Well, it is time to leave another year behind. In so many ways this has been a year I do not want to forget. I have learned a lot this year. Top on my gratitude list for 2014 is that there was not one suicide attempt. My prayer is that those are a thing of the past. No mental hospitalizations and no 5150's. The family has found new hope and support through a church community that the children chose and feel very accepted and committed to be apart. We have had ups and downs and all arounds with each kid as the grow through adolescence. Overall I am extremely proud of my kids as they have grown, chosen to overcome obstacles by bravery, compassion and strength.
We now have Mickey, Lexi's service dog, with us and he is a spiritual appendage to my son that gives him strength he didn't know he had. Mickey makes all of us smile and when the intense storms blow through, Mickey intuitively hangs on and helps wherever he is able. He is a true member of our family. Up there near the top of my gratitude list! My son smiles on a regular bases now...I didn't know his face worked that way! What a beautiful smile he has!
Both kids have been successful at public high school. This has not been without some great life lessons for each of them but the biggest lesson is to keep showing up and get the work done. Isn't that a hard one for the grown ups as well. Knowing their struggles, my heart bursts with pride watching them persevere.
I have been told by some that I am different now. Taking stock on time and place I would have to agree. I started law school in 2011 and my son was young, mental illness had not triggered, my daughter was finishing 5th grade. I had a different perspective on life and my part in it. Today, I understand more about how little I can control and how strong I really am. I also have learned that most people, well intended, have opinions that they know very little about. Most opinions turn into judgments and those judgments are isolating and stigmatizing. My bruises from this realization are healing but I no longer dance around the straight up. Maya Angelo said that people will show you who they really are...believe them. I do.
I also have seen who I really am...believe me. I am loving, compassionate and enduring. My loyalty is direct and steadfast but my tolerance for misinformation, ignorance, judgments and stigmatization is gone. Allowing those things to befuddle me only is a waste of time and energy of which I have little to spare. I am more direct now and to the point. Whether others understand or not I know that I have hit places of pain I could never have imagined and kept breathing. I white knuckle hope and prayer that very few could ever understand sometimes making it one minute at a time, one day at a time and hold outs for a productive and healthy future for my children. I could never ever explain that to anyone and, for the most part, have stopped trying.
Somehow the resolve in it all keeps me going. The questions have faded, the shock has faded, the search for a fix or a cure has faded and the acceptance of faith gets me out of bed in the morning, keeps me breathing and gives me strength to weather the storms, the good days and the future.
2015 holds challenges ahead. I will keep praying that my son's mental illness will not degenerate and I promise to feel kicked in the gut every time i notice or am directed to see it's worsening. I promise to celebrate every good joke, every accomplishment and kindness. I promise to find success in every day because sometimes just surviving the day is worth celebrating. I promise to be fortified and strengthened in gratitude by the angels in our life who fortify us with their kindness, encouragement, faith and love. I promise to keep reaching for grace no matter how frequent I fall short.
Personally, graduating from law school feels surreal and mind blowing. I promise to celebrate it with shock and wonder at myself at the end of April. I promise to cry an complain and stomp my feet as I train for the marathon of the bar exam. Self doubt and fear will be my enemy and I promise to scream loudly in their faces, even when they are in the mirror. I promise to give everything I have inside to pass that bar exam in July. I know that I was called here, pulled here and that same source, calling, pull will drag me through victorious eventually. I promise to be grateful for every prayer, positive thought, offer of forgiveness and patience and blessing that comes my way. I also promise to ignore anybody else's doubt, negative statements, fear and foe to my success.
Standing on the lessons of 2014 I move forward, stronger, ready to take on what may come, what storms may blow, what challenges lay ahead. I will be less social in my bar preparation, I will be more stressed, I will be a little uglier and my house will be a fright. My kids will be neglected and I will be less groomed then my mother would hope and the most I can say is I will try not to smell or offend but that might be the most of it. Those who hang on to our friendship through my neglect and intensity of 2015 are saints and those who let go are practical. I am grateful for it all and look forward to a year from now when I can put it all behind me and stand on the lessons of 2015 with grace and honor. Hope to see you there.
Showing posts with label 51/50. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 51/50. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Friday, September 5, 2014
Small Victories
It may seem stupid to some but today I am just in shock. It is hard to explain why I am in shock but it is because I passed. I didn't know that I could pass. I hoped I would and I worked hard but I didn't know I could.
You see, so much has happened. I have spent so much time in the chaos of my son's disabilities as his mental illness triggered over a year ago and the suicide attempts began and his craziness blew up like a bug bomb in the kitchen pantry. I have spent so much time throwing out what has been damaged and sorting through the wreckage as I try to keep moving forward, keep him alive, functioning and happy. I have been trying to keep my daughter as damage free as possible while also helping her stay in our new reality. All the while I have been continuing my studies part time in law school.
