Weeeeee have a situation! (September/October 2016)

I always laugh at that commercial. The little boy needs to pee and is struggling with his belt while doing a slight pee-pee dance when he says, "Mooooommm, we have a situation!" It's the way he says it that cracks me up the most.

The past few weeks have been full blown hell for me. All my fault, as usual. I finally checked myself into a psych ward praying that could shut up the fucking demons in my head for while. Instead, the music I was used to, and rather enjoyed, is gone shadows have started lurking around corners and underneath furniture.

The good news is, I lost my job. Yeah, me! I am also in the process of being evicted from my apartment and I have discovered, much to my amusement, that I honestly do NOT give a fuck. Not even a smidgeon of a fuck. I will start packing shit up this week and throw it in storage and live in my car until I find a job and figure something out. Something that has always puzzled me is that of all the people that are accidentally or deliberately killed every day - how the flying fuck am I never in the right fucking place?!  What are the goddamn odds on that shit?!

I started self mutilation in the hospital (arm) and tried again when I got home. It is pretty fucking pathetically assinine when I own the dullest fucking knives on the planet. Still, didn't turn out to bad. The funny thing about what I used on my arm was the stupid big ass 1980's comb THE HOSPITAL puts in all the little tolietry kits..THEN they sent the fucking thing home with me. Geeez Loiuse!

Hello, Again

Hunter has been in the hospital 40-something days now. In a way the days have flown by. Mostly though they have dragged slower than molasses. He continues to exhibit the violent, aggressive behavior that landed him there in the first place. There have been slight med changes over the past number of weeks, yet ~ and still ~ there is no magic potion to cast the demons from his brain.

I miss him so much I cannot breathe. He's my buddy, my shadow, my boy. I somehow fooled myself into believing that with him I had a chance to be a mother in ways I could not be with Matthew or Connor. It seems I have failed Hunter too. I feel as though I have lost all my boys.

I hate this fucking disease called bipolar! I cannot express just how much I do. I hate that because of it I had to even make the choice to let Matthew and Connor go. The demons I live with over that decision haunt me constantly and on such a deep level that at times I want to scream "do over!". Yet, the time has past. I lost all of it. Every single nanosecond. I missed so many firsts...I was excluded from their lives. Purposely or accidentally is anybody's guess.

I hate this fucking disease because now one of my children has to live with the same darkness clouding his mind that I do.

I am a horrible mother and a bad wife. I want to lie down in a hole and exhale my very last breath...

No Beds

Hunter is sound asleep on a gurney, approximately three feet from where I sit. We've been in this room inside the emergency department of a large metropolitan hospital since around 6 p.m. last night. Almost twelve hours...tick...tock...

Henry and I brought Hunter here last night because it is something the court had ordered us to do; a psychiatric evaluation. I dragged my feet. I couldn't (still can't) bear having him in a psychiatric hospital again. I thought those days were behind us. Wrong.

It is so hard to believe this sleeping young man, who, snoring softly, and looking so peaceful, has so much venom inside him that he wants to kill people. If you ask him he'll tell you as much and add the names of the people on his list. He went so far as to one night pull a knife out of the kitchen drawer to kill his stepbrother with.

Dear God, please help this man-looking-child survive his lifetime.

'Twas the Night...

...before surgery and all through the house...

Actually, tomorrows' surgery will be a piece of cake compared to the surgery I have coming up on June 16th.

Tomorrow, the Foot Wizard will be removing the hardware he inserted almost (exactly) three months ago to help the broken bones heal. Ever since the last cast came off and I was able to use the CAM boot and put some weight on my formerly broken foot, the screws have bothered me terribly when walking. It feels as though, with every step, they will protrude through the bottom of my foot.

I am back to wearing my Skecher's and Fagawi's and I could not be more thrilled!

Returning to work is NOT far behind.

The surgery taking place on the 16th is has a lot more risks involved. In the process of removing my parathyroid glands, for instance, my vocal cords could become temporarily or permanently paralyzed. How is that for a wake me up? Although I am certain there are a few people on this earth that probably wouldn't mind never hearing my voice again, it kind of freaks me out.

