Field Sobriety Test

We pull up to the gate of my late grandfather’s property. My mother pushes the button on the remote and the gate slowly swings open. Each creak feels like an eternity. I just want to get out of this car. From the moment my father left on his business trip this morning, today has been a constant mental breakdown. I’ve watched yelling in a sandwich shop. I’ve been screamed at in the car multiple times today. I’ve can’t count the number of times I’ve heard about drugs or men or catheters. I need to be anywhere but in this car.

We go inside and my mom says her usual bedtime sendoff of “Night Bug. Love you. Sleep tight.” She’s been saying that since I was a child and still says it to me every night when I come to visit. Right now that feels like she put a Band-Aid on a wound that needed stitches. While well intentioned –she just wants to be motherly— it’s not exactly helpful after being emotionally drained all day.

I walk into the guestroom where I always sleep at Grandad’s house and as far as I’m concerned the day is finally over. For some reason this room swelters to the point where chocolate will start melting within a few minutes of being in the room, but I don’t care this is the only guestroom with a locked door. I’ve learned if I put a piece of wood over the vent the temperature drops to around 80 degrees. Then open the window and it’s like 75. It doesn’t matter, I would still take the 90 degree sauna over having my mother come into my room and disturb me several times during the night. She periodically would interrupt my sleep when having particularly bad nights when I was in high school, but now days it seems like every night is a bad night. Tonight is no different.

I suddenly hear pounding on my door and screams about having to leave immediately. I ask why but am given no information. Rather than make the situation worse I quickly get dressed and join my mother who is now sitting in the car with the lights on and engine running. I get into the car and we speed off. At this point I am desensitized to these “emergencies.” We’re probably going to end up at some 24 hour Walgreens begging for more Dilantin, or at a gas station getting as many ice bags as will fit in the car, or at the emergency room where they’ll keep her for a few hours before letting her go because nothing is actually physically wrong.

I wasn’t paying much attention to anything this trip until I notice headlights in the distance are coming towards us. “Mom! You’re driving on the wrong side of the road.” Her response is unintelligible yelling as she begins swerving. Again, I yell at her to get onto the correct side of the road. Tires screech as she turns left at full speed into a neighborhood. All I can think is the safety of the driving hasn’t improved but at least we’re on the right side of the road.

A police officer must have been watching all of this unfold, because there are flashing lights in our rearview mirror. I know this encounter won’t end well. As I learned last fall, when the SWAT team erroneously arrived at my grandfather’s residence and held my mother against her car, paranoid persecution delusions and law enforcement do not go well together. The officer approaches the window and with flashlight in hand asks if my mother knows why she is being stopped today. She does not. He tells her she was driving erratically including driving on the wrong side of the road, and asks her to step out of the vehicle.

He begins conducting a field sobriety test, which I know she wouldn’t have passed on a good day, due to her physical impairments, let alone a night like tonight where she’s doped up on Dilantin. I hear her tell the officer in a strong voice “I’ve had two strokes, three seizures, and a kid” as I watch her stagger down the line. At least she has the presence of mind not to start screaming at him and get herself hauled off to jail. I see him give her a breathalyzer test and I hear them talking and him probably ticketing her.

My mother gets back into the car and begins to drive away slowly and in silence until the officer is out of sight. Then she begins to laugh maniacally in between words while stating, “I’ve never in my life been breathalyzed. That’s what happens when they poison you with meth.” Her laughter turns to crazed rage as she spots a car. “See there. Red, white, blue.” I consider asking if we can just go home and decrease our changes of being pulled over again, but it’s too late. My mother’s right hand is in her drink as she speeds off with one hand on the wheel towards some unknown destination.

“I’ve Had Two Strokes, Three Seizures, and a Kid!”

A while ago, I learned the backstory to one of my mother’s infamous angry statements: “I’ve had two strokes, three seizures, and a kid!” But, before I get into the backstory, let me give you more context. Whenever my mother gets into a situation in public where she’s seething with emotion while talking with a stranger she will eventually blurt out this statement.

I cannot begin to count the number of times when I was younger that I was standing right there while she shouted those words. Each time, as a child, I wanted to shrivel up into my own body; imaginary tears running down the backs of my dry, clear eyes as I glanced towards the floor. And, each time, as an adolescent, I wanted to explode from my own body; self-control and social norms were the only things keeping me from attempting to shake some sense into my mother.

When I was fairly young I didn’t fully understand how the events were related. All I knew is that it felt as if I had done something horribly wrong. Suddenly, she was not only screaming about the situation, she was screaming about me. What did I do? I’m just standing here. Somewhere in my late childhood to early adolescence I realized why this statement was such a penetrating blow. Why am I the hemorrhages in your brain, or the electrical storms that make your world go dark? The clerk, who doesn’t know you from the next person in line, can’t parse this statement. As far as they are concerned the birth of your child was as awful as your strokes and seizures.

Around a year ago I was with my mother when she made her statement, which is no less frustrating now, as an adult, as it was when I was growing up. I’m unsure why I decided to do so in the moment, but for the first time I expressed my frustrations with her words to my father. At this point, my dad told me that the statement did not used to come from a place of anger. She didn’t always use it as an excuse for her behavior since she obviously can’t help herself since she “had two strokes, three seizures, and a kid.” Much to my surprise, in the beginning, it was actually a statement of triumph.  After her second stroke and subsequent brain surgery my mom developed a fairly pronounced limp, weakness on one side, and some memory loss. The memory loss was very subtle compared to what it is today, so that was not enough to bring attention to her disability. Nevertheless, the physical manifestations caught people’s attention. So she would share her story.