Most definitely my law school experienced changed as all of this exploded into every aspect of my life. My support network practically disappeared but other types of support came out of the shadows. From clients who deal with similar loved ones feeling free to tell their version of crazy and understand mine, a fairy dog mother who occasionally drops food, clothing or pet supplies at our door and keeps us going with her angelic kindness, a Mom who has risen up to be one of my only true sounding walls in the Universe and a new church community. As isolating as crazy has been it has also been incredibly revealing. Many fell away all of a sudden, many opinions and judgments were launched at us feeling like hand grenades some days or even land mines we need to tip toe around. The landscape in crazy town is very different. There is no way to know what each day will bring and for that matter, the world here can change on a dime and all we can do is be prepared to stay calm, know where our shelters are in case the storm gets too out of control.
And yet, one of my sanity keepers has been law school. I think if I did not have law school during this sleep deprived crazy town shake up I would probably have been swallowed in self pity, overwhelmed, grief. I had something demanding my attention, pulling me out of my head, my grief, my shock and forcing me to take a breath and change my focus. Sometimes I physically had to hold my head in order to focus because I felt like my thoughts were on the verge of implosion...maybe they were. I stopped having faith that I was a good student but I was a student who had tenacity and persevered. Now, as I round the curve in my last year of law school it is time to look at the bar exam. One of the steps to taking the bar exam is the national legal ethics exam called the MPRE.
The timing ont he MPRE couldn't have been more crappy. As the service dog organization I had contracted with and the service dog my son had pinned his hopes and life too crumbled and the chaos of that mess became hours daily of emails, phone calls and worry the MPRE loomed in front of me and immediately following the date of that exam were my final exams for the trimester I was currently attending. I insisted upon this date though because if, by chance, I did not pass this exam I would have yet one more try at it before I was too deep in the muck of bar exam prep and I wanted that cushion. I launched into my studies for this exam through all the chaos, the Crazytown storms and so on. The form of questions for this exam are my mental nemesis and my score was wretched. One day I would have a passing score on the practice exams and the next day I would bomb it. I read, practiced, studied, listened to lectures, podcasts, anything and everything to help me.
I took the exam with accommodations for my visual impairment which threw me for a bit. I listened to a cd of the questions and the answer choices and then circled my answer. It was truly the first time I learned to close my eyes and just listen. I have always tried to read and listen but with the degeneration of my vision the two together were creating almost a static in my brain. The questions were hard, confusing and so many of them I just laughed at and circled an answer in a "whatever!!!!" type of thought process thinking as I walked out of the exam...I have no flippin' idea how I did on that. There were so few question I actually thought I understood and was clear on the answer choice. I was pretty sure that my brain was now completely destroyed and that Crazytown had rotted my potential. I thought I had no chance in hell at passing the bar and finishing law school was really just an exercise in stubbornness. I had resigned to the thought of if I passed it would be by the grace of God and if I fail I will continue to take it and the bar until I pass just out of spite-just so cCazytown will not win. I walked out and let it go.
This morning I got my score on the MPRE and I not only passed, I ACED it.
Ok...I got my kids out the door to school and all of a sudden started crying. The last year and a half flashed before my eyes, the pain, the fear, the ER, the psychiatrist appointments and the constant bad news, the torture in my boy and the fear in my girl and my feeling of utter helplessness and confusion. I couldn't breathe for a few minutes as all of it swarmed my brain and I stopped on one point of truth...I passed. Through all of that I persevered and did well? I may still have redeeming qualities in me yet. I might be more then all of this pain. I might be more then parenting successes and failures, crazy kids, botched service dog organizations and I might actually be ok. I ACED it. By the grace of God I ACED it.
This is exactly what I needed as I move towards the bar exam and towards graduating and wondering what in the world am I doing, visually impaired, mayor of Crazytown and not even able to find time to do my hair or wear make up. I might be ok. To quote a song I grew up believing and admired, "she might just make it after all." Unlike Mary Richards I do not want a husband...I want a life. I want happiness and to help people and to affect change for the better in my world. Thank you God for giving me this nudge...this gift. I ACED it. By the grace of God, I ACED it. By the grace of God I go forward. I celebrate my small victory.
You see, so much has happened. I have spent so much time in the chaos of my son's disabilities as his mental illness triggered over a year ago and the suicide attempts began and his craziness blew up like a bug bomb in the kitchen pantry. I have spent so much time throwing out what has been damaged and sorting through the wreckage as I try to keep moving forward, keep him alive, functioning and happy. I have been trying to keep my daughter as damage free as possible while also helping her stay in our new reality. All the while I have been continuing my studies part time in law school.
Most definitely my law school experienced changed as all of this exploded into every aspect of my life. My support network practically disappeared but other types of support came out of the shadows. From clients who deal with similar loved ones feeling free to tell their version of crazy and understand mine, a fairy dog mother who occasionally drops food, clothing or pet supplies at our door and keeps us going with her angelic kindness, a Mom who has risen up to be one of my only true sounding walls in the Universe and a new church community. As isolating as crazy has been it has also been incredibly revealing. Many fell away all of a sudden, many opinions and judgments were launched at us feeling like hand grenades some days or even land mines we need to tip toe around. The landscape in crazy town is very different. There is no way to know what each day will bring and for that matter, the world here can change on a dime and all we can do is be prepared to stay calm, know where our shelters are in case the storm gets too out of control.
