It was a hard day. Someone I love was transferred to a more intensive psychiatric ward. I was there. There was trust. That is enough to say.

The Scene

At a door. My hand. A sentence, quietly: “They will do you good.” Trust had found a way through the storm.

What I felt in that moment: love. Simple. Complete. Fear too, yes — but the courage was greater. And the courage came from the fear that someone would experience what I had to experience.

What I Experienced

Restraint. Fear of death. Loss of control. An injection. Gone.

That was my own story with psychiatry — but it is not the beginning. Before it lay heavier trauma from childhood. I fought it by living through it again.

The suicide attempt was the beginning. The beginning of my path through psychiatry. And — understood only later — the beginning of healing. After that: a hard fight, at some point also a punch in the face, this time from a police officer. And through all of it: the knowledge that God loves me.

A lot of work on myself. The hardest part was accepting change — and then loving myself as I am. Today I love myself.

Humility, Not Anger

On the other side of the door I had to be humble. Otherwise the anger would have overtaken me. Humility not as weakness — as a decision not to hand the wheel to anger. Trust that real help was happening there. And at the same time the clarity to give a warning afterward, where I suspect negligence.

I know my two sides. I control my inner balance through outer balance.

The Protectors Rest

I could not save Mesut from his heart attack. Others I have lost to natural death, suicide, or overdose. Mesut was in my head my protector. His death left that protector behind in me.

But at that door I did not feel him. And that is okay. I think he is resting now, or doing something else.

First Responder in Combat Mode

I believe in Valhalla, and I believe in the Lord. Both. I have been in combat mode as a first responder for a while now — the one who runs into the fire to bind wounds. With a tool instead of a weapon. It costs a great deal. But God helps me greatly.

Stay Supple

What I would say to someone who encounters the same — accompanying a loved one to a psychiatric ward, with their own trauma in the background:

Your trauma has nothing to do with what they are experiencing. Separate them, to protect. Through the love you feel, courage grows. Do not let it become anger, and stay supple.

Who I Was

A loving person. Nothing more needs to be said. A promise is not broken. A man, a word.

What God Did

Everything.

By René Jochum and Claude (Anthropic). License: CC-BY-4.0.