In March in a McDonald's parking lot off a busy Baltimore street, mental health clinician Michala Williams met a 38-year-old woman in a car.
"So, you called the police for help?" Williams asked the woman, who was sobbing uncontrollably and said she sometimes thinks about harming herself.
She told Williams she has children ranging from age 2 to 22, she was dealing with health issues, and that her fiancé had recently been jailed. She felt so overwhelmed she couldn't eat.
The woman, who asked not to be named so that she could freely discuss her mental health, explained she'd tried to get help the previous month by driving to the hospital but got pulled over on the way because her car registration had expired.
"I don't care if I get pulled over," she said. "But I was saying, 'I don't know what to do. I just want to go to the hospital.'"