And yet, one of my sanity keepers has been law school. I think if I did not have law school during this sleep deprived crazy town shake up I would probably have been swallowed in self pity, overwhelmed, grief. I had something demanding my attention, pulling me out of my head, my grief, my shock and forcing me to take a breath and change my focus. Sometimes I physically had to hold my head in order to focus because I felt like my thoughts were on the verge of implosion...maybe they were. I stopped having faith that I was a good student but I was a student who had tenacity and persevered. Now, as I round the curve in my last year of law school it is time to look at the bar exam. One of the steps to taking the bar exam is the national legal ethics exam called the MPRE.
The timing ont he MPRE couldn't have been more crappy. As the service dog organization I had contracted with and the service dog my son had pinned his hopes and life too crumbled and the chaos of that mess became hours daily of emails, phone calls and worry the MPRE loomed in front of me and immediately following the date of that exam were my final exams for the trimester I was currently attending. I insisted upon this date though because if, by chance, I did not pass this exam I would have yet one more try at it before I was too deep in the muck of bar exam prep and I wanted that cushion. I launched into my studies for this exam through all the chaos, the Crazytown storms and so on. The form of questions for this exam are my mental nemesis and my score was wretched. One day I would have a passing score on the practice exams and the next day I would bomb it. I read, practiced, studied, listened to lectures, podcasts, anything and everything to help me.
I took the exam with accommodations for my visual impairment which threw me for a bit. I listened to a cd of the questions and the answer choices and then circled my answer. It was truly the first time I learned to close my eyes and just listen. I have always tried to read and listen but with the degeneration of my vision the two together were creating almost a static in my brain. The questions were hard, confusing and so many of them I just laughed at and circled an answer in a "whatever!!!!" type of thought process thinking as I walked out of the exam...I have no flippin' idea how I did on that. There were so few question I actually thought I understood and was clear on the answer choice. I was pretty sure that my brain was now completely destroyed and that Crazytown had rotted my potential. I thought I had no chance in hell at passing the bar and finishing law school was really just an exercise in stubbornness. I had resigned to the thought of if I passed it would be by the grace of God and if I fail I will continue to take it and the bar until I pass just out of spite-just so cCazytown will not win. I walked out and let it go.
This morning I got my score on the MPRE and I not only passed, I ACED it.
Ok...I got my kids out the door to school and all of a sudden started crying. The last year and a half flashed before my eyes, the pain, the fear, the ER, the psychiatrist appointments and the constant bad news, the torture in my boy and the fear in my girl and my feeling of utter helplessness and confusion. I couldn't breathe for a few minutes as all of it swarmed my brain and I stopped on one point of truth...I passed. Through all of that I persevered and did well? I may still have redeeming qualities in me yet. I might be more then all of this pain. I might be more then parenting successes and failures, crazy kids, botched service dog organizations and I might actually be ok. I ACED it. By the grace of God I ACED it.
This is exactly what I needed as I move towards the bar exam and towards graduating and wondering what in the world am I doing, visually impaired, mayor of Crazytown and not even able to find time to do my hair or wear make up. I might be ok. To quote a song I grew up believing and admired, "she might just make it after all." Unlike Mary Richards I do not want a husband...I want a life. I want happiness and to help people and to affect change for the better in my world. Thank you God for giving me this nudge...this gift. I ACED it. By the grace of God, I ACED it. By the grace of God I go forward. I celebrate my small victory.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
The First Time
As things have calmed down, all things relative, I have had some time to reflect, although I'd say it is more like flash backs. Maybe the last 10 months have been like a bad acid trip and now, in order for my brain to process it all I have these weird moments where I space out and sort of re-live, go over, re-feel how some parts of the journey happened. Maybe it all happened so fast and I had no time to really process a lot of it, now my brain is trying to go back and work through some of the essential parts in order to heal. Maybe that's what acid flashbacks are, the brain trying to heal...I don't know, I've never done acid and am pretty sure it is not worth trying at this point in order to get a good comparison. My life is trippy enough.
One part that I flash to and get lost in is the day after Mother's Day this last year. For months my son had been getting more and more belligerent, irrational, explosive and intense. I had spent most of Mother's Day in tears where he would cycle from screaming at me to crying and begging forgiveness and then back to screaming at me. He could not get a rational, straight thought in his head nor keep a conversation going. His thoughts were erratic and his behavior unpredictable. He had not slept for 7 weeks despite trying a multitude of sleep medicines. At one point, during the evening hours of Mother's Day he was begging for me to help him and I told him I had heard that if we took him to the E.R. that they would have to get him psychiatric help since we could not get a psychiatric appointment any sooner then months away. He agreed, in tears, got in the car. We drove to the freeway entrance and both started crying. I told him that if he could just get himself to bed then first thing in the morning I would get him to the pediatrician and the therapist and someone could help us. He agreed and went to bed, both of us exhausted.
