There are three people who I can’t find, but who I would like to see, and tell them how they changed the course of my life.

I would like to find the two men, whose names I do not know, that saved my life, back in 1997.  One man pulled me to safety as I was standing on the railing over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

On the same night, another man, pulled over to the side of I-5 and checked on me in my car.  I was barely conscious, as I had taken two bottles of pills.  He called 911 and stayed with me until help arrived.

I didn’t know then, but I was about to begin the best sixteen years of my life.  If those men hadn’t cared enough to stop and help a suicidal woman that was hearing voices, I would have missed all those amazing years of happiness.  I am forever grateful to them.

Angels exist.

The last person I would like to see is my last psychiatrist.  I had been seeing her for several years, and then one day, I received a letter in the mail, and the letter said, to choose a different doctor.  It seemed that no one knew why she left.

I asked my primary care physician, because the two of them used to work together, and she didn’t know what happened.  For nearly a year, I kept calling her office to see if she had completely terminated her employment or if she had made plans to return.

Eventually they told me she wasn’t coming back.

I still miss her, and I want to tell her something.

The last time I saw her, she told me, “As your homework, I want you to tell one person in your life that you have schizophrenia.”  You see, she knew that I was living in hiding for over twenty years, and she wanted me to learn, by slowing coming out, that the world was a safe place.

I took her seriously.

In her honor, I have come out to everyone in my life.  I am now living in the open.  I want to tell her the good and the bad.  How people have reacted.  I want to invite her to the performance of the monologue I wrote about living with schizophrenia that is coming out in May.  I want to tell her, that I made it.  I made it.  The world hasn’t completely accepted me, but many people have.

I want to talk to her one last time and say thank you.

Thank you for always telling me I wasn’t crazy.