#psychiatric-hospitalization

#psychiatric-hospitalization

In the weeks prior to my most recent suicide attempt 11 years ago, I denied I was suicidal to anyone who asked. I was in a partial hospitalization program (PHP), and my thinking was that I needed to get back to work, and that I did not want to be admitted to the psychiatric hospital-which is certainly what would have happened because not only was I thinking about suicide, but I had a definitive plan and time frame.

My bold declaration had left my graduate school classmate, Nicole, with a look that was hard to read at first, but I concluded that she was about to alert the authorities, and they were coming to take me to the psychiatric hospital-a place that was unfortunately all too familiar to me. After 12 such hospitalizations, and a bipolar diagnosis, I was always on high alert. I had to be.