The next day we went to the pediatrician who could do no more to help us then had already been done, gave us a number to call for a psych referral which we already had an appointment months away that could not be moved up or expedited. We went to the therapist for an emergency appointment. I sat out in my car while he went in to his session. The two of them were not in there for more then ten minutes before they came out together and walked over to my car. I had a sinking feeling....sort of the opposite feeling of thinking you might win the lottery today. The therapist told me that he feels it is imperative that my son go immediately to the ER, he was unstable and not sure he could keep himself safe.
To say that my heart sank would be a gross understatement. I've been through a lot wit this kid, autistic rage tantrums, lots of broken property, doctors, specialists, diagnosis, school battles and so on but there is no way to describe how awful it feels to process in your head that a mental health professional feels that your child is unsafe to take home with you. He asked me to agree to take my son immediately to the ER. I did.
What I flash back to is how I do not remember breathing after that agreement. If I did breathe, I would have cried and I needed to be strong to get my son help, to empower his honesty and courage to ask for help. I needed to process and hold my family together even though it felt like a scud missile just hit my heart and home and family. We drove to the local ER in sort of a surreal state of quiet. He was afraid to go but afraid not to go. I told him how proud I was of his courage to be honest and get help. He whispered, "I'm scared, Mom." I reached my hand over to his hand and in a very rare moment of our lives, he allowed me to break through his autistic tactile defensive wall and we held on to each other for a few minutes, hand in hand, grasping for hope, grasping for strength in each other as I tried with all my soul to let him know that I was not going to let go of him.
This was the first of six mental health hospitalizations,. This one did not involve an actual suicide attempt like the others did. This was the first and last time that I cried as soon as he was strapped on to the gurney and rolled away by the EMT's to be taken to the psych hospital and the release of him being out of sight created a burst of tears from deep in my gut. The shock, the horror, the fear, the confusion, the pain of the process, the exhaustion that vomited out of my body when he was out of my range.
I will never let go and I will hold on to him and to hope. I will work every muscle I have in my heart and soul to help him because I am his mother, I am his advocate, his warrior, his guide and teacher. I am so sorry for any other mothers who have walked a parallel path, and I've known a few who have followed me in to the same ER for their first times. I tell them the view from the frequent flyer seat now, how to find the more comfortable chair, who to ask for a warm blanket, where to find the coffee or juice and how to navigate the time and waiting between the process landmarks. I am now a frequent flyer and seasoned Mom of the autistic/bipolar world but I remember that reach, that grip, that invocaton of the first time. Like a flash back, I remember that first time.
One part that I flash to and get lost in is the day after Mother's Day this last year. For months my son had been getting more and more belligerent, irrational, explosive and intense. I had spent most of Mother's Day in tears where he would cycle from screaming at me to crying and begging forgiveness and then back to screaming at me. He could not get a rational, straight thought in his head nor keep a conversation going. His thoughts were erratic and his behavior unpredictable. He had not slept for 7 weeks despite trying a multitude of sleep medicines. At one point, during the evening hours of Mother's Day he was begging for me to help him and I told him I had heard that if we took him to the E.R. that they would have to get him psychiatric help since we could not get a psychiatric appointment any sooner then months away. He agreed, in tears, got in the car. We drove to the freeway entrance and both started crying. I told him that if he could just get himself to bed then first thing in the morning I would get him to the pediatrician and the therapist and someone could help us. He agreed and went to bed, both of us exhausted.
The next day we went to the pediatrician who could do no more to help us then had already been done, gave us a number to call for a psych referral which we already had an appointment months away that could not be moved up or expedited. We went to the therapist for an emergency appointment. I sat out in my car while he went in to his session. The two of them were not in there for more then ten minutes before they came out together and walked over to my car. I had a sinking feeling....sort of the opposite feeling of thinking you might win the lottery today. The therapist told me that he feels it is imperative that my son go immediately to the ER, he was unstable and not sure he could keep himself safe.
To say that my heart sank would be a gross understatement. I've been through a lot wit this kid, autistic rage tantrums, lots of broken property, doctors, specialists, diagnosis, school battles and so on but there is no way to describe how awful it feels to process in your head that a mental health professional feels that your child is unsafe to take home with you. He asked me to agree to take my son immediately to the ER. I did.
What I flash back to is how I do not remember breathing after that agreement. If I did breathe, I would have cried and I needed to be strong to get my son help, to empower his honesty and courage to ask for help. I needed to process and hold my family together even though it felt like a scud missile just hit my heart and home and family. We drove to the local ER in sort of a surreal state of quiet. He was afraid to go but afraid not to go. I told him how proud I was of his courage to be honest and get help. He whispered, "I'm scared, Mom." I reached my hand over to his hand and in a very rare moment of our lives, he allowed me to break through his autistic tactile defensive wall and we held on to each other for a few minutes, hand in hand, grasping for hope, grasping for strength in each other as I tried with all my soul to let him know that I was not going to let go of him.
This was the first of six mental health hospitalizations,. This one did not involve an actual suicide attempt like the others did. This was the first and last time that I cried as soon as he was strapped on to the gurney and rolled away by the EMT's to be taken to the psych hospital and the release of him being out of sight created a burst of tears from deep in my gut. The shock, the horror, the fear, the confusion, the pain of the process, the exhaustion that vomited out of my body when he was out of my range.