My dad said that she would start by explaining her experiences in New Zealand after her first stroke when they found her unconscious on a ferry boat and she spent six weeks in a hospital overseas. Next she would tell people about the full recovery she made. A few months after the first stroke people couldn’t even tell anything had happened. Then the second stroke happened which was more severe than the first. At this point doctors discovered an arteriovenous malformation in her brain and decided to remove it surgically. The second time around the impact of the stroke was more apparent. She lost her ability to speak, write, and walk. She would tell people how she was determined to overcome her limitations. With the help of a year’s worth of speech, physical, and occupational therapy her speech went from basically unintelligible to coherent, and she taught herself to be left-handed. Although she had lasting limitations, she told people they are seeing the fortunate outcome from a much tougher place. At the end of her story she would finally tell people what a blessing it was to be able to naturally conceive and give birth to a child at 37 years old a little more than a year following her surgery.

I wish I could say I felt 100% positive emotions when I learned this history; however, as with many complex things in life I received this news with mixed emotions. Overall, I felt overwhelmingly positive about the information, because it is a very uplifting story and I felt proud that my mom was able to overcome her unfortunate circumstances. At the same time I wish that when I was a child that it had even crossed my mind to tell my dad how upsetting her words were. I had no idea there would even be any back story. And, I wish I knew why it evolved into its current pithy form, because it is very frustrating and hurtful to be on the receiving end of that statement. Maybe in my mom’s mind she’s still conveying the story as she once did, or maybe she wishes that she could still explain her situation as she once did. I’ll never know. So, yes, overall knowing the backstory has been comforting because there was originally no ill will. However, I occasionally wistfully wish that I could hear her tell the original story just once.

Post Office

We pull into the parking lot of the post office. I can’t believe I’m going to college in two weeks. It’s such a strange feeling that one day I’ll wake up and I’ll still live at home with my parents, and the next day I’ll wake up in a dorm room living with a roommate. Well, not quite. We have to travel to campus and such. Also, I was talked into doing Navy ROTC by my parents so I’ll probably wake up in barracks somewhere. I have no interest in joining the military. I don’t even know why I let them convince me to apply, let alone accept the offer. I told them I’ll probably quit the moment I get on campus. Nevertheless, as of right now I’m technically a midshipmen of my university’s NROTC battalion and they told us that we can mail our stuff to the unit since the dorms won’t be open for move-in until after we return from orientation.

We pull four old storage trunks out of the back of the SUV. These trunks have been around the house for as long as I can remember. Mostly they have been filled with my old baby clothes and stored in the basement “just in case.” My dad thought that they would be convenient for shipping, and storage once I arrived on campus. I also believe that there was some amount of nostalgia involved. The trunk with a forest green metal exterior, a dented lid, and a Spanish epithet on one of the sides was his trunk from his college days.

Due to the awkwardness of the heavy trunks only one can be carried in at a time. I pick up the first and walk into the post office. My dad follows behind me with the second. My mom wants to help but she knows that she cannot physically lift the trunks so she indignantly decides to stay behind and watch the other two.

While I’m standing in line with two of the trunks I realize that I need to fill out some paperwork. So I use my foot to push them out of line towards the back counter with the forms. As this is taking place the person who was behind me steps forward to take my place. My mother sees this as she drags the third trunk into the post office. “No, no, NO, NO! What are you doing? Why are you letting this person cut in line? Get back in line.” The postal worker calls to service the next person. The person currently first in line steps forward. My mother steps in front of him. With my gaze averted from this humiliating situation I say under my breath “I’m not next.”

“Don’t listen to her. I was nice like that when I was her age but not anymore. I’ve had two strokes, three seizure, and a kid. Get back in line,” my mother yells as she postures at everyone who tries to move past her.

“Mom. I wasn’t in line. Sir, go ahead. Please, just go ahead” I motion to the man to attempt to give him permission to bypass this chaos and mail his parcel. My attempt is to no avail. My mother is haphazardly slamming trunks against the scale and threatening to sue the post office is she isn’t served immediately. My father walks in with the last trunk and through my piercing eyes he can sense my embarrassment. Embarrassed as well, he hesitates, but this hesitation is short lived as my mother demands for him to pay the postal fees. He joins us, places the last trunk with the rest, pays the postal worker, and we leave. I’m mortified. Two weeks can’t come soon enough.

Superheros of Stoicism

This is another different style of post, but blogs are about experimentation, right? I’ve been attempting to sit down and write all month, but I keep looking at my last post in shame and shutting my computer. It feels like oy I can’t believe I released that post to the world. I wanted to amend it to soften the blow. I wanted to put in parentheses at the bottom I don’t actually hate my mom guys; I actually love her a whole lot… you believe me, right?

But I decided to leave it because that’s how the event unfolded. It’s not like I can undo what I said that day. I’ve actually been sitting on that post for a long time. I wrote that entry about a year ago when I first started writing. It’s such a visceral memory that I didn’t have to tease out the details. It came to me so easily and I felt such a strong catharsis when I was finished. Nevertheless, I wanted to hide that written memory away because it felt wrong. The only reason I even posted it was that I’d been slacking on writing and I have this deal with myself that I have to post at least one entry in each month. It was May 31st and it was all I had written that wasn’t posted. Begrudgingly I posted it.

I felt like the judging eyes of the world were upon me. What? Who posts something like that? Where was her conscience when she decided this was a good idea? Why did she feel that way? How could she have said that?

Even now, almost 10 years removed from that event, I feel a deep sense of guilt surrounding what I said in that moment. At the time, as a 16 year old, I felt so ashamed of having any emotions regarding the situation that it turned into anger and outbursts. After many years of reflection, now I realize that no matter how much projected apathy that I was still feeling. It makes sense that eventually a cacophony of mixed emotions would erupt at times least expected. Which leads me to my next point that the mental health of caregivers, family, and friends is often overlooked. We are expected to be superheros of stoicism. Society is in the early stages of not faulting those with mental illness for their difficulty in emotional regulation. But loved ones are expected to have no emotion at all; you’re not the one who’s mentally ill – so hold it in like the rest of us.

