"Raul was scared to
death as he sat
being interviewed on the locked acute psychiatric ward. …
How did his life come
to this? He was only 24 years old and a medical student, training to
save lives
not take his own."
"Sarah
said, “It’s fine if you don't
want to talk. I'm going to talk and I'm going to tell you what I think
is going
on. Just tell me if I'm right or not, but this monkey business of being
selectively catatonic and thinking that you are going to kill yourself
has to
stop. If we don't get to the bottom of what is wrong with you, you're
not going
to get better and you are at high risk for suicide. Do you understand
what I'm
saying?”
“With
all of your family demands, cultural
demands, societal expectations, you think you would rather be dead than
gay?
You would rather be dead than hurt or disappoint people? You are
terrified if
you are gay you will not be loved?”
“How did you know?” Sarah remained tough and said, “Oh please. I'm good at my job. How many times do you think I've seen this before? Look where I'm working. You're not alone, Raul. But you need to hurry up and get real so you can have the right type of support. It is ridiculous to think that it's okay to commit suicide but it's not okay to be gay."
"He knew she saw the goodness in his soul, accepted him and believed in him even more than he believed in himself."
"Sarah learned very early on what it was like to be different, less than and not accepted or valued as she was."
"Sarah
always felt that God loved her
and she had a strong guardian angel that protected her and kept her
safe, even
though a safe environment was sometimes far from reality."
"Sarah had cared for many patients before Raul, who had tried to kill themselves because of the pain and discrimination they experienced for their sexual orientation."