I will never let go and I will hold on to him and to hope. I will work every muscle I have in my heart and soul to help him because I am his mother, I am his advocate, his warrior, his guide and teacher. I am so sorry for any other mothers who have walked a parallel path, and I've known a few who have followed me in to the same ER for their first times. I tell them the view from the frequent flyer seat now, how to find the more comfortable chair, who to ask for a warm blanket, where to find the coffee or juice and how to navigate the time and waiting between the process landmarks. I am now a frequent flyer and seasoned Mom of the autistic/bipolar world but I remember that reach, that grip, that invocaton of the first time. Like a flash back, I remember that first time.
Monday, November 11, 2013
The Mental Health System and the Process of a Psych Hold
I write this as an honest look into what someone with a child with mental illness must go through in order to get help. The good, the bad and the ugly of how to get a kid help.
The night started out just fine, all were happy in the home and tired. Medications were taken at the appropriate times and my children, sometimes nick-named "The Bickerson's" were actually at peace and I had hope for a peaceful and easy Saturday night. Last week in the middle of the night we had a suicidal process stopped mid plan and I chose not to take my son to the emergency room. His psych doc asked why I had not brought him to the ER when he was so acutely suicidal and I told her of my huge frustration in the process.
My son gets to the ER and looks just fine, calm, compliant, polite and the mental health workers look at me like I am nuts to say he is suicidal. It is her insistence that his suicidal ideation is very serious and not to be taken lightly so she told me that if it happens again to tell the mental health worker that SHE was his doctor and that his diagnosis was very serious and his suicidal threats were to be taken at the highest level of intensity. She told me that if I needed to tell him that I want to speak to the psych doc on call and go over his head and worse comes to worse simply state that I am not leaving the hospital with my son, they are to keep him. Well, my hope was that I would not need to use these tips for better service but I was wrong.
I had just gotten comfy in my bed, feeling safe and happy enough to actually sleep in my bed fo the first time in a week instead of sleeping contorted on the couch to stay on hyper vigilant suicide watch. My bed felt so so good to stretch out and just sink in. Sure enough, as sleep began to take me over I hear the door to my son's room opened which always makes me nervous. I heard him come down the stairs and walk straight to my room. "What's up?"...he answered, "Mom, I want to die and I rpomised you I wouldn't but I don't want to live anymore and I can't control it." Good bye comfy bed, our five minutes together was precious and sad all at the same time.
I sat up and tried my best to distract him, think of hopeful thoughts, the potential service dog, his short films, his art work and poetry, his aspiration to have a job at a golf course driving golf carts. He said that none of it mattered and was all a waste because he was too much work and not worth any of it and he couldn't go on trying. After about a half an hour of my full blown efforts to distract and lighten the mood he continued to weep and stay in his deep darkness and I asked the million dollar question, "If I fell asleep tonight, could I trust you not to harm yourself in anyway?"...answer, "no." CRAP.
We agreed it was time to go the the ER. I hate that trip. In the middle of the night we gathered our things and head to the ER, in the dark and cold. We went in to the front desk and told them that he no longer wanted to live and they processed his insurance card, gave us his bracelet and we went back to triage. I pulled the triage nurse aside to tell her my son's form of Bipolar includes hallucinations and such and that I just wanted it on record in case it happens so that everyone would know how to treat him if he started talking to his demons or voices.
Upon this information, the doctor on call comes in and sits in front of my son and starts talking to him like he was a stray wild dog. "How are you feeling tonight?" he says in a soft high pitched tone. I looked at him like he was an idiot. "Are you feeling stressed tonight?". DUGH, would we be here if he wasn't??? "Are you hearing voices right now?" My son looked at him with disgust and said, "no" and rolled his eyes. I tried to clarify to the doctor that he doesn't hear them all the time, just on occasion and that he was not hear because he hears voices, he's here because he wants to die. He smiled at me like I was crazy too and said, "Ok, no problem, do you want some medicine to take the edge off of your stress tonight?". My son said he was fine and the doctor apparently frustrated and still looking for his sense of understanding left the room.
We were walked back to the back of the ER where the nurse and the doctor were mocking people who hear voices. They were discussing how funny it is that people say they hear this or that and that the only voice they should hear is the voice of God. I sat in the hallway for a second staring at them wondering how they could possibly be so insensitive or stupid and feeling grateful that my son did not hear them.
Next the nurse who was just engaged in mockery of my son's condition comes in and without looking at my son or myself grabs his arms and starts cleaning his fresh cuts. He's rolling his eyes and says, "you know these aren't that deep, they don't need to be stitched up." I answered, "We aren't here for the cuts on his arm, we are here because he doesn't want to live anymore." He sort of froze and finally looked at me and said, "Oh, really?" He looked at my son and said, "Is that true?" to which my son answered int he affirmative. Then comes another brilliant patronizing statement delivered almost with a sense of laughter to it, "You are a good looking guy with your whole life ahead of you, why would you not want to live anymore?" I wanted to kick him in the head but still haven't gotten around to taking those kick boxing classes that would have been so helpful at this moment.