As an example, my mom sends me a lot of packages and letters of mostly random things she finds around the house. Sometimes she sends me useful things or cute things, but I end up throwing most things away because I don’t want them. The compulsive mailing waxes and wanes. When it is waxing the volume of mail can be very overwhelming. I had times during college when a combination of opened and unopened boxes and letters from my mom filled up a third of the floor space in my room in the matter of a few days of not opening and discarding the mail promptly. When I express frustration about the situation I have gotten responses telling me how ungrateful I am because my mother clearly loves me. After all, why else would she send packages? Following such a response, I become mentally indignant, and I am now beginning to shed the shackles of societal expectation by expressing my discontent aloud.

Excuse me? Why am I not allowed to have a complex emotional response to complex emotionally charged situation? You think that I don’t know that my mother loves me? And before you go on some belittling tirade chiding me about why I don’t just ask her to stop, I have asked. Memory issues coupled with compulsive behaviors aren’t exactly a recipe for allowing someone to be able to break a pattern while in the midst of an episode. When she is in a better emotional state and the mailing begins to wane I ask her again. Then I only receive a few letters a week for a while until the cycle starts over. Now going back to my emotions, since you seem to not know that you can feel several at once and still love a person. I feel: frustrated that at times my mother cannot listen to me and respect my wishes, disappointed that I let myself be frustrated about a situation I can’t really control other than staying on top of clearing out the mail, sad that my mother has mental issues… And yes I feel loved and happy that my mom loves and cares about me. Sometimes I even feel excited about what she sends me when I can tell it was a meaningful gift, thoughtfully picked out rather than a piece of junk grabbed from the floor when she has an insatiable compulsion to mail something.

 

“I HATE you!”

I am blinded with anger. I cannot tell you one syllable of the delusions that are coming out of my mother’s mouth. All I know is at this moment I do not have the mental reserve to take the pummeling and every word sticks me like a dagger. Suddenly the assault stops and she leaves my room.

My mother thunders down the stairs. Every other step booms as her left foot strikes the ground; her right foot would follow suit but it does not have the strength to move the earth with the same vitriol. I hear her round the corner, open the door to the garage, and start the motor of the SUV. I race down the stairs in pursuit, and stop at the opening of the garage.

All of my muscles contract as rage builds up inside of me. My quadriceps tighten locking my legs straight. My arms are squeezed against my sides with my elbows pushing into my hips. My fists are clenched and trembling. I feel my stomach churn. Suddenly words spew out like projectile vomit: “I HATE YOU!”

No response.

The garage door opens. Rubber squeals on the pavement as she backs the car out of the driveway and blasts down our neighborhood street.

“Meth”

My mother constantly thought she was being followed by these mysterious “men.” They did various things: tried to steal her inheritance, stuck catheters into her various body parts, followed her, poisoned her, and lived in the attic to name a few. They were mostly a third party not associated with our family in any way, but sometimes my father and I had the privilege to be “the men.”

When these delusions first started it was quite shocking. For a while when interacting with my mother my most common mental thought was “what in the fuck are you talking about.” But after a while these irrational thoughts became fully integrated into our lives. We never quite knew what to expect, because as time passed the specifics of the delusions changed. Nevertheless, the general theme remained the same: the men were trying to harm her.

During the first delusional episodes she would come to either my dad or I and ask in the most concerned voice, “Why are you doing meth? Why are they making you do meth?” When I was asked that question the first time all I could think was who were they and what were they supposedly making me do? From that point forward it became frustrating. Rather than being asked, “What’d you learn at school today?” and other questions a mom typically asks her high school freshman I was being interrogated about why I was letting someone force me to do meth. At this point, my mother having a mental illness hadn’t yet crossed my mind. I just didn’t understand why I was being asked that question on a daily basis. I knew that other kids at my high school did drugs, so I just assumed she thought I hung out with the druggies.

Eventually my dad and I started giving curt answers with the hope that she would eventually stop asking. However, this plan backfired and my mother began her attempt to show us that there was meth all over the house. One day I came home and she pointed to a small pile of salt rubbed into the crevices of a black rolling desk chair. “See there’s meth right there.” Little did I know, at the time, that meth salt would enter my life substantially in the following months.

Every morning there would be salt everywhere. Various mounds sat throughout the house. A straight line meticulously drawn in front of every door way. The seats of everyone’s pants gritty from the salt that couldn’t be removed from brushing off the seats in the car before driving somewhere. The salt slowly changed from being the meth that we supposedly snorted to being a deterrent to the men who made us do meth. My mother figured if she put out enough meth the men would stop coming into the house and making us use meth.

One day the excessive salting just stopped.

The night before the salting ended I heard muffled screams coming from the garage but nothing so concerning that I went to look. When I woke up the next morning to my surprise the only salt in the house was the salt in front of the doors. My mom was acting like it was an ordinary day, which I never questioned because those seemed few and far between. To keep the peace I didn’t say much to her. Then curious about the previous night’s events I went into the garage. I found the small light blue Hyundai hatch back that we used as a spare car filled with heaps and heaps of salt. Intertwined with the salt mounds were tens of empty blue Morton Salt containers that one uses to refill salt shakers.

I’m not sure what happened that night to make the salting stop, but as she moved into her next delusions she would only occasionally draw a salt line in front of the doors if she was especially moody.

