Sleeping the entire day away is one part of depression that hospitalizations take care of. By 7 am you are up and out of your room. Time for breakfast. Then group. Then meds. Then group. Then lunch. Then group. Then evening social time in the TV room. Then dinner. Then group. Then more social time until 10 pm. “Lights out in 10 minutes.”
When someone you love takes to their bed it is an awfully hopeless place you end up on the caregiver’s end. What can you do? Force them to get up? Or continue pressing them to find a taste for coffee in the morning?
Or do you let them wallow?
As I would a fifteen-year-old boy, I bring breakfast tacos, offer food, and occasionally a word of advice. “Maybe read a book. The endless airpod/scroll fest is not helping your mood.”
Nothing I say is ever helpful.
“Got you two tacos this morning. I’ll put them in the fridge for you.”
“Thanks.”
And he’s gone. At least he’s leaving his room door open a sliver so I can see he’s sleeping without having to knock or open the door. It’s not an invitation. I appreciate it nonetheless.
There’s a heavy discussion going on about nurture vs. nature. Maybe it’s a physical condition. Maybe it’s genetic predisposition. Maybe it’s shitty parenting and shittier role models.
It’s all that. I’m to blame as well. I could’ve fought for 50/50 custody when my soon-to-be ex renigged on our agreement. In 2010 I would’ve lost. I was advised against it. I took the role and time I got in the lopsided Standard Possession Order. Every other weekend, Dad. Here we go.
Over the course of the last four months, my ex-wife has watched from the emotional sidelines while her son lights himself on fire repeatedly. Last summer it boiled over at their dysfunctional house and he was sent packing. Here. I had an idea that I could give him some work and a place to live for the second half of the summer. The work lasted a week. He collapsed into the same chrysalis he’s in now. I hope he’s getting ready to bloom into a moth or a butterfly. At the moment, he’s mildewing in the music room. No music room. Just a room with him loosely tethered inside.
The good news is he appears to be listening to his 12-step coach. Until he isn’t. Until he doesn’t pick up the phone from his coach either.
I am the only one with eyes on my son. It’s not a good review. Nothing is going well. I take that back. That he is here, is enough. I recant. I will reset.
I will have to let go.
My son’s outcome is not up to me. His aversion to the 12 steps and his mom’s complicit complaints about the same, have put him in a liminal state. One place treats addiction and drug complaints. He was taken to rehab over two months ago now. Sure, he walked out and did not complete his course. Sure, he did little more than eat and sleep within the walls of the facility. And one of the treatment facilities can only bill on the “drug rehab” section of his insurance. We’re looking at a second place, nearby, that can start with the mental health diagnosis. The best case, we’re hoping to have him on a new recovery path by September 1. That’s the goal. When insurance kicks in.
We are waiting.
While it’s hard to watch a young man agonizing and languishing, it’s also hard not to be furious at him. Why isn’t he eating? Why can’t he remember to put the cans in recycling? Why doesn’t he have any responsibilities for the day?
Being clean, sober, and safe in my house is a blessing. There were so many darker ways this could’ve gone. We are blessed.
I’m still saying, “Hmm!” Ten times a day I wonder what I could do to wake him up. But it’s not my job any longer. I have given him all the parenting he’s ever going to accept from me. Now, I am an enforcer. I am the enemy. I am the one who took his guns and his drugs and now his freedom.
“I don’t have a car,” he says, often, as his blanket depression mantra.
“You can take my car whenever you need to go somewhere,” I say. “Just ask for the keys.”
“It’s not the same.”
Right. He can’t bolt off in his car with all his kit. The joy ride is over, for now. “He can have a car when he can afford to pay for the insurance.”
We can’t get him to do shit. And it is no longer my responsibility. I have to let go. I have to prepare myself, even now, for whatever he’s going to do. It’s up to him. My role is being here, affirming his positive actions, and pushing back on the intrusive thoughts when they are aimed at me.
Then, drop it all.
I don’t like living in a house where everyone goes to their rooms and locks the doors. I don’t like my son’s withdrawal from my presence even as he is living in my house. I don’t have to like any of it. What I can’t do is try and force my change, my ideas, my opinions on him. That time is over.
I close my door with a click. It’s 5:30 pm. He’s sleeping. I can see through the cracked open door. I’m writing. (typing this) I am bored with my situation and my own self-expression. I’m going to let someone else give me a narrative. My son will have to fend for himself out there.
Hmm.
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