Pain Exceeded Maximum Capacity

1-15-2007

My son's mental pain has exceeded its maximum capacity. A few days ago, on Sunday, he attempted to be permanently pain free. We had no idea. He didn't tell us until Monday evening that he wasn't sure if he was dead or not, because he overdosed on medication the night before.

Though I write about some little insights he has shared with me or that I have observed, and may delude myself into thinking that I know whether he is doing well or poorly, I have no idea. No idea what is going on in that handsome head.

Monday, if seen on a movie screen, would be surreal. Picture a kitchen at night with the father sitting at the table wearing protective goggles because he had Lasik eye surgery that morning. The 22 year old son is very confused about reality and he and his father have spent the previous half hour in his bedroom in private conversation. The son has left the kitchen to check some medical information on the internet. He re-enters the room just before his mother enters the kitchen from a different door.

Father: What did you decide?

Son: I might be in a coma.

Father: This is quite a coma.

Mother: Thank you for letting us be in your coma.

He was actually more inclined to believe that he was dead. He asked me earlier if he was a ghost and I said no, that he was not dead. I didn't convince him.

Also earlier, just after they left Savant's room:

Savant: Did I hurt your eyes by making you cry?

Father: No. (followed by many assurances, meant to be comforting, that he had not hurt his eyes.)

I was too upset to remember the many questions and answers we spoke. It is difficult enough to recall a regular conversation, but one with a person who is irrational and suffering and trying his hardest to make rational sense out of the faulty information his brain provides to him, can only be remembered in bits and pieces. Most of it is lost from memory because your own emotional overload of heartbreak and helplessness and fear for this lost boy, is so profoundly strong.

I did not sleep that night. My job is to keep the *elephants away. I would not be able to forgive myself if one got through. My son did not sleep either. I crawled into bed at about 5:00 AM and his father got up soon after that.

So this is how Tuesday was spent. My husband left to see the eye doctor and then on to work. I spent the day trying to answer unanswerable questions as best I could. I telephoned his doctor's office from my closet so my son wouldn't hear me. He would not have believed that I was making a harmless call. He is terrified of police, and fears they want him to spend his life behind bars. No amount of reassurance from us calms this fear. His doctor is on vacation for the next three weeks and I hoped to speak to whomever was on call for her. The secretary said that I was correct to think that an attempt at suicide was a huge justification for hospitalization and to check him in there, as soon as possible. Easier said than done.

An involuntary committal involves police, handcuffing my terrified son and being his escorts until he is admitted into the hospital. This process can sometimes take an entire day. I was not going to do that this time. So I spent the day trying to get him into the truck. To agree to go to the hospital. We made it into the truck once and sat there with the heater on, the engine going, Savant so frightened. Then back into the house... I think it was 4:00 PM when we finally left the house, with his consent. I had not realized, until he told me, that he was just as afraid of staying home as he was of going to the hospital. What did not sink in until he said that, was that he needed me to take control of the situation, be the parent, and say that he was going to the hospital and that was final. I'm not comfortable being bossy, so I had assumed that he would react badly if I made an ultimatum that he go with me to the hospital and the result would be that I'd never get him into the truck again. His paranoia makes him believe that he can't trust anyone. Everyone's motives for everything they say or do, are suspect in his eyes. Where would I really be taking him? What bad intent might really be motivating me to be so determined to take him somewhere in the truck?

So today, Wednesday, I hope the hospital and the staff can work some magic and take away his pain and fear and confusion. Help him find, in himself, a reason to stay alive. He says there is no hope for him, no need for him to go on living; he has become obsessed with the idea of his own death. It would break our hearts forever. I don't want it to happen. I'm too exhausted to write this out, any more, for now.

I just got a call from him. He didn't have anything to say, but it was good to hear his voice. I think he just wanted to hear mine.

* this is a reference to an old joke that goes somewhat as follows:

Person 1: What are you doing?

Person 2: Keeping the elephants away.

Person 1: That's crazy! There aren't any elephants around here!

Person 2: Then I'm doing a good job.