Or --- insert daisies and gumdrops here --- maybe everything will suddenly be perfect and I will never feel the need to continue posting. (Since this is an online blog, I'm guessing you aren't picking up on the sad snickering and sighs of despair.)
My brother (we'll call him "LB" for "little brother") is an addict. For the past several years - how long exactly is unknown - he has been taking various brands of over-the-counter cold pills (found in medications like Sudafed, Nyquil pills, Alka-Seltzer Cough & Cold, etc) and using them to get a high. He's flunked out of college (twice), stolen hundreds of dollars -if not thousands - from family members, and has a known gambling addiction. He has admitted to me that when he watches movies "things change", "like [he's] part of the movie, it's weird"; that when he listens to music, he feels like he's getting a special message from the songs. He alludes to "everything that happened to him when he was younger" and how it is causing him all kinds of emotional turmoil - and yet refuses to elaborate to anyone as to what exactly this is (backstory: my parents divorced when I was 12. LB would have been about 4 at the time, the 'baby' of the four of us... this was the 80's/90's. To my knowledge, none of us were abused in anyway; we were 'spanked', usually with a hand but occasionally with a belt for severe offenses, but this was the extent of anything that I can think of that was "traumatic". It was definitely not a common occurrence, and if anything, LB was the poster-child "baby" - he was spoiled, he had some medical issues as an infant, and continued to receive extra attention as the years past. Anyway...) At one point, he told me that he was 99% certain that he had dissociative-identity disorder (i.e. multiple personalities) as a result of his childhood and "everything" that he went through.
Six weeks ago, LB was taken via ambulance to the local ER because my grandfather - who has given him a home and consistently bailed him out and enabled him - found him unable to move in the doorway of his bedroom. He admitted to the ER physician that he meant to commit suicide and that he had taken 60 tablets of whichever cold medication he had had on hand that day, as well as a fairly full bottle of zoloft and a handful of a couple of other antidepressants he had. Thankfully, this attempt was not successful, but unfortunately did absolutely nothing to get LB any sort of psychological care. Our local hospital does not have psych/behavioral health services, so after three days of inpatient care to ensure that LB was medically stable to be transferred to an inpatient treatment center, off he went. The entire family - save my grandparents, who continued to see my younger brother as a wayward soul who was being targeted and "picked on" by the rest of the family - heaved a collective sigh of relief; finally, after months and months of trying everything possible to provide support, encouragement, and everything we could think of - all of which was manipulated and twisted against us - LB was being forced to get help, or if nothing else, to receive a thorough mental health evaluation. Together we planned the next several days out; who could go on which day to meet with LB's psychiatrist and discuss the family's concerns? Who could best communicate our fear for not only the family's safety but LB's safety - as well as that of the community in general? Who could work with the facility's discharge planner or social worker to ensure that LB was going to receive adequate follow-up, as well as going home to an appropriate place (be it a halfway house, homeless shelter, etc, as he was NOT returning to my grandparents, and had burned so many other bridges in the family it was unlikely that he would find a welcoming bed). With the mandated 72-hour hold for cases of self-harm, we thought that there would be time for all of our questions and concerns.
We thought.
And then, out of the blue, barely 24 hours after being transferred to the mental health treatment center, LB was released. No discharge plan; no opportunity for the family to meet with his physician to discuss our concerns, which were many, valid, and important. Nothing, except a phone call to "come get me." When LB was told that no one could come get him, and that he should find a bed in a homeless shelter - he instead showed up on Grandpa's doorstep an hour later, via taxicab compliments of the mental health treatment center.
(Did you get the jaw drop?!)
No treatment. Because LB was told he could sign himself out of the treatment center if he went willingly (and of course told the doctors what they wanted to hear), that's all he needed to do.
~*~*~*~*~*~
I need to stop at this point tonight. I'm exhausted, I have to get up early, and just re-living bits of this - and knowing what all is still to come since then - is just dragging me down. Even typing this, I know I don't sound like a good, supportive sister; our family does not sound like we enveloped LB with care, but rather with tired and skeptical eyes. I truly, honestly hope that it wasn't this way.... there has just been too much, for too long... and I just can't help but wonder. I hope that it's just those damn, m#*!%(&@!ing cold pills that have taken my brother away, but I also know enough - as a nurse - to recognize that many of his symptoms could be attributed to more serious psychological problems, and since he refuses to talk to any of us, I have no idea if he started with those things first, and began self-medicating with the DXM - or vice versa. The old chicken/egg thing...
My Biggest Fear Tonight, at this very second: LB is out there, and he is going to hurt someone, very badly. I am so, so terrified that it will be one of my children, but I have this sick, sad feeling that I will read in the paper about a missing woman and too many things will point to LB. It's a sad, sick, scary thing to think - and my happiest moment will be when I can eat crow (is that the right expression??) and say I was totally wrong and I'll have to be apologizing to him forever - but there are moments when I really truly fear that LB is ... what? A psychopath? Schizophrenic? Capable of raping/murdering? I thought that typing those words - which I don't know if I've ever spoken aloud - would be somewhat calming (you know, get them out in the open, facing your fears, etc)... but really it's only served to open that thought the reality... I hope to G*d that I am way off base on this one.
