Not much new to report where Josh is concerned. He continues to be 'fine'.
He got all of his student aid issues resolved and has enrolled for fall classes. His grant money and student aid is conditional on him not failing any classes or getting any withdrawls or incompletes.
He is only taking three classes and his classes will be on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, they all begin at 12:30. This schedule should work well for him since he won't have to drive either direction during rush hour traffic and he can sleep in which is the schedule he prefers.
Right now his sleep schedule is completely topsy turvy. He goes to bed between 4-6 AM and sleeps until 3 PM or so. I pointed out that not only is his schedule upside down (which won't work once school starts), but he is also sleeping 12 hours some days.
"You know Josh, people who are depressed tend to sleep too much, you need to check yourself to make sure you don't feel like you're slipping into a depression."
"I think I'm fine, I'm not sad or having any dark thoughts or anything."
"OK, but you need to monitor that because now would be the time to address it so that you will be ready when school starts."
He has been very slow to address his job situation. He has typically been working less than ten hours a week and this week, they didn't schedule him at all. In light of that, he has submitted some applications online, but his money situation has now become dire. Last week his car battery died and instead of giving him or loaning him the money to buy a new battery, I let him figure it out on his own, my thinking being that a new battery would take most of his available cash and he would FINALLY feel a need to act on the job thing. That seems to have had the desired effect.
He went without a car most of the week until he got his paycheck. He jumped his car and drove and bought a new battery.
In general he has been very pleasant. Often he'll do dishes or other household tasks before I can even mention them to him. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not like he's tearin' it up around here, but I see improvement in that area.
He also agreed to clean the house every Friday in lieu of paying me rent and he has done a pretty good job with that. Sometimes he won't get everything finished on Friday, so he finishes up on Saturday, but he's at least doing it with a smile on his face.
He still spends too much time alone, but also sees his 'good' friends fairly often. They will all be returning to college soon, but so will he AND I hope he has a new job as well. School and work will fill a lot of his time and force him to get on a more normal schedule.
I feel pretty comfortable about his return to school. There is no way to know what might happen as the school year progresses. It's quite possible that Bipolar symptoms will appear and I can only pray that if they do, he will address them properly. I think not moving forward with school plans would be detrimental to him at this point, he needs the routine that school provides and to feel like his life is moving forward after having it all derail so badly during the last year.
He would like to think he's not Bipolar, but I'm not convinced he isn't. I expect there to be further issues down the road and it is impossible to say that if he's in a Bipolar state of mind will he still 'see' the need for medication. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
It's very hard feeling like we are sitting on a time bomb, just waiting for it to explode, but that's what we're doing. There is very little that we can do to prepare for that eventuality. Josh isn't willing to discuss the possibilities very much, about the only thing we've agreed upon is to seek his therapists help if things go tits up.
I have missed the last several DBSA meetings due to other obligations, and I won't be able to attend tonight either, but hope to go back next week. It is very hard to sit in those meetings and listen to other people's horror stories when Josh is doing so well. It feels a bit like what survivor guilt must feel like. It's nice to know that the group is there though because I have a feeling I'll be needing their support again in the future.
Josh is doing well, but that doesn't mean he's 100% where he needs to be. I'm watching him closely, there is no part of me that feels like we're out of the woods or anything. I'm just trying very hard to enjoy this respite; I'm getting a lot done around the house and enjoying time with my friends etc.
Basically, I'm waiting for the other shoe to fall.
1 comment:
My heart goes out to you. Especially with the analogies you provide.
Sleeping is an absolutely, positively accurate manifestation of depression. My father used sleep as a form of escape, of denial for decades. In fact, my father asleep on the couch is my defining childhood image of him. (He stayed in a job with a 'nemesis' for a QUARTER CENTURY before he finally left...and fucked himself pension-wise, defined his remaining years.) If you'd asked him then, 'Are you depressed?' he'd have said 'No!' If you asked him now to look back and answer the same question, he'd say 'No!' When I first broached this subject a few years ago, he looked at me like I was speaking an entirely different language. Often depressives have such an incredible system constructed re: survival that you'd think they were brainwashed. (I had my own, being a self-diagnosed 'cyclical functional-depressive', essentially a low-level bipolar-esque situation, only a 'functional' stage in place of the mania.)
Sleeping twelve hours a day is NOT normal. A variant on sleeping patterns? Well, maybe, if he was actively engaged in something; say, he was a musician, and he wanted to record all night. That's not what Josh is doing; he's passively living his life...because that's the best he can do. (I need to state here that I'm being generous in my terminology.)
I've said this before, both with him and The Man in Your Life, that he is NOT a reliable witness of his own circumstances.
My worry is that he's going to go from how things are now...which is entirely under his control, as he's hardly working at all, and according to your description not even doing his Friday stuff according to agreement (understanding that this is 'home', so there's more latitude)...to school, which is NOT under his control, and may well be a very reduced schedule...and he's going to be back in the cycle again...and I don't mean the good one.
I'll be blunt: Josh doesn't know what's best for him. And what you're seeing in his behaviour now, now that the bipolar issues are not at the surface and predominating his life, is his low EQ default. He is, very much, a fifteen year old. So as we've discussed, you've got these two parallel elements, his immaturity and his 'assumed' bipolar state, and while the one is in 'remission', the other... Well the other isn't being addressed. At all.
Before our 'fallout', if you go back into our conversations, I stressed that he needed ENGAGEMENT. I was pushing for volunteering. That the worst thing he could do would be to- Well, pretty much what he's doing right now. It might be the cocoon he needs...or he might just be 'using' again, only it's not a substance we're talking about (and how is his pot use, anyway...?) but a mindset and a lifestyle...and I fear the adjustment to 'the real world' this autumn may very well trigger him once again...and the prospect of that makes me very, very sad. Because I don't want to see you have to weather another storm...especially when nothing has been done to shore up his foundations during this 'gift' time.
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