I am a 67 year old infant

This appears to be who I am �" a 67 year old infant, desperate beyond all measure for someone to accept me as I am. For my existence to mean something to someone.

I was watching Top Boy Summerhouse the other day. A severely depressed Jamaican women living on an east London estate with a teenage son goes out to buy food, but has no money. The man at the market stall knows her situation and gives her a bag of food. She drops the bag and the food �" maybe a sweet potato or a casaba bursts apart and she’s suddenly curled up in a fetal position on the street. Many people stop to help her, and she gets put in a psychiatric facility, where people are extremely kind and helpful and are there for her. She gets put on a lot of stabilizing drugs, temporarily, then has about a half dozen therapeutic modalities given to her, to help her.

If such a thing happened to me, where I live, the most likely outcome would be that I would be killed. Anyone who stopped would see me as an opportunity to do their absolute worst to another person, knowing they would get away with it. There is no mental health system in this country. The one time I got put into a mental institution for a 24-hour suicide watch, there were about 20 people seated on outdoor lawn chairs in a huge room, unattended. The nurse’s station was glassed on, with a yellow taped line on the floor about 2 feet out from the glass, and a policemen there to make sure no one crossed the yellow line. A girl across the room from me took a running leap at me, attempting to bite my nose off because “I was just another Jessie.” I would be without a nose if the guy in the chair next to me �" also on a suicide watch �" hadn’t side-tackled her just as she reached my face. No one other than the other patient did anything. Then I went home and got verbally berated so bad that I dissociated alone in bed for about a week. I am ALWAYS A PROBLEM.

The woman on Top Boy Summerhouse was in her critical state because her man left her for another woman. Every man I’ve ever known has left me for another woman. Every friend I’ve ever had has abandoned me when I stopped being fun. When I stopped being beneficial to them, I stopped being.

My children hate me. I hate me. Now, I’m stuck in this, my mother’s old house, completely alone. I can’t reach out for help because the only help I get is people telling me to stop feeling sorry for myself. I don’t dare tell anyone how far down I am, for fear that I’ll get put back into that room with the lawn chairs again.

When I was a child, I was sentenced to burn in a lake of fire forever. It’s the only reason I don’t kill myself.