He drew the blood and took a urine sample and then we wait for an hour for the results to come back. Once the results come back then the mental health worker can be called. Until then, I sit in an awful hard plastic chair and my son sits on a gurney and we wait. Finally, the doctor who still insists on speaking to my son like he is a lost dog comes in to tell us that all the tests were clean so now we will call the mental health worker to come assess him. I muster up a smile of gratitude for the forward mtion of the process and he leaves.
We have always had women mental health workers, even had one lady twice, she was nice, I liked her. Tonight we got our first guy. He looked like he was 19 but professed later to have a 20 year old kid so I'm not sure what he's doing to stay so young looking but he seriously looked like he walked otu of an abercrombe andFitch ad with his clothes and cologne. I pulled him aside when he arrive after waiting for him for an hour and told him what my psych doc told me to tell him. He said, "Oh, wow...okay, I understand." We walked back into the room with my son and he pulled out his paperwork and said, "So, what is better or worse then when you were here last time" I was a bit stunned, I had just explained the progression of my son's mental illness and the serious intensity of his suicidal actions and the concerns of his psychiatric doctor and he was comparing today to last time.
He asked all the questions on his form and then showed us his score sheet. No, seriously, there is a score sheet. It is apparently like a quiz in a magazine. You know those quizzes, the ones that tell you if you are compatible to an executive or a hippy or if you are supposed to vacation in a motor home or on a tropical island. He tells us that my son lost points on the suicide scale because he is not a 45 year old white male and the fact that he has such a great Mom. He showed us his arithmetic and declares that my son is borderline suicidal. I was speechless. Borderline suicidal. His chart said so. We only added up to borderline. Nothing I said to him mattered, only his happy arithmetic.
He then turned to me and said, "Do you think you could take him home and keep him safe tonight?" I was stunned at the question because it seemed so stupid. I gathered myself after a few seconds and said, "Do you think I would come to the ER in the middle of the night asking for help if I thought that I could do this at home? My son told me that he could not guarantee that he would stay safe if I fell asleep, does this not warrant help beyond myself?" He stuttered for a moment and said, "but you guys have made it through before, he seem quite calm and compliant, I'm not sure he would really benefit from a psych hold." Then he said the words that were most dangerous for him, "unless you are just too tired." WHAT?!?!?!
I stopped breathing for a minute and my eyes went blurry. He offered to fax the forms to the psych hospitals around and see if anyone would take him. He said he'd get back to us in a bit. He got up and walked away. My son laid back in his gurney and closed his eyes and I started plotting ways that I could learn kick boxing in five minutes or less. My adrenaline started to race and I was working up the strength to tell this idiot that I was not leaving the ER with my son that night when he announced that the psych hospital will take him. They were saving him a bed and they would process his paperwork. I remember hearing a long exhale leave my body.
Now, we have done this several times already and the 3am shift almost never processes the incoming paperwork, they wait for the 7am shift to come and in a dump it all on them. I told the mental health worker that I had a daughter asleep at home that I wanted to go check on and since i figured it would be several hours I would go home and come back. He warned me not to leave because it could be processed very quick. I went back to the room and waited for 45 minutes for him to come in and tell me that they will not be processing his paperwork until the next shift and it could be several hours. Um...yah.
My son was sound asleep. I asked if I could write out his medications so that they could make sure he would not miss any medicines-missing meds is very very bad these days. The doctor did a "tshtpft" sort of sound and gave me a paper and a pen and stormed off-to no other patients in the whole damned ER. I left dizzy and exhausted and drove home where I finally fell asleep around 5am only to be awoken at 7am to a nurse calling to find out what medications my son needed in the morning. We finally came to the conclusion that they did not have one of the medications so I needed to bring it. I went back to the ER with my son's meds to find a fantastic nurse on the morning shift. She was friendly, compassionate and sharp as a tack. We finally got everything together and my son's transport came for him only 11. 5 hours after entering the ER...our fastest process yet. We've been there up to 26 hours before.
The transport came and strapped him onto the gurney and rolled him away. Never feels good to watch that. I always get sick to my stomach. Parents are not allowed to take their kids directly to the psych hospital nor are we allowed to follow the transport to help get them checked in. I followed my son's transport until it headed in the opposite direction of my home. I then go home and wait for the psych hospital to call and ask about all his medications and basic info, even though it was all written down and clear. Four hours later, he was checked into the psych hospital and I could finally take a nap. I suppose this was an opportunity to google kick boxing techniques but I thought sleep might be more important in the long run.
The likelihood that they will keep him for the full 72 hour hold is minimal. He hates it there and knows what to say to the doctors and nurses to convince them that he is no longer suicidal. Because he went in on a Sunday morning and the staff on the weekend doesn't really make those decisions, I am pretty much guaranteed one day of peace but there is no telling what will happen on Monday. My hope is to have him stay in there for at least two days to give the new medicine more time to help him stabilize without me being on hyper vigilant 24/7 watch in order for my daughter and I to breathe out for a few minutes, my adrenal glands to come back from their afterlife for maybe a day and know that he will be relatively safe.
