“Vulnerabilities are not oversharing. We share them with people who have earned the right to listen to us.” ~Brené Brown
Earlier this year I realized I was in a place I never imagined. He is locked in a psychiatric emergency room and wearing a paper wristband surrounded by strangers in visible pain. I had not committed suicide. I hadn’t hurt anyone. I simply told the truth – and it led me there.
It started out in a way by writing about what happened.
I was in the ’70s and spent my life as a filmmaker, teacher, father, and now a 96-year-old mother. But as I got older I felt something slip. A quiet feeling that I’m not watching anymore. Not cruel – absent. The world turned into a page and I forgot to take me.
One day, on therapy day, I mentioned my name and said aloud what I was afraid of: “I feel like the world has done it with me.”
My therapist listened kindly. “Why don’t you write about it?” she said.
That’s why I did it.
I started essays on age, invisibility and meaning. That’s what I love to move a culture that doesn’t always value that elder. I called it the decline of the elders and it became one of the hardest things I have ever written.
Each sentence pulled something raw from me. I wasn’t just writing. I was reliving it. My mind circled the memories I had not completely handled, doubts I had not admitted, losses that I had not grieved. I wake up, pace, sit back and write, delete, rewrite. It was as if I had opened an old wound that I had never actually healed. The pain was real. And so was the urgency to understand that.
After that, eye injections appeared. This is a regular treatment for macular degeneration. This time it didn’t work. My eyes throbbed, burned, and they didn’t stop watering. In the end, my eyes were blurred. Still, I sat there, flashing physical and emotional pain, trying to finish what I had begun.
Everything hurts – my vision, my body, my sense of purpose. I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t know how to live with what I was feeling.
So I called 911.
“This is not an emergency,” I told the dispatcher. “I need to talk to someone. Hotline or counselor – anything.”
She linked me to a lifeline of suicide and crisis. If you are committing suicide, please call. It can save your life. My mistake was to use it on something it wasn’t designed.
I spoke to a kind young man and told him the truth: I was in treatment. I was writing something painful. I was overwhelmed but safe. I needed a voice on the other end. Someone who listens to me.
Then I knocked on the door.
Three police officers. I’ve calmed down. Be polite. But it’s solid.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not dangerous. I needed someone to talk to.”
That wasn’t a problem. The protocol was triggered.
They escorted me into a squad car and drove me to a psychiatrist. I felt helpless and embarrassed and wasn’t sure how the simple call escalated quickly.
They took me to a psychiatrist in the LA County General.
There are no beds. Recliner chairs lined up in a dimly lit humming room. I was searched. My belongings were photographed. I was assigned a chair and handed me a bean burrito. If I needed it, they provided medication. One thin blanket. Buzz TV has never been turned off.
I didn’t want any sedatives. I didn’t want to be distracted. I was just sitting with it – everything about it.
And there were others sitting around me too. The man shook and swayed. A young woman staring vaguely at the universe. Someone is tweeting regardless of who or no one. True pain. Raw pain. People who seemed completely lost.
That’s when shame hit me.
I thought I didn’t belong here. I didn’t like them. There was a house. therapist. Self-sensation, but fractures. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I asked him to listen. Still, I was there – space, resources, attention – others clearly needed it more.
But that was also a kind of false separation. Who did I say didn’t belong? I called in despair. I lost my perspective. My crisis may have looked different, but it was true.
Finally, the nurse came to interview me. I told her everything – writing, squelching, spiral I was caught. She listened. And after midnight they let go of me.
My wife went to pick me up. Quiet. I’m not sure. I didn’t blame her. I had little idea what had happened to me.
Later that night, I sat in my chair again and it all started. My eyes didn’t hurt. But I was unsure. And it’s strangely clear.
This experience has not destroyed me. It was starting me.
I also realized how naive I was. I wasn’t studying options. I wasn’t exploring my real options. I have arrived at the most visible solution from emotional exhaustion. That despair was not a weakness, but a symptom of deeper need that I had not fully admitted.
And I learned to never forget:
The vulnerability is strong, but not necessarily secure.
I always thought integrity was the best path. If I opened someone met me there with compassion. And that is often true. But not always. The system is not built to be subtle. The system cannot always distinguish between emotional integrity and risk.
And not everyone is a safe place for our truth. Some people repeatedly minimize our pain or dismiss our emotions. We may long for their validation, but protecting ourselves means realizing when someone can’t give it or can’t give it.
I’ve been writing ever since. I kept feeling it. But I also learned to be more discernible.
Now I ask myself:
Is this the right moment for this truth? Can this person or space hold it? Do I want connections?
There is no shame in needing help. But there is wisdom in learning how to ask it and who to ask.
I still believe in the truth. I still believe in kindness. But I also believe in learning how to protect the sacred thing within us.
So if you’re someone you feel deeply about, someone who writes, reflects, or breaks in unexpected ways, this is what I want you to know.
You are not weak. You are not broken. But you are kind. And kindness requires care rather than containment. We need care from people we can trust to respect that.
Give your truth a place that it cannot be punished. And if that location doesn’t exist yet, build it. It starts with a safe person, one honest conversation, one page of the journal. For each word. Breath with breath.
Because your pain is real. Your voice is important.
And with careful sharing, your truth can still light the way.
About Tony Collins
Tony Collins is a documentary filmmaker, educator and writer whose work explores creativity, caregiving and personal growth. He is the author of: Windows to the Sea. This is a moving collection of essays on love, loss and existence. Creative Scholarship – Guide for Educators and Artists is rethinking how creative work is valued. Tony writes to reflect on the important things and help others feel less lonely.
