And The Adventure Continues

Originally posted on my private blog on May 23, 2010

Sometimes when the suckage of life is at an all time high, the best thing we can do for ourselves is to keep in mind that, in spite of the suckage, what we are experiencing is simply Life. (At least that's what my blogging buddy A/ keeps telling me).

In all things that occur, the good and the bad, there is at the core of it, lessons to carry forward, emotional muscles to develop, real growth.

Let me take you through the last few days, step by step, so you have an idea of my headspace as things transpired, because the end result is that yesterday was the second worst day of my life.

It's dangerous to label a day as 'the worst day of my life', because life is prone to try to one up itself, which is what has happened to me. In my old blog I wrote a post entitled, "The Worst Day of my Life, Hands Down", about the day I placed my older son into a youth facility against his will in the hopes that he would get clean and sober and get his life turned around.

But then life one upped me and I got to experience what REALLY has been the worst day to date; the day Josh had his first manic episode just a few weeks ago. THAT day was so much more difficult than what I went through with Jordan, to see your child in a state of delusion and have no idea WHAT to do in terms of helping him is far worse than having a child destroying his life with drugs and alcohol. One situation you KNOW how to handle, the other leaves you feeling ill equipped and lost.

And I've been lost every single day since Josh's first manic episode.

Yesterday also trumps my worst day with Jordan.

When Josh decreased his medication to 150 mg, it seemed to improve his general mood. He was much more like himself, in the few days he was on a decreased dose, he exhibited no anger, not even the slightest frustration. I was hopeful that perhaps the improvement would last and that maybe we would maintain an even keel.

Nope.

In addition to Josh's mood swings, I was dealing with ongoing issues in my relationship with my boyfriend. The things that had plagued us just seemed to multiply, and Josh's situation was causing me to reconsider whether I had the energy left to devote to a relationship that was becoming increasingly difficult. I love my boyfriend, SO much, but sometimes love just isn't enough to overcome the obstacles.

The most troubling aspect of our relationship was that I lacked a sense of security in this relationship, and without trust, without open communication, you really can't have a relationship. In spite of all this, I wanted very much for us to enjoy our vacation together, we always have a great time together and we both needed to get away from our individual stresses.

SO, Friday night I went over to his house and we packed for the trip. He packed his clothes, I helped him gather up the kitchen things we'd be taking and he packed them. I spent the night and on Saturday morning he went to work and I went home.

When I got home I walked into the second worst day of my life.

Josh was in the shower and he'd left his bathroom door open, so as I went into my office I called a hello into him so he'd know I was home and not come tearing out of the bathroom naked.

"Did you just get up?"

"Do you want the truth or do you want me to lie to you so you don't worry?"

"The truth."

"Well, I never got to sleep last night."

When he got out of the shower and got dressed he came into my office. It was about 10 AM, and from 10AM until bedtime last night, I lived through a pretty awful day and broke up with my boyfriend in the process.

Josh's mood was 'off'. He wasn't manic, he wasn't depressed, he was almost 'zombie' like. He made perfectly good sense 99% of the time and then he'd say something totally nonsensical, like, "Well Mom, you and I could coexist in this house happily if you'd just open your bedroom window."

"Open my bedroom window?!"

"Yes. You have this window open and if you open your bedroom window it would.........(insert far off stare)......balance things."

Early in the morning he got VERY angry with me. He kicked my desk several times and pounded on it several times hard enough that the things on my desk jumped.

I finally got him calmed down but he was talking about plans he had for when I went on vacation. That he and his buddy were going to go down to my ex's wooded property and 'detox'.

"I'm gonna get this medicine out of my system, no drugs or alcohol, no cigarettes. I'm going out into the wild and come back with clarity."

Well, you can imagine my discomfort with this plan. First of all Josh planned on stopping his medication cold turkey....while in the middle of no where....with no cell phone reception....in company with a 20 year old who wouldn't have a clue how to handle the Josh that might appear on no medication.

Josh became agitated off and on, more and more delusional and eventually I called my ex and asked him if he could please come over, that maybe he could reason with Josh. He said he'd call Josh.

Josh talked to his dad for over an hour; calm, seemingly reasonable and cogent, but I only heard a snippit of their conversation.

In the meantime, I text'd my boyfriend and told him that Josh was a mess, in a rage, and that I was trying to talk him into going to the hospital for an evaluation.

Knowing that Josh has scared me before with his behavior, I was expecting a call back, asking if I was ok, or if there was anything he could do to help.

