#22 Two Steps Back

The same day that David had popped into the bedroom at four a.m., we had to go to our family doctor for a check up on the liver levels - it was there that I began to understand that something was going terribly wrong - first in the waiting room David kept knocking th book I was perusing off my lap - the first time I tried to pass it off as a joke and laughed weakly - but by the third and fourth time I was concened - he was acting like a two year old, but he was a six foot teenager who had an alarming look in his eyes - his mouth was curling up in the corner and although I couldn't say my son was actually scaring me - panic was rising - what was I going to do if he completely lost control in this crowded doctor's office? We did mange to get through the visit without any crisis however - but on the way home I could hardly recognize the boy sitting next to me - I could hardly believe was my son - he rambled on about how he had decided to quit school altogether - that this was who he was meant to be - he wasn't going to take any more medicine and if he ended up on the streets so be it - I don't need to add that by now I was beside myself - despite my best effort I began to cry - but this didn't stop his tirade - David was becoming more and more agitated and wild by the minute - a deluge of flooded water pouring through a crack in the dam - I had no idea how to staunch it - then at home his demeaner changed again - he began to weep in this most hopeless manner like someone with a broken heart - I tried to comfort him " You'll feel better once you get on a new mood stabilizer" - I'll never forget the look he gave me then - "But I need the antipsychotic" - he wouldn't tell me why but his look went through me like a jagged knife - his eyes held madness and a haunted despair - he put his head down again and began to sob "what am I supposed to do? Help me." To be cont.

#21 One Step Forward ...

The first few days of cutting back the medicine went fine. In fact David seemed to be doing great. Full of energy he started getting back some of that curiosity and interest in things that he had been so long without. But slowly the energy turned to mania and then to severe mania - he stayed up for three days straight - one morning he burst in at four o'clock in the morning asking me if I could come up with some new lessons for him to do the next day. He had been up all night reading - something he had seemed to have no desire to do since his suicide attempt. The next day he feverishly, with words spilling out in a rush that he had stopped taking the risperdal - he had only pretended to take it the last few times - I, of course, was concerned, but I guess I was so wishful that all this had been a dream - that I foolishly let him convince me that he didn't need the Risperdal at all - he felt like himself again and was so happy to enjoy reading again - and this I understood more than anything - an avid reader I couldn't imagine what it would be like to have that taken away from me. I realized of course that my son was manic - but I thought that once he had been tapered off the Depakote and put on something else that perhaps his mania would recede and that he didn't need an antipsychotic after all. But like a mirage of a nearby island on that storm tossed sea - I was just setting myself up for great disappointment - for the island was actually a circling shark waiting for the right moment to strike ....