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A Strange Sigh of Relief
I remember the day my mom saw Jani Schofield and her parents Michael and Susan on Oprah. Jani is a beautiful young girl who suffers from childhood onset schizophrenia. Mom called me the next day, after watching the show off her DVR. I expected my mom’s tone of voice to be one of sorrow, or…
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Exhaustion
I wrote the following post as a response to a discussion about the exhaustion of caring for our kids on Michael Schofield’s yahoo group of parents with mentally ill children: All I can offer is the picture of a teenager who has been dealing with the voices and hallucinations since childhood. We didn’t realize he…
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Depression – Again
Thanksgiving was pleasant, but most definitely not relaxing. The day itself was nice – cooking, the smell of stuffing and sweet potatoes, friends and good conversation. But I was back to work on Friday – supporting retail means never resting on Black Friday – off to visit Tim at ODTC on Saturday, and trying to…
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Darkness
It’s been a week since Daylight Savings Time has ended, and I am just starting to feel like I’ve adjusted. I don’t know what I like better – driving to work in the dark and coming home just as it’s getting dark at night, like it was during the end of Daylight Savings, or driving…
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Drowning
It’s been an interesting weekend, to say the least. Definitely not relaxing. I don’t know how I feel about it, really. The fact that it’s 5 o’clock Sunday morning and I’ve been up nearly 2 hours after waking during a dream that I was drowning probably says more about how I feel than I could…
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Relief
When we talked to Tim on the phone last Thursday, he seemed to be a bit homesick. “When are you coming?” he asked. This is a big change from when he was inpatient. He used to love to play the punishment game with us every time he was in the hospital. The first 2-4 days,…
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Cycling
Talked to Tim on the phone last night. “My voices are back,” he said. As he’s gotten older, he has started to get the ability to separate his own thoughts from the three voices he shares his head with, at least for a time. After secretly congratulating myself for warning his case manager that this…
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Dealing With Rage
(Note: This was a comment I left on http://www.januaryfirst.org/ – The Milk Keeps Spilling.) We learned to perform what’s called a “therapeutic hold” to keep our son from hurting us or others or himself. It’s sort of like a wrestling maneuver, but will restrain someone so that they are immobile but not in pain. It…
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First Visit
So – Tim’s been in RTC for two weeks now. We saw him twice over the holiday weekend, for about an hour on Friday, and about 15 minutes yesterday. Friday was a good visit – he told us about his “friends,” was happy to say he got the posters I sent him for his room…
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One Week
A week has gone by since we checked Tim into ODTC for residential treatment. We’ve talked to him on the phone three times, and all three times were pretty much the same: he’s fine, so far everything is good, when are we coming to visit. I think he’s realized that, unlike when he was hospitalized,…