On the third day of my involuntary incarceration in Psych Ward 2, my husband finally called.

When I spoke to him, my heart lightened when he said he was proud of me. Happy I was taking this seriously. That he and my children would be waiting for me.

Yet as days dragged on and our conversations became less feared, I became more frustrated in this prison he’d locked me in, and started pushing back.

During one call, huddled near the phone on account of the two inch cord, I told him enough was enough. He needed to get me out. He told me if I was going to come home with that rhetoric, that attitude, he would not be waiting for me.

It was a subtle threat. One that went straight through my head to my heart and stayed there. For hours, days, still a piece of it there. I thought: So now I’m not even allowed to have a reaction to the experience you just put me through?