In 2011, 25 Years Ago

This post is going to be a break from the norm of reflecting on events in the distant past because I want to process something that happened not so long ago. A couple of weeks ago I was Skyping with my parents and somewhere deep into our conversation they started telling me about how my mom had taken too much of some of her medications this week. That’s fine. It happens from time to time. She doesn’t have a great system for taking them. At least she has a general sense that she’s supposed to take something out of each bottle each day, or multiple times a day, or something like that. These days her memory lapses and taking an extra pill or two or three are usually without consequence. And she likes taking her prescriptions; they make her feel at ease. This time she paid a small price for her overindulgence. If you take about 20 days of your 30 day supply of a blood thinner in the first week your nose will start bleeding.

Nosebleeds aren’t that uncommon of a side effect with blood thinners. When I counsel patients I usually tell them not to worry about a small amount of bleeding as long as they’re able to stop it and it’s not happening daily. My reaction with my mom was a bit more dramatic.

Before I go into all of the details of why I tried to convince her that nosebleeds from blood thinners are the gateway drug to bleeding out; an aside about me. I have legitimate nosebleed phobia. No, not a generalized blood phobia. Specifically, I am only terrified and have the fight or flight adrenaline rush well up inside of me in a sheer panic when the blood is coming out of a nose. Yes, they’re super common. I can hold myself together externally when I’m listening to someone talk about having one, or I’m witnessing someone having one, but inside I’m crying. And the two instances that I’ve had them I was crying on the outside. Nevertheless, I’ve come a long way because a few years ago I could barely read the word nosebleed without wanting to vomit let alone type it. So, yes, part of my dramatic response has to do with my deep seeded fear but the remaining parts are more complex.

My mom shouldn’t even be on a blood thinner in the first place. The prescription is a vestige of a time when in her state of emotional distress she inadvertently feigned an illness in the emergency room. This lead the doctor to believe she had a transient ischemic attack. A transient ischemic attack is like a mini-stroke from a blood clot in your brain. It doesn’t cause any lasting damage but cuts off the oxygen supply momentarily, which causes symptoms. When my mom is lucid she knows that the strokes she had many years ago were hemorrhagic strokes caused by abnormal blood vessels in her brain bleeding and causing damage, which were fixed by her brain surgery. However, when she’s not 100% in control of her emotional self she’ll repeat “I had two strokes” over and over again to medical personnel without providing further explanation. Because 80% of strokes are from a blood clot and not a brain bleed they assume she had blood clots in the past. Hence why she ended up on a blood thinner without having a real reason. And I want her off of it because an overdose plus something like a fall or a head injury could seriously injure her.

So during our conversation I keep trying to convince her that she shouldn’t take it, or maybe she should only take it every other day. Then at some point she chimes in “I know I should be careful because I know what happens when I take to much medicine. I end up on the floor. 25 years ago TM, you know my brother’s wife, found me on the floor.” That sentence was like a punch in the gut. The simultaneous blows of confusion and sadness knocked the wind right out of me. In the immediate aftermath all I could think was I haven’t even been alive for 25 years, and I was a part of that day. It was the story of the blog post before this one. How could she think that happened 25 years ago when it was 5 years ago? “…Mom you know that was 5 years ago right? It happened in 2011.” My mom’s happy conversational tone goes cross and her eyebrows follow, “No… No. It was 25 years ago.” I retort “No it wasn’t. I remember it happening. I…” I trail off as my glance meets my dad’s eyes. Silently he tells me this isn’t a battle worth fighting, there is no winner at the end of this argument, we both know when it happened and she might never again. Then we move on to the next topic of conversation.

When our call finishes I can’t help but feel as if I am the victim of some sort of gas-lighting. My mind quickly moves off of that thought into sadness because I realize in order for this situation to be manipulative there has to be malicious intent. There is no intent. She has simply forgotten the timeline and details of the event and assimilated the fragments of memory into the incorrect portion of her brain. Although, the faint cloud of memory loss is ever present these lapses in memory are the hardest to witness. With the day-to-day memory struggles she may stumble on words but eventually she gets her point across and we laugh or bicker or coo at something cute or whatever else we were doing together. But when visceral memories like this one get displaced it’s a harsh reminder of how severe memory problems can potentially become. But for now I take solace in the fact that these serious lapses are relatively few and far between.

Guardianship Hearing

I enter into the lecture hall through creaking doors in the back of the classroom and take my seat in the back row closest to the exit as I do in most lecture halls. The old seat creaks as I pull the wooden desk over my lap. BP reluctantly sits next to me. He gives me a smile with just the corners of his lips. My eyes simultaneously brighten and sadden as I look into his eyes. After beginning the slow arduous process of drifting apart during the summer I think we both knew at this point this semester would mark the beginning of the end for us. I desperately want to hold on to a relationship that is no longer there even if it means the torment of becoming the other woman and sharing BP’s intimate emotional space with VS. At this point while others know snippets only BP knows everything.

The stack of syllabi floats into our row. My eyes skim the page noting each fairytale we will analyze this semester. I reach the exam dates and linger for a moment. My eyes soften as I hastily shove the syllabus into my backpack. BP looks over and purses his lips, “October 5^th that’s the day of your hearing isn’t it? Don’t worry the professor will understand. Just say you’re going to traffic court.” When discussing serious topics BP had a sense of humor about him that was shrouded in insecurity. He had no idea what to say to me; our only saving grace was how deeply we knew each other’s feelings.

After class I hugged BP goodbye and said I would see him on Friday. Our almost constant communication and contact had dwindled to four times per week for 50 minutes of near silence. Even though my friends offer their ear and their time I still feel like I have no one to whom I could turn. I compose the email to my professor about rescheduling the exam alone in my room. No longer would I snuggle under BP’s covers sorting out the logistical complications of when to return phone calls from ER nurses, or dealing with the emotional struggles of futilely asking the question of why me.

