You Are Worthy

June 16, 2021

Last November, I had the saddest encounter with a patient who was on suicide watch at work, and it's an encounter that has stuck with me throughout all these months.

I went into her room to do an EKG. I was the only tech covering two zones (my own plus the one next to it), which includes up to twenty-four patients at one time, so I wasn't familiar with many of the patients in the second zone and would only go over there when needed. All I knew about this particular patient was that she had overdosed on sleeping pills.

I don't remember exactly how we got on the topic, but at some point during the EKG, she told me herself that she had done this. I asked her why she had taken so many pills, and she said she just really wanted to sleep. I've had many patients tell me this over the years, and honestly, I get it. I would never do it myself because I know how dangerous it is, but I've had moments of extreme insomnia and stress where I could relate to that feeling of wanting to do anything that would help me sleep.

She told me she wasn't trying to kill herself -- and I believed her -- but clearly, someone who's that desperate for sleep has a lot going on in their head, even if they aren't actively suicidal.

She then began to express how guilty she felt for taking up a bed in the ER, and for having tied up an ambulance crew, when somebody else out there might have needed those resources.

I hear this fairly often as well, believe it or not. Now, there are definitely people who come to the ER who really didn't need to be there, whose problem could have been dealt with by their primary care doctor the next day or even an urgent care. These are never the people who feel guilty about using the ER's resources. Usually, they're the ones getting angry about the wait time because people with chest pain keep coming in and taking priority over them. But I don't think I've ever heard anyone express guilt who wasn't in the right place for what ailed them.

In this young woman's case, in particular, it was obvious she needed to be in the ER. She had taken a large amount of benzodiazepines and it was necessary to make sure she was medically okay before sending her to the behavioral side for an evaluation. Yes, it's true that it was her own less-than-wise decision that put her there, but that didn't mean that it wasn't important to ensure her safety, or that she was "wasting our time" as she put it.

Naturally, I assured her that she needed those resources as much as anyone else, and that she shouldn't feel guilty about using them. That she was just as important as anyone else there and we wanted her to be safe.

It was what she said next that broke my heart: "You probably wouldn't say that if you knew me."

Naturally, the first thing out of my mouth was something along the lines of, "I highly doubt that's true." You'd have to have done some severely messed-up things, such as being a child molester, serial killer or rapist for me to have such a strong emotional response. This friendly young woman of twenty-something years did not seem like the type who could invoke such a response, and I was pretty certain that it was her lack of self-esteem talking.

Hoping I wasn't overstepping my boundaries, I immediately followed up with, "But why do you say that?"

Through tears, she began to open up about how she wasn't sure she would ever have children or make a real contribution to society. A far cry from anything I could have imagined, the things that made her feel unworthy seemed like pretty normal things to me, and all things considered, she was probably a pretty normal girl for her age. But here she was sobbing in an ER bed, confiding in a complete stranger about how she didn't think her life mattered as much as other people's because she had doubts about ever contributing something to society.

And honestly, there are probably countless people in society who feel this exact same way, only we don't know about it because they tend to keep silent about it. They might not be the ones in the emergency room who finally break down about it after an overdose, but they are the every day people who have families, go to work, go to school, and live their lives in silent shame thinking they aren't good enough.

It's really sad to me how our society is so focused on this narrow view of success. The idea that you have to "hustle," make a lot of money, own a successful business, have a family by a certain age, look a certain way, or otherwise fit into society's mold in order to be worthy -- this idea is harmful. It's taking young people's lives and we need to stop it.

Then there are people who've experienced emotional or psychological abuse in romantic or familial relationships, who've been more or less taught that they were unworthy for years, and naturally begin to believe it as a side effect of the manipulation. Perhaps it wasn't society who'd made this young woman feel so worthless and unimportant, but someone she was close to, such as her parents, romantic partner, etc. I'm not even sure which one is worse.

I began to tear up myself as I watched her cry and tell me why she thought she wasn't important. And I wished I'd had more time alone with her before her nurse came into the room to start an IV. I wanted to talk to her some more, in private, but our time was up. Despite the nurse's presence, though, I couldn't let the conversation end there. It was a little awkward responding to what she'd said with someone else in the room, but I didn't have much choice. So I told her, "I think every human life is equally important. You don't have to make some huge contribution to society to be an important person."

I don't know for sure if she really believed me, or thought I was just saying it to make her feel better, but I meant it.

You do not have to have children to "carry on your name" in order to be important. If this were true, I would have to include myself among the unimportant because I never want kids. If you're having trouble finding a proper mate to have kids with, have fertility issues, or simply don't want them, you are still worthy. Regardless of how old you are or any other factors. Procreating is not the only thing you were put here to do.

If you're LGBTQIA, you are worthy and valid, regardless of what your religious community, conservative family, or homophobic trolls in the comment section might say. Don't listen to them. You are not hurting anyone by existing in a way that's true to yourself.

If you've overdosed on Xanax, if you're a heroin addict or alcoholic -- if you are homeless, or have mental illness -- you are a human being and your life matters.

If you struggle with your body image and self-esteem -- something I struggle with myself -- you're still beautiful and worthy of love regardless of what you perceive as being "wrong" with the way you look.

If you don't have an "important" job or title or a large paycheck, it doesn't mean you aren't contributing to society; but also you don't have to contribute to society to be worthy. You can be an "average" person and still be important.

Barring any horrible, unforgivable actions that hurt others, we are all important.

I hoped that I would eventually have time to talk to this patient some more while she was in the ER, but because of how busy I was that night, I wasn't able to make it happen. As I was doing something else hours later, I saw her (from afar) being escorted from the medical side of the ER to the behavioral unit, meaning she'd been declared physically and medically okay and would now be in line to talk to a counselor and have a behavioral evaluation. I still occasionally think about her and I hope she's doing well. I also hope that, if she hasn't already, she someday realizes that other people's expectations of her, or even her expectations of herself, don't define her worth.

tags: mental health, healthcare