A lot.

Car Accident

I was on my way home from school on May 6th, minding my own business, paying attention to the heavy, rush-hour traffic when I heard a SQUEAL! CRASH! At the exact same time I looked in my rear view mirror, I heard another CRASH! as my body pitched forward against my seat belt and my head was whipped so hard and fast into space that the force dislodged my sunglasses from my face. (Later, I found my sunglasses and stuffed Scuba Duck up near/under my brake pedal.) In that same instant I realized I was being shoved forward -- headed for the vehicle in front of me -- and slammed on my brakes in an effort to avoid hitting her. No luck.

When my Jeep came to a stop I jumped out of it, and into the center turn lane, and started walking toward the instigator of the whole darn mess waving my arms and shouting "BRAVO! BRAVO!" For extra effect, I started clapping. The driver, clearly NOT amused at my sarcastic theatrics lowered her head and leaned against her steering wheel.

Finally I threw my arms open and up and screamed "WHAT THE F*&^?!?!?!?!?", turned on my heel, started walking back toward my Jeep and encountered the woman who had been driving the vehicle I hit. She was about as happy as I was and was blaming ME for the accident!

I started apologizing profusely, wrapped my arms around her and told her it really wasn't my fault. My hug disarmed her a little and I stepped back to point to the two damaged vehicles sitting behind my damaged Jeep. Her teenage son walked up just as she was explaining he was just recovering from a broken nose and didn't need to break it again. I started apologizing profusely AGAIN and wrapped my arms around HIM, disarming him, too.

I told her we needed to get our vehicles off the road, since they were drivable) and gestured to a party store about 100 feet from where we were standing and told her I was headed there and would call 911. After I called 911 I called Henry.

The car that initiated the chain reaction crash was in bad shape -- the front bumper and hood were crushed back to the windshield. I didn't have an opportunity to see how much damage was done to the rear of the minivan that hit me, but the front bumper and hood were pretty messed up.

Three of the four drivers (including me) were taken via ambulance to the same hospital emergency room. When Henry showed up I told him about my dancing in the middle of the street and he thought I was joking. When I told him I was serious it suddenly occurred to me that that my public display of displeasure was just plain wrong. On so many levels.


Thank you, God, for another day....

Chest Pains

Driving home from school on May 1st, I received a phone call from Henry -- and it was crystal clear from his breathless first words that something was definitely wrong and, even though Henry didn't say it, I knew that I was to blame.

I have never pretended to know what it's like to be married to a person with a mental illness and I have never entertained the thought that it could be even remotely easy. See, I know what it's like living inside MY head. I know first hand how enormously difficult it is for ME to keep myself on an even keel. I can only imagine what I look like from a different vantage point.

Since the mid to end of February, I have been tango-ing dreadfully with myself over my wildly drastic mood swings and how to keep them on a more level playing field -- and failing miserably. My manic moments are out of this world, but my BZ (BitchZilla) moments are six feet under, and the rapid cycling between the two has put a tremendous amount of stress on Henry because BZ always takes direct aim at him.

Which brings me back to the events leading up to May 1st. Henry, after 9 years of living with intrinsically complicated me and helping to raise my special needs son, finally reached his breaking point. My inability to control, or even tame, the extreme BZ moments over the last few months backed Henry into a corner and, literally, dropped him to his knees. Several of my careless actions in BZ mode pushed Henry to his limit -- causing him to drive himself to the emergency room.

Having tried unsuccessfully several times for Henry to park his Jeep and call 911, I continued talking with him phone as I made my way to the hospital to meet him.

Since that day, Henry and I have spent a great deal of time talking -- and listening -- and trying to figure out which parts of my carelessness have been totally BZ or only partially BZ and mostly Carrie.

The jury is still out...

Who Am I?

God grant me the Serenity
to Accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and Wisdom to know the difference.

I am sitting alone in a hotel room in Northern Michigan trying to sort out, in my mind, the events of the last 36 hours. Everything is so fucking upside down I don't know where to start.