A month passes by; the day draws ever closer. I have to tell my coach I’ll be missing practice next Wednesday. I don’t want to. I don’t. I don’t want to think about this additional stressor. I just want to focus on rowing and school. Being a student is hard enough. Being a student athlete is even harder. Being a student athlete who is about to become a legal guardian seems so impossibly difficult that the absurdity of the situation makes it feel easier, because there’s no way that it could possibly be real.

I arrive much earlier than usual before afternoon practice on September 30^th. Rather than turning right and going into the locker room to change and go upstairs to warm-up, as I would on a normal day, I go straight and enter the coaches’ office. I round the corner, knock, and enter Coach ME’s office. I sit in the chair in front of his desk and he asks me what’s up. My speech rivals that of an auctioneer, “I’m missing both practices on Wednesday because I’m going to Indianapolis to become my mom’s legal guardian.” He nods and tells me that’s not a problem, and not to worry about making up the workouts for that day. He’s giving me the workouts off? He knows this is a big deal, but he also knows not to press me because he can hear in my speech that I don’t want to talk about it. I just want some sense of normalcy. He tells me he’ll see me upstairs in a few minutes when practice starts.

Later that evening, I check my email and see a message to the team from Coach ME. Wednesdays and Saturdays are our hardest practices, so depending on the workout he will send us a heads up email so that we can get mentally prepared. This email is a standard team email except in the body it states, “AT is unable to attend practice on Wednesday see attached spreadsheet for lineups and rankings for Wednesday’s pairs racing.” I open the spreadsheet and read the lineups one column says, “With AT” and the other says “for Wednesday without AT.” Disappointment overtakes the expression on my face. I’m performing relatively well this fall, which is exciting because the smaller boats with only two people usually give me a lot of trouble. SH is my current pair partner and we had been practicing together the entire week before, and I was ready for the scrimmage. But, instead I get to wake up at 3:30 am to catch a 5 am flight to Indianapolis.

———————————————————————-

My alarm clock rings. I put on a dress-suit and resolve myself to the fact that this is truly happening. I call a taxi to take me the 25 minutes to the airport. Fortunately, the taxi-driver does not ask where I’m traveling to today. We sit in silence until we pull up to the United Airlines sign when he tells me the total. I pay and get out. I have no luggage not even a carry-on. My license is in my wallet, in my hand. I move swiftly through the check-in kiosk and security so that I can contemplate while waiting to board.

When I disembark and move past the point of no reentry there’s my dad. He’s standing there, waiting for my arrival knowing that I have no desire to be there, and knowing that we have the most difficult task facing us that day. We have to somehow convince my mother to get into a car with us and drive down to a courthouse so that we can jointly take away her freedom.

Before we go to get my mom, my dad and I go downtown to the courthouse to be briefed by KS, the lawyer, about what to expect during the day. Throughout our briefing KS keeps bringing up her own childhood where her father would line up the nine children on the porch and have them look for Japanese spies who were after him because the man on the TV told him the Japs were after him. While listening to her story I’m overcome with many conflicting emotions: I do not care, I feel deeply sorry for her, and I’m terrified about the emotional trauma that is being inflicted in my own life because this woman is well into her 60s and is telling a traumatic story from when she was 7.

We go from room to room in the courthouse signing different documents from different clerks. People from all walks of life surround us. There is a man in handcuffs and anklecuffs awaiting trial and his armed guard who ride up the elevator with us. The screams of couples going through bitter divorces fills the air. The woman before us in line in one of the rooms is becoming her younger brother’s legal guardian. Young attorneys shoot the breeze. In the midst of this I have no idea what I’m signing. KS explains it to us and what she is saying makes sense, but deep down I’m overwhelmed and have no idea what’s going on.

It’s about noon and we’re told to go home and bring my mom back for trial in a couple of hours. All I am thinking on the car ride over to the house where my mother currently resides, the house in which my grandfather lived before he passed away the year prior, is I’m 20 years old. I’m thinking most people don’t become responsible for their parents’ care until they are in their 40s, 50s, 60s… why am I being robbed of my young adulthood. If it were up to my father he would have been the sole guardian. However, when we were in the hospital discussing guardianship my mother yelled and thrashed around about how she would never let someone who’s managing her and trying to steal her inheritance be in control of her life. She wanted me to be her guardian and the KS told my mother that I couldn’t be the sole guardian because I wasn’t old enough. One would have to be 21 to have full guardianship. My mother relented and agreed to let my father and I become co-guardians.

When we pull through the gate and up the driveway my mom is so happy to see my dad and me. From the front yard we can faintly see her in the living room with her face lighting up with joy. We go in and are greeted, “Hi Bug! Hi Dad!” She has completely forgotten what’s coming. She has no idea what significance October 5^th 2011 will play in her life. We chat for a few minutes with my mom humming calmly and softly in attention, and then my mom suggests we go to McDonalds to get something to eat, so we all get in the car and drive to McDonalds.

After getting our meals instead of turning north to drive back towards my grandfather’s house my father begins to drive downtown. “Where are we going? The house is that way,” my mom gruffly states as she points in an arbitrary direction nowhere near the direction of the house. My father tells her we’re going downtown, because our hearing is today. My mother’s hand slips into her ice cold diet coke before she screams “I DON’T LIKE BEING MANAGED!” We’re almost there; my father keeps driving with my mom humming loudly in the backseat.

We park and get out of the car. My mom gets out without complaint. The courthouse nearby the office of the trust company that controls my grandfather’s estate. My mom is often there badgering the trust company for more money, and who knows what else. We’ve never been with her when she goes over there, so we don’t know what happens. All I know is they will occasionally call my dad annoyed after she pays them a visit. She probably got the trust company office building and the courthouse confused, because we made it all the way into KS’s office before the mood changed again.

