"What we can do if you're struggling with feelings of wanting to die is get you therapy and medicine that will help you cope with your feelings. You can still be sad, but the sadness will not be so overwhelming. 

In the last two weeks, have you felt like you might hurt yourself or other people?"

"Well, I stab Martin."

"...We've had a talk about it already," Evelyn says. "Iomedae is - from a very different culture. Her parents taught her to carry a knife," a sword, please Iomedae don't correct her about that, it sounds so much weirder, "and to defend herself with force, if necessary, and it sounds like this guy did not back off when she tried verbal de-escalation. She didn't want to hurt him, and I'm not worried that she would ever hurt anyone unless she was afraid for her safety and other strategies hadn't worked." 

Iomedae probably doesn't know half of the words she used, but that's not really the point, is it.

There is not a spot on the form for that. "I see. Uh, okay. Hurting yourself? How many times in the last two weeks have you thought about hurting yourself?"

"... I thinked about marry a girl to check if it is an Evil thing to do?"

" - no, the question means, have you thought about cutting yourself, or causing yourself pain, or trying to kill yourself."

"- you go to Hell for that. No matter how bad it is to be a foster child Hell is worse."

- wait, is suicide supposed to be something that you go to Hell for? Evelyn can't actually remember that coming up in any sermons or at Sunday School when she was a kid, not that she was the most attentive Sunday School participant. It seems...mean to depressed people? Surely Jesus wouldn't hold it against someone if they did something in a moment of awful pain? 

Evelyn is not going to get into a discussion of theology with Iomedae at the doctor's office. Surely "but you go to Hell for that" isn't even that bizarre a thing to say, she could imagine a Catholic kid saying something like that about, oh, birth control or having an abortion. She doesn't interrupt. 

"I'm really glad to hear that you don't want to kill yourself and don't have a plan to," says the nurse. "If that changes, you can talk to someone here, all right? We can help with those overwhelming feelings.

How often in the last two weeks have you felt unhappy?"

"When I was free I feel very happy. Then I made a foster child and still happy because I did not understand what being a foster child was. Then I learned and then usually unhappy, except when asleep, or praying."

"How often have you felt alone?"

"I alone to pray so no one will know. I alone to sleep if Alfirin and Lily not join me."

That's a very understandable way to misinterpret the question, which on reflection is not helpfully worded. 

"She doesn't mean alone in the sense of being by yourself somewhere with no one else there," Evelyn says. "It's more - being sad because you don't feel like you have friends, or missing people you wish were there, or not feeling like there's anyone you talk to who would understand. The English word for that feeling is 'lonely'." 

"I miss my friends who get send to other country. I miss people in Taldor who know what holy warrior is and - expect right things of me. I miss my father. I am grown and did not miss my father living on my own but if he knew I was a slave he be so angry and learn America try to fix it and get me free and I miss having someone who would do that for me."

Oh no. 

"- Iomedae is very frustrated that a fifteen-year-old is considered a minor in America," Evelyn says. "Where she grew up, she was considered an adult by her parents, and left home to - pursue an adult life."

It's interesting how much more...on Iomedae's side about it...she feels all of a sudden, though really she should stop thinking of it as 'sides', the nurse is trying to help just like everyone else here. 

Can they not get into the 'holy warrior' part please. Hopefully the nurse will decide to just move on rather than figure out where on the form to put stuff about it. 

"How often in the last two weeks have you felt that your life was bad?"

"Bad for the world? When I learn that la migra come to my friend homes. Or bad for me to be living?"

"Bad for you to be living."

"It is much more bad than being free, and more bad than being a child when I was a child, and less bad than many things that can happen if a person as stupid as I was."

"...so would you say that you feel like your life is bad sometimes, often, or almost always, in the last two weeks?"

"The week before I was made a slave was very good! I had save so much money I could start giving to the church. Some people sleeping in my tent because Martin make them nervous and that maked me happy because I was doing my job keeping people safe. This week bad almost always."

"How often have you felt like being sad made it hard for you to do things with your friends."

"...never? How would it do that."

"How often have you felt like you didn't care about anything?"