, a zombie. I was afraid my mom would be hysterical over me being suicidal. I didn’t want to cause trouble. I was still worried about those things at that appointment, but because of state law I was brought back for a private conversation with the nurse. She took me seriously. I felt safe to come clean about everything. She scheduled another appointment with the doctor. My doctor explained how depression works from a medical perspective, and how certain drugs could help me. She prescribed me Zoloft that day.
Immediately, I felt better. I could actually talk to people now! I said to myself, “Wait, normal people don’t panic about every little thing?! What have I been missing out on?!” I felt alive. The bad thoughts were under control. I felt confident. I felt I was finally myself. After a few dosage adjustments, I was functioning much better than I ever had thought possible. Before taking Zoloft, I was worried it would destroy some part of me. This wasn’t the case, though, as it merely let who I truly was operate without crippling self-doubt. For the first time in my life, I could say and think good things about myself. I was happy. Truly, sincerely, happy.
My world today would be completely different without that appointment. Without talking to that doctor, I wouldn’t have gotten the help I needed. I would be crippled by the irrational fear my mom would be hurt mentioning my suicidality. It’s extremely likely I would’ve committed suicide. Knowing myself at that time, that was almost a certainty. When I saw January’s tweet, I felt so bad for her daughter. For those who don’t know, January Littlejohn spearheaded the campaign for the ‘don’t say gay’ bill because her daughter (I'm calling her that because that’s what January calls her, we don’t know what she herself prefers) went to a school therapist and began to identify as nonbinary. January claimed the school keeping this from her was an infringement of her rights. Her latest popular tweet proves that what she campaigns for is harmful. It is not a parent’s right to know every last thing about their child. Even if they are loving parents, kids might be afraid to share embarrassing or dark things about their life in front of their parents. If January gets her way, kids like I was would die. It sickens me seeing not only her advocate against child medical privacy, but also against tools to improve mental health like ssris. Without those, I know I wouldn’t function. My last years of high school would’ve been hell. I wouldn’t be here right now.
I hope January’s daughter gets better treatment. She deserves better. She’s been essentially silent during this whole ordeal. We have no clue what her thoughts are, her feelings, her dreams, wishes, and desires. All we know is what January tells us. Does she still secretly believe she’s nonbinary and is pretending to desist to appease her mom? Is she actually someone who genuinely realized being nonbinary wasn’t for her? What does she want to be called, how does she want to live? What does she think?January took her daughter away from her friend group and school because she believed they convinced her to be nonbinary. I can’t think of anything more devastating than removing someone from a friend group that supported them and loved them unconditionally. I know I’d spiral if I was taken out of my highschool or had my good friend barred from communicating with me. It’s disturbing that one parent and their beliefs could potentially doom thousands of young people in a state. Such is it when you are close to power, I suppose.
January Littlejohn, if you are reading this, I hope you realize what you are doing will endanger thousands of children. You would destroy robust safeguards against abuse to sate your own lust for authority. Your own hangups about your child are not worth protecting abusers over. Take some introspection and ask why your kid was afraid to tell you some of these things. The solution to your problems lies there, not with the entire population of kids in the state of Florida. Harming them will not help you. Only you can help yourself.