Her office is almost like a fishbowl with glass walls on three sides. The secretary’s desk and waiting room are directly in front of us with the chairs facing away so that we can only see the backs of patrons heads while looking into the eyes of the secretary. To the left there is a hallway with many doors to offices with attorneys popping in and out of their deep mahogany doors as the three of us sat in KS’s fishbowl of an office in excruciatingly tense silence.

KS appears at the beginning of the hall and walks towards her office. She is wearing a gray skirt and blazer to match with her long white hair tied up in an updo. The click of her heals intensifies as she approaches the door. “Hello!” she greets us far too enthusiastically with her hands in the air in claw shapes as if they were holding two purses with long thin straps up by her ears. We all turn and stare at her in silence as she enters the room and has a seat at the long rectangular table at which we are seated.

The moments tick by as if each second is an eternity. Finally KS turns to me and says, “AT you look tired.” After she speaks I want to simultaneously scream, wail, laugh in her face, and put my hands around neck and shake her head. Of course I am fucking tired. I have been up since 3:30 am. I have been taken to a bunch of rooms full of strangers to sign documents cloaked in legal speak. I have been loved and hated by my mother in the same breath over and over for the past 6 years. I’m in the middle of hopefully the most confusing time of my life, because on the one hand I love college and am having the time of my life while on the other I’m hiding a dark shameful family secret. Yes KS I am tired. I turn my eyes towards the floor and shrug in response.

Then KS turns to my mother, “I know that this is a very embarrassing situation for you…” My mother quickly cuts KS off, “I’m not embarrassed. I’m pissed off and I want to file for divorce. He had an affair with my best friend. See you can smell her perfume on his collar now and you can see the lipstick stains. See this right here in my arm,” as she raises her right arm and draws a line down her forearm with her left index finger, “this arm is numb and I don’t want to be managed. Tell those men to quit managing me.” KS regains control of the conversation by telling my mother that she will still have the legal right to divorce my father even if she goes along with the guardianship.

We move from her office down the hall and into the waiting area for the courtroom. My mom wanders off to the restroom, so I feel as if I can momentarily catch my breath. Then KS starts asking me questions about school, rowing and my part time job. I don’t want to answer any questions so I’m giving her mostly yes and no answers. When we are once again on the subject of my part time job she says, “You said you work in an asthma research lab. Why do they need to research asthma? I thought asthma was caused by bad air.” I almost lost it. I simply stared at her as I collected my thoughts. Then I passive aggressively stated, “No. You are incorrect. Asthma is a very complex disorder than is caused by a combination of genetic influence and environmental triggers. We don’t fully understand it, so that’s why we have to study it.” No more questions are asked before we enter the courtroom.

When my mom returns from the restroom a bailiff escorts her into the audience of the courtroom. My father and I walk into the courtroom with KS. I look up at the judge and the realization hits me; I had Thanksgiving at this man’s house when I was 10. This man is my mother’s cousin’s husband. And I thought this couldn’t get any stranger. I’m sure he recognizes us as well. There have been periodic family gatherings in the past 10 years. Nevertheless, we all pretend we don’t know each other.

KS, my father, and I all swear in. KS explains why the guardianship is necessary and hands the judge the detailed list of behaviors my mother has exhibited as well as events that suggest she is not safe to be in control of her own affairs. And she hands the judge a doctor’s report from my mother’s latest inpatient psychiatric hospitalization. He looks the documents over and then calls me up to testify. I have no idea where to begin so I talk about the car ride over, today in KS’s office, and throw in something about the supposed arm catheter managing my mother. I’m thanked and told to be seated. My father is called up to testify, but I am so relieved that my testimony is over that I’m not paying attention to what he is saying.

The judge thanks all of us for our testimony and grants my father and me co-guardianship of the person, and grants the trust company already in charge of my grandfather’s estate guardianship of the inheritance. We leave the courtroom no more than 15 minutes from when we started. KS says that she’ll meet us in the waiting area. My parents and I are seated together in silence once again.

KS emerges from the courtroom, and pulls my dad and me aside and whispers, “The judge recognized you guys too and he says ‘hi’ and wishes you all the best.” Then she begins to speak in a normal tone and simply tells us, “That’s it. Go home you’re done.”

That’s it. I am a legal guardian now.

My mom points out every red, white, blue and silver car that we pass as we drive home. She pulls out a copy of how much my grandfather’s estate is worth from her bra. She keeps everything that an ordinary woman would keep in her purse in her bra. She waves this piece of paper in my face yelling at me to take it so when the men come and something happens to her I won’t forget I’m next in line for the inheritance.

We pull through the gate into my grandfather’s driveway to drop my mom off. We all get out of the car to say our goodbyes, and my mom squeezes me and tells me, “I’ll miss you. Thanks so much for coming out to visit. I love you. Call us.” My dad and I get back into the car and he drives me to the airport. About 15 hours have passed since my arrival this morning. Now I’m getting on a plane that leaves at 10 pm and gets in at midnight to go back to school, to set my alarm for 5:30 am, to get up for rowing practice on Thursday morning.

My Mom May Be Dead

“Did you hear that PM’s mom puts laundry detergent in her and her siblings face wash, and makes food with things she knows they’re allergic just so she can take them to the hospital? Can you even imagine what it would be like to have a mother who actually wants to hurt you?” No. I can’t imagine. I cannot even imagine what it would feel like to have a mother who wants to hurt me. I can’t imagine it because I don’t need to.

DM’s eyes soften, and look across cyberspace at GK, in response to her previous statement as if to say “no I can’t imagine; to have a mother rip the sacred bond between her and her child sounds like the very definition of having one’s soul torn apart.” KJ looks blankly at me before transferring her glassy eyes towards the screen to look at GK. KJ knows what DM and GK don’t. I want to scream out to them that you don’t have to imagine. Look into the dark circles of my sullen eyes and they will make you feel what it’s like to have a mother who wants to hurt you.