The psych hospital is not exactly the greatest place but it is the best we have. He has been uncomfortably harassed in violent and sexual ways by some of the other kids, Being on suicide watch means he has to sit in the lobby all day long except for when he goes to group therapy which is four times a day. All the kids in there remind me of characters from "Girl Interrupted" and I think they can teach him more harm then good sometimes. When he gets home, he will need to decompress a bit and eventually he will ask me all of his questions trying to make sense of what he saw and what he heard. I just pray that I will be able to put those pieces back together enough to help him get on to a safe and healthier track. No guarantees, ever.
The night started out just fine, all were happy in the home and tired. Medications were taken at the appropriate times and my children, sometimes nick-named "The Bickerson's" were actually at peace and I had hope for a peaceful and easy Saturday night. Last week in the middle of the night we had a suicidal process stopped mid plan and I chose not to take my son to the emergency room. His psych doc asked why I had not brought him to the ER when he was so acutely suicidal and I told her of my huge frustration in the process.
My son gets to the ER and looks just fine, calm, compliant, polite and the mental health workers look at me like I am nuts to say he is suicidal. It is her insistence that his suicidal ideation is very serious and not to be taken lightly so she told me that if it happens again to tell the mental health worker that SHE was his doctor and that his diagnosis was very serious and his suicidal threats were to be taken at the highest level of intensity. She told me that if I needed to tell him that I want to speak to the psych doc on call and go over his head and worse comes to worse simply state that I am not leaving the hospital with my son, they are to keep him. Well, my hope was that I would not need to use these tips for better service but I was wrong.
I had just gotten comfy in my bed, feeling safe and happy enough to actually sleep in my bed fo the first time in a week instead of sleeping contorted on the couch to stay on hyper vigilant suicide watch. My bed felt so so good to stretch out and just sink in. Sure enough, as sleep began to take me over I hear the door to my son's room opened which always makes me nervous. I heard him come down the stairs and walk straight to my room. "What's up?"...he answered, "Mom, I want to die and I rpomised you I wouldn't but I don't want to live anymore and I can't control it." Good bye comfy bed, our five minutes together was precious and sad all at the same time.
I sat up and tried my best to distract him, think of hopeful thoughts, the potential service dog, his short films, his art work and poetry, his aspiration to have a job at a golf course driving golf carts. He said that none of it mattered and was all a waste because he was too much work and not worth any of it and he couldn't go on trying. After about a half an hour of my full blown efforts to distract and lighten the mood he continued to weep and stay in his deep darkness and I asked the million dollar question, "If I fell asleep tonight, could I trust you not to harm yourself in anyway?"...answer, "no." CRAP.
We agreed it was time to go the the ER. I hate that trip. In the middle of the night we gathered our things and head to the ER, in the dark and cold. We went in to the front desk and told them that he no longer wanted to live and they processed his insurance card, gave us his bracelet and we went back to triage. I pulled the triage nurse aside to tell her my son's form of Bipolar includes hallucinations and such and that I just wanted it on record in case it happens so that everyone would know how to treat him if he started talking to his demons or voices.
Upon this information, the doctor on call comes in and sits in front of my son and starts talking to him like he was a stray wild dog. "How are you feeling tonight?" he says in a soft high pitched tone. I looked at him like he was an idiot. "Are you feeling stressed tonight?". DUGH, would we be here if he wasn't??? "Are you hearing voices right now?" My son looked at him with disgust and said, "no" and rolled his eyes. I tried to clarify to the doctor that he doesn't hear them all the time, just on occasion and that he was not hear because he hears voices, he's here because he wants to die. He smiled at me like I was crazy too and said, "Ok, no problem, do you want some medicine to take the edge off of your stress tonight?". My son said he was fine and the doctor apparently frustrated and still looking for his sense of understanding left the room.
We were walked back to the back of the ER where the nurse and the doctor were mocking people who hear voices. They were discussing how funny it is that people say they hear this or that and that the only voice they should hear is the voice of God. I sat in the hallway for a second staring at them wondering how they could possibly be so insensitive or stupid and feeling grateful that my son did not hear them.
Next the nurse who was just engaged in mockery of my son's condition comes in and without looking at my son or myself grabs his arms and starts cleaning his fresh cuts. He's rolling his eyes and says, "you know these aren't that deep, they don't need to be stitched up." I answered, "We aren't here for the cuts on his arm, we are here because he doesn't want to live anymore." He sort of froze and finally looked at me and said, "Oh, really?" He looked at my son and said, "Is that true?" to which my son answered int he affirmative. Then comes another brilliant patronizing statement delivered almost with a sense of laughter to it, "You are a good looking guy with your whole life ahead of you, why would you not want to live anymore?" I wanted to kick him in the head but still haven't gotten around to taking those kick boxing classes that would have been so helpful at this moment.
