Dailies #16

Wow, when I logged in I couldn't believe how long it has been since the last post. I apologize to all who keep up with our story. My only excuse is that life intruded - but I will do my best to post more often. Since its been so long I have quite an update. Not long after my last post David had an appointment with the new Psychiatrist and the appointment seemed to go fairly well. He went in alone at first and then I was able to join him. The only thing that disturbed me was new details that David shared. He admitted that he thought people talked about him when he walked on campus. He even went so far as to say he heard them talking about him, but that he was able to tell himself that this truly couldn't be the case. Then he went on to describe how lately he had started having the feeling that someone was watching him when he was alone in his apartment. He felt that someone or something was going "to get me." The Psychiatrist appeared duly concerned about the paranoia and about his anxiety in class. Before I left for home I filled his prescriptions and filled his weekly containers, but he insisted on keeping the new anxiety medicine, clonipin with him. "Mom I'm fine. I will only take it when I need it." I hated arguing this point. After all, he is nineteen and needs to become more responsible for his own medicine, so I relented, also keeping in mind that the dose was low so I didn't think even the whole prescription could be deadly. Oh what mistakes we make. Over the next two days I only talked to him twice and he seemed to be rather spacey and then his speech was slurred. I sent my brother down; he checked on him, thought he had taken more than he was supposed to, but wasn't in any danger. The second evening he called me, his voice was not only slurred, but was filled with that pain I have come to know so well. I tried desperately to keep him on the phone while I motioned my daughter to call her uncle and send him over immediately. David kept saying that nothing really mattered. I told him his sister might be driving up to see him - he replied that she would be too late and hung up. Of course by this time I was panicking - we couldn't reach my brother - should I start to the car? But two hours, if he was harming himself I would be too late - should I call the police? - if I did he might lose his lease and if I was wrong that would be devastating to him - I tried my mom and thank the heavens she was driving, only a half an hour away from David. As she drove she called my brother again and reached him - he rushed down to find that David had consumed too much of the clonipin and had cut his wrist, but not deep enough to have been a suicide attempt. Mom got there and accessed the situation - he hadn't taken enough to be deadly - the cut was minor - he said he had done it to "relieve the pain" so he wouldn't kill himself. Mom talked to him awhile and got him something to eat; My brother and girlfriend stayed with him till my daughter got there to stay the night and we continued to trade off for the next few days.

Things have gotten much better since then - David's moods stabilized after a couple of days and we arranged for an old friend from school - whom we trust - to stay with him for awhile - the only major trial afterwards has been getting his winter quarter finished up - on top of everything he came down with a bad case of the flu a week later - so he ended up missing almost two weeks of class - but spring has sprung and I always attempt to remain hopeful - he has his next psychiatrist appointment this Friday so I'm going with him, to make sure David speaks about the episode and to make sure I take his medicine home with me.