But the weight of the burden of telling another person of my struggles and having them sink into the sadness of my story seals my lips. It only lifts enough for me to say goodbye to GK. I nod at my two roommates and head into the bedroom I share with KJ. I climb under my covers at a time far too early to go to bed, but 7 pm is my new midnight.

I wake around 11 pm to have dinner like I do most nights. I notice a voicemail from my dad which is odd because he usually just texts me even with bad news. “The dog is dead” and “Grandad is dead” are not foreign texts to me. I slink out of the room so I don’t wake KJ and can listen to the voicemail in the privacy of the living room.

“Hey Le. It’s Dad. You know how we haven’t heard from Mom in a couple of weeks and no one has heard from her in a few days. I’m going to have TM go check the house and see if she can see anything.” I put the phone down and fix myself a pbj. I eat my sandwich in the silence of my absent thoughts. My mother is missing I should want to drop to my knees and sob, but I don’t really care at this point. It’s not like it’s the first time.

The next morning I wake up to a series of texts from TM my mother’s brother’s wife or ex-wife or something. My mom’s brother is in jail for 50 years to life, and now TM has a couple of kids from another guy so I have no idea of the status of their marriage. She’s a nice woman though and is being really helpful in this situation so I put my judgement on their relationship aside and read the texts.

“hi gonna go over to her dads house now”

“at gate it locked. idk how im gettin in”

“i got to hop fence or find a hole in fence or something”

I’m current on text messages up to this point and just sit on my bed and wait for the next one. I feel my phone buzz on my pillow as it comes in.

“im in. i see the dog. that dog sounds mean”

“No she’s not actually mean I promise. She’s really nice she just has a loud bark. If you go up to the house you’ll be fine.”

“No. u no how dogs get when they owner hurt. they get aggressive. im gonna go look in the window or something”

I’m startled by continuous buzzing of my ringing phone as TM calls me. “Hello?” “I see feet but they ain’t movin, and that dog gonna protect her.” I sit on the other side of the phone stunned staring out of our 7^th floor window around buildings and gaze at the other side of the lake in the distance. “Imma hang up and call 911.”

I enter the living room and my eyes nervously flit around the room as my hands tremble. This situation has raddled my composure. I have become the master at pretending I have a normal life. I can and will shove the hungry beast into my heart so it eats my soul before letting someone know something is wrong unless I explicitly intend to tell them. This situation is different and my hard exterior starts to crumble.

MA is sitting on the couch she leans over the arm, looks over her shoulder, and immediately asks me “What’s wrong?” In my head I shout, “I don’t know you MA you’re DM’s friend.” DM is one of my best friends and she knows nothing. Now in my fragile state you are going to find out at the same time as DM does simply because you are both sitting in this room. I’ve wanted to tell DM for two years now. And now I have to tell both of you: “My mom might be dead.”

I’m met with hyperventilation, sweaty palms, and vacant stares. “What do you mean she might be dead?” sputters over two pairs of quivering lips. I don’t know. I don’t really know. All I know my mom is lying on the ground not moving. I guess I know two things now. The second being I’m getting a phone call from my dad. I go back into my bedroom and gently shut the door behind me.

“I heard from TM that mom’s not moving.”

“I know” I say under my breath as a sink my stomach into the floor and feel the bristles of the rough carpet fibers press against my cheek.

“Stay on the phone with me until I hear from TM that the paramedics arrived.”

I’m lying on the carpet just like my helpless mother. I’m picturing my father doing the same. The only image I have in my head is all three of us hopelessly plastered on the floor. The vines of the earth begin to consume us and bring us into the fiery depths of hell. This image is the only thing at this moment keeping my mind from splintering into a thousand fragmented pieces. I have to focus on something even if it is a fictitious image in my own mind. There is nothing more soul crushing than hearing the heavy distressed breaths of your father and not being able to start crying to support him because you have no emotions left to give.

Finally the silence breaks. “I got a text from TM that said she can’t see mom anymore so she might be alive. I’m going to call her.”

I open the door and slowly step into the living room only to be barraged with questions that I can’t answer. I only hear two of them. DM asks “Do you know if she’s alive?” I shrug my shoulders and splay my hands outward because I don’t know. We only think that she might be alive because TM can’t see her anymore. MA heroically shouts “I can drive you there right now it’s only a 5 hour drive. Do you want me to drive you there?” I subtlety shake my head as I back into my room at shut the door. I know she was just trying to be helpful but I don’t need heroics right now.

After about an hour my dad finally calls me and tells me an explanation situation that TM got from the paramedics who managed to get some details out of my mom. She took the entire bottle of her Dilantin like she does when she’s feeling extra edgy or especially paranoid. She fell and couldn’t get up and was crawling around the house like that for about a week. Phones were within arm’s length at points while she was crawling around so she had access to be able to call 911 but told the paramedics that she didn’t know that she should have in that situation. Because she had only small amounts to drink and hadn’t eaten since she had been down there she got really tired and passed out in one spot for about 24 hours. Now she’s being admitted to the hospital for observation because she was so confused in the emergency department.

The Meadows Psychiatric Hospital Discharge

As I’m sitting in the study room, I hear the gentle vibration of my phone break the silence. I look down to see an unfamiliar number. Under ordinary circumstances I would let this call go to voicemail; if I don’t know your number and it’s an important enough phone call you’ll leave a message. But in the last few months I’ve gotten enough calls from ERs and hospital units that I figure I should answer my phone.

“Hello,” I whisper to stranger on the other side.

“Hello. AT? This is IR a social worker at The Meadows. Do you have a moment to discuss your mother’s diagnosis and discharge planning?”