Currently there is a quartet of opera singers in the pool outside my window singing the most beautiful music I think I have ever heard. Of course I can't understand what they are actually singing, but their sounds are something I've often imagined I would hear in heaven.

The guilt I feel about Henry winding up in the hospital feels insurmountable from my current vantage point. I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I am the person responsible for putting him there. If something were to happen to him, I would never forgive myself -- to the drastic point that I would take my own life.

Part of me is glad that Henry knows about the secret I've been carrying for the last six weeks. There is another part of me though, that hurts and aches and feels so horrendously raw -- like the most sensitive parts of my body have been heavily abraded by steel wool and, just for kicks, rubbing alcohol has been poured over the open wounds and some sick freak is chasing me with a lighter trying to burn me to the ground.

I'm already on the ground, bleeding love from every vein. Feeling like I don't belong in my own skin. Knowing with certainty that I have no idea who I really am. Which is why I am here this weekend. To find a purpose and my own inner power. Not the ego-type power, but the power that will enable me to turn myself around and find the right path to follow my dreams.

At this moment, I have a great deal of hope, a tiny bit of faith, and a whole lot of curiosity about whether or not this is even possible for me.

I desperately miss my friend.

Calculating Time

My oldest son, Matthew, came to live with Henry and me in early February and it started me thinking about the time that's passed...

• 13 years and 7 months since Matthew, Connor and I have lived under the same roof.
• 13 years and 7 months since I made a difficult decision to give my boys up because I wasn't sure I could take care of them and have a nervous breakdown at the same time.
• 13 years and 2 months since I tried to end my life with a bottle of prescription medication and failed and my first psychiatric hospitalization.
• 12 years and 8 months since Alexander Lee passed through my arms on his way to heaven.
• 11 years and 2 months since I held Hunter Nicholas for the very first time.
• Almost 9 years exactly since I walked across a parking lot and stepped into Henry and Jake's lives.
• 5 years and 11 months since my beautiful Grandmother died in my arms, as I whispered how very much I loved her.
• 5 years and 10 months since Henry and I said "I Do" to each other.

Home at Last!

The past five days, to say the least, have been rough on our whole family -- especially Hunter. Both of his elbows, wrists, forearms and the backs of both hands are black and blue from IV's and blood draws. The last IV bubbled up overnight so the nurse removed it this morning and because we had received word he would be going home today they didn't have to reinsert it. Yeah, Hunter!

His last Lithium level was .5 so it has almost completely cleared his system. We will not be giving him Lithium anytime in the forseeable future because I just can't put him through that again. A few people have asked why his p-doc wasn't doing blood draws regularly and my answer is "I don't know." If anybody should know about the importance of Lithium levels, it's me because I took it once-upon-a-time. Yeah, I've about beaten myself to death over it. The guilt has almost consumed me.

On the downside, there is still large amounts of blood in his urine and all the information I have received on the possible reasons why has been conflicting. One doctor, in particular, told me Lithium does not affect the kidneys then later the same day told me it does. Today he told me it does not. He also told me the bleeding should stop within the next two weeks then he told me it could take six months. The Nephrologist that FINALLY came to see us (I had been asking for three days) today told me Lithium can affect the kidneys and that in a month or so the damaged cells would be replaced with new cells and the blood should disappear from his urine. Yeah, I'm shaking my head, too. The internet, surprisingly, is of little help in this matter, too. And I'm an internet search wizard.

Tuesday morning Hunter was carrying on quite an animated conversation with a zebra walking across the wall and a spider behind the chair in the corner of the room. There were various other animals involved, too, but I only remember the zebra because he was talking to the zebra about his stripes. Tonight Hunter walked down to his dad's house (we live a stone's throw apart) for dinner and when he came back an hour or so later he was completely out of breath. It was obvious he had been running but he told me he was running from somebody following him and that that person had followed him into our house and sleeps in his bed. Yeah, I'm shaking my head here, too. My jaw dropped when Hunter told me he wish he had a gun so he could shoot the guy who followed him home.

So, tomorrow I need to get him an appointment with a new p-doc (the same one I'm seeing for my VNS) for a full evaluation.