Instead I got a series of texts lamenting what this would do to our vacation. Pointing out how unfair it was that this might effect our vacation plans. Bitching about how hard he's worked doing side jobs during the prior month so he'd have spending money for vacation.

And I was finally done with him, because, not only was trust and communication an issue for us, but that part about being there for each other....obviously wasn't.

The rest of the day with Josh was awful. At one point after Josh insisted he was going to stop his medications in an unsafe manner, he was kicking furniture and pounding his fist into the walls I finally said, "OK, well, you're an adult and you can do what you want, but I don't have to sit by and watch the results. Right now you need to go pack your things and go to your father's."
He said he wouldn't, I said he would or I'd call the police and have him removed from my house. He took my phone and the house phone so I couldn't call the police. I headed out the front door to use a neighbor's phone and he threw the phones at me and stormed off.

So I called his father again (who by this time was sick of the both of us) and asked him to PLEASE come over. For whatever the reason he said, "let me call you right back."

When he called back he asked to talk to Josh and pretty soon Josh was screaming at him (something that NEVER happens). Josh handed the phone back to me and said, "I'm done talking to him and I'm done talking to you."

I took the phone outside and talked to my ex who told me, "Jesus, it's impossible to talk to him when he's like that, you can't reason with him at all!"

Ya think? Welcome to my 24/7 world sweetheart!

In the end my ex told me, "You know Melody, this is so heartbreaking and I feel so helpless and I know you do too, and I don't know what the RIGHT thing to do is, but in the end, maybe you need to let him hit bottom. He says he's not coming over here, he's just gonna GO. You have no control over him, but if he leaves your house, you have even less control. I don't know, that's maybe the eventual outcome, you need to kick him out and stop padding his fall."

"Yes, but Jerry, HORRIBLE things could happen. He could do something and get arrested, he's clearly on the edge of another manic episode and he shouldn't even be driving, he could have a wreck, hurt himself, kill someone else. I mean, there are just some very serious consequences that could occur. How can I kick him out knowing that?!"

"All I know Melody is that until he gets on board with managing his condition, nothing is going to change. You're going to keep going through these types of episodes."

In the end we decided I should try to calm Josh down, let him stay, let him go to work his 5-9 shift and that hopefully when he got home I could get him to take his medicine and get some sleep. That after a night of sleep he would probably be much better mood wise, much easier to deal with and reason with.

So that's what I did. I calmed him down and spent the rest of the afternoon just talking with him, watching him sink further into delusion as the day continued.

He went to work and my boyfriend came over. We had a discussion about the issues in our relationship, about his lack of support on a day when I needed it the most, and in the end, I broke up with him. So much for our vacation!

When Josh came home from work, I encouraged him to take his medication and told him I'd visited the pharmacist who gave me a compatible over the counter sleep aid in case Josh couldn't sleep. The pharmacist advised me that Josh probably hadn't taken his medication the night before. "It's extremely sedative in nature, if he'd taken it, he would have slept. But if your son won't take his medication tonight, give him this. If he takes his medication, give it two hours to work, if he still can't sleep, then give him a dose of this."

Josh needed to take 3 - 50mg pills. He agreed to take one. I finally convinced him to take two. I made him a bite to eat, he ate and went to bed, where he's still asleep.

Josh probably didn't take his medication Friday night and he told me he'd been drinking whiskey, he couldn't tell me how much. This young man just keeps shooting himself in the foot because he won't get on board and stay on board with his treatment plan.

I got the bill yesterday in the mail for his hospitalization. $9,600. This is the REAL tangible cost of all this. How many more hospitalizations is it gonna take before he gets on board. And the intangible costs are mounting as well.

When Josh gets up today I'm hoping that he is in a good frame of mind and can listen to reason. I would like for him to agree to continue his medication at 150 mg, agree to go to Florida with me for 11 days where he will have no access to drugs/alcohol and can just chill with me. I'd like to see what the results would be if he stayed on this dosage for two weeks without the interference of outside substances, that maybe by the end of that time period he would see the benefits of the medication and the need for abstinence with drugs/alcohol.

He may not be agreeable to this, one never knows what mood is going to be present on any given day. I may be in for another really bad day. Who knows?

What I do know is I'll just keep doing the best I can with it. I keep making mistakes, and as a result I keep making things worse, but I'm learning everyday.

If Josh doesn't agree with my Florida plan, than I'm not going.

Sad situations all the way around, BUT, my child is alive and sleeping soundly in his bed.

Right now, that's enough.