I have anxiously awaited this phone call. I have had no direct contact with my mother or anyone involved in her care since she was admitted to the hospital. The extent of my knowledge my mother is in a psychiatric hospital, and I’m assuming she must be severely disturbed. I’ve read stories of family members pleading with emergency room staff to keep their delusional family member for a 72 hour psychiatric hold only to have them released within a few hours because they are not a serious enough threat. My mother’s 72 hours passed two weeks ago. The pit of my stomach sinks anticipation and hesitantly I answer, “Sure. Let me go outside first I’m in a quiet study area.”

As I leave the building, my phone is pressed to my ear listening only to the breathing of the person on the other side. The silence makes my heart pound, which is a surprisingly refreshing feeling. The physical sensation blunts my emotions as my body prepares for the danger that awaits me once I get outside. “Alright. I’m outside.”

“Alright. Let’s get started. I first want to assure you that we have been taking excellent care of your mother here at The Meadows. The next thing I want to make you aware of is that I’m in your mother’s room. Here at The Meadows we like to involve the patient in all serious discussions regarding their care.”

I have to process the content of the previous statements. My mother is in the room? My mother is in the room. This is the first time I will have had a frank conversation about mental illness with my mother. My body braces for the chaos of the explosion that will follow this conversation. I can hear glass shattering, and shouts as my mother drives off into the distance at dangerous speeds. But then I realize that she’s hundreds of miles away in an institution equipped to handle the aftermath; I feel a sense of surreal calm overtake my body.

IR continues, “During her time here you mother has been diagnosed with psychotic depression. Is this the diagnosis you have been told JT?”

“Yes,” My mother responds with a flat affect suggesting heavy doses of antipsychotic medications.

“While admitted your mother has been receiving the antipsychotics Seroquel and Risperdal. We believe that it is in your mother’s best interest to receive monthly injections of the long acting antipsychotic Risperdal Consta. We will give her the first injection before she is discharged, and then you will need to find a local doctor to continue the injections. In addition, we believe that it is in her best interest to have a legal guardian. The best course of action would be to find a lawyer in the state where she is currently living to begin the process. Her insurance coverage will run out at the end of the week, so unfortunately she will need to be discharged at this time. Do you have plans for someone to come pick her up? If not we can arrange for a taxi to take her to the airport.”

“I’m not sure who’s coming to pick her up. I can’t because of school, but my dad will probably fly out there. I’ll have him call back and let you know. Thanks for the information. Have a good day.”

“Goodbye.” As I hang up the phone I realize I completely forgot my mom was on the line. I should have said goodbye to her directly especially since today is Mother’s Day. Oh well it happens I guess.

I was just inundated with information that I don’t have time to process. So I’m not going to. I’m just going to go back inside and study as if nothing happened.

——————————O—————————–

A few hours have passed since talking to the social worker, and I feel prepared for my final exam later on this evening so now is probably a good time to give my dad a call. I want to talk to him about who will be picking up my mom, and I want to find out how much he knows about the situation overall.

I quietly pack up my notebooks and place them in my backpack. As I leave the study room I look around at the stress on the faces of students preparing for their exams. Part of me wonders how it would feel to only be worried about school. Although it comes with a price, another part of me feels grateful that during this school year exams have carried a lot less weight in my mind. This year all of my stress has been hyper-focused in one area, which has made the rest of my life fairly relaxed. I’m not sure of the sustainability of this model; I’m sure in a matter of time the stress will begin to creep. But in the meantime I’m enjoying the relaxation that comes with compartmentalizing stress.

It’s a warm spring day so I’m going to call my dad from outside. I would like a relatively private space away from all of the ladies tanning on the lawn, and anyone else who may walk by. Out of context I don’t think that a passerby would be able to piece together that my mother is in a mental hospital, and on a campus of 40,000 students news does not spread fast but I still don’t want to take the chance.

The sliced onion statue in front of our dorm is the perfect spot. I believe it is supposed to be a seating area with each slice of the onion being a seat with a backrest. Although, I’m not really sure because half year it’s covered with snow and the other half no one usually sits there. Another perk of the onion is that the slices obscure the person inside, and this gives me the sense of being more secluded than I really am.

“Hello,” my dad answers the phone.

“Hi. I just wanted to let you know that I got a call from The Meadows earlier today. They’re wondering who’s coming to pick up mom. I told them you would them call back. They also said that she has psychotic depression. I guess we can add it to the list of other diagnoses.” Although this is her first time in a psychiatric hospital when my mother has ended up in other hospitals they have so far diagnosed her with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and psychiatric disorder not otherwise specified.

“Hmm… I’m on a trip right now so I’ll have to ponder how to get her. Worst comes to worst we can see if her cousins can make the drive out there and drive her back to Indianapolis and I can meet her at Grandad’s house in a few days. Then we can fly back to Colorado.”

“Ok that sounds good. Oh another thing. They suggested we start the process for becoming her legal guardians.”

“That’s tricky. I’m not really sure how to do that. I guess we can talk to the people who manage the trust for Grandad’s estate. They probably can suggest a lawyer. We’ll have to figure that out after we figure out how we’re getting her.” Without much transition my dad switches subjects to talking about school. This is typical of many of our conversations; we talk about my mother and her mental status for a while and then suddenly switch to a completely unrelated topic. Ordinarily, this happens my dad and I are talking privately and my mother comes within earshot since we know these conversations would trigger additional episodes if she were to hear. “This is finals week, right? How’s studying?”

“It’s good. I have a genetics final tonight and then a biology final on Thursday, which is nice because I don’t have many exams this semester. I think I had five finals last semester. Then we race this weekend in New Jersey.”

“Very well. Good luck on your tests. And good luck at your race, but I’m sure we’ll talk before then.” We say our goodbyes, and then I head to the cafeteria to get some food before my exam.