He drew the blood and took a urine sample and then we wait for an hour for the results to come back. Once the results come back then the mental health worker can be called. Until then, I sit in an awful hard plastic chair and my son sits on a gurney and we wait. Finally, the doctor who still insists on speaking to my son like he is a lost dog comes in to tell us that all the tests were clean so now we will call the mental health worker to come assess him. I muster up a smile of gratitude for the forward mtion of the process and he leaves.
We have always had women mental health workers, even had one lady twice, she was nice, I liked her. Tonight we got our first guy. He looked like he was 19 but professed later to have a 20 year old kid so I'm not sure what he's doing to stay so young looking but he seriously looked like he walked otu of an abercrombe andFitch ad with his clothes and cologne. I pulled him aside when he arrive after waiting for him for an hour and told him what my psych doc told me to tell him. He said, "Oh, wow...okay, I understand." We walked back into the room with my son and he pulled out his paperwork and said, "So, what is better or worse then when you were here last time" I was a bit stunned, I had just explained the progression of my son's mental illness and the serious intensity of his suicidal actions and the concerns of his psychiatric doctor and he was comparing today to last time.
He asked all the questions on his form and then showed us his score sheet. No, seriously, there is a score sheet. It is apparently like a quiz in a magazine. You know those quizzes, the ones that tell you if you are compatible to an executive or a hippy or if you are supposed to vacation in a motor home or on a tropical island. He tells us that my son lost points on the suicide scale because he is not a 45 year old white male and the fact that he has such a great Mom. He showed us his arithmetic and declares that my son is borderline suicidal. I was speechless. Borderline suicidal. His chart said so. We only added up to borderline. Nothing I said to him mattered, only his happy arithmetic.
He then turned to me and said, "Do you think you could take him home and keep him safe tonight?" I was stunned at the question because it seemed so stupid. I gathered myself after a few seconds and said, "Do you think I would come to the ER in the middle of the night asking for help if I thought that I could do this at home? My son told me that he could not guarantee that he would stay safe if I fell asleep, does this not warrant help beyond myself?" He stuttered for a moment and said, "but you guys have made it through before, he seem quite calm and compliant, I'm not sure he would really benefit from a psych hold." Then he said the words that were most dangerous for him, "unless you are just too tired." WHAT?!?!?!
I stopped breathing for a minute and my eyes went blurry. He offered to fax the forms to the psych hospitals around and see if anyone would take him. He said he'd get back to us in a bit. He got up and walked away. My son laid back in his gurney and closed his eyes and I started plotting ways that I could learn kick boxing in five minutes or less. My adrenaline started to race and I was working up the strength to tell this idiot that I was not leaving the ER with my son that night when he announced that the psych hospital will take him. They were saving him a bed and they would process his paperwork. I remember hearing a long exhale leave my body.
Now, we have done this several times already and the 3am shift almost never processes the incoming paperwork, they wait for the 7am shift to come and in a dump it all on them. I told the mental health worker that I had a daughter asleep at home that I wanted to go check on and since i figured it would be several hours I would go home and come back. He warned me not to leave because it could be processed very quick. I went back to the room and waited for 45 minutes for him to come in and tell me that they will not be processing his paperwork until the next shift and it could be several hours. Um...yah.
My son was sound asleep. I asked if I could write out his medications so that they could make sure he would not miss any medicines-missing meds is very very bad these days. The doctor did a "tshtpft" sort of sound and gave me a paper and a pen and stormed off-to no other patients in the whole damned ER. I left dizzy and exhausted and drove home where I finally fell asleep around 5am only to be awoken at 7am to a nurse calling to find out what medications my son needed in the morning. We finally came to the conclusion that they did not have one of the medications so I needed to bring it. I went back to the ER with my son's meds to find a fantastic nurse on the morning shift. She was friendly, compassionate and sharp as a tack. We finally got everything together and my son's transport came for him only 11. 5 hours after entering the ER...our fastest process yet. We've been there up to 26 hours before.
The likelihood that they will keep him for the full 72 hour hold is minimal. He hates it there and knows what to say to the doctors and nurses to convince them that he is no longer suicidal. Because he went in on a Sunday morning and the staff on the weekend doesn't really make those decisions, I am pretty much guaranteed one day of peace but there is no telling what will happen on Monday. My hope is to have him stay in there for at least two days to give the new medicine more time to help him stabilize without me being on hyper vigilant 24/7 watch in order for my daughter and I to breathe out for a few minutes, my adrenal glands to come back from their afterlife for maybe a day and know that he will be relatively safe.
The psych hospital is not exactly the greatest place but it is the best we have. He has been uncomfortably harassed in violent and sexual ways by some of the other kids, Being on suicide watch means he has to sit in the lobby all day long except for when he goes to group therapy which is four times a day. All the kids in there remind me of characters from "Girl Interrupted" and I think they can teach him more harm then good sometimes. When he gets home, he will need to decompress a bit and eventually he will ask me all of his questions trying to make sense of what he saw and what he heard. I just pray that I will be able to put those pieces back together enough to help him get on to a safe and healthier track. No guarantees, ever.
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