things change again

I've had a pretty good week - suffering wise. Not much suffering, felt like I'd discovered some important things. I got a lot done, which always makes me feel good (about myself I guess). Yesterday (saturday) was very nice and I did a lot of good work in the house, and had fun going out to a party with Bec.
Today was set to be a day of traveling into SF for overtime work. I got a hotel room just to save me the hours of going back and forth tonight and to help gain some sleep by being able to sleep later by already being in town.
So, okay, at 6 a.m. our doorbell ran and I knew who it was ...

Bec's mentally-ill alcoholic homeless son was out on our front porch barefoot, with obvious lacerations on his face and neck, wearing hospital clothes. He had no money, no wallet, no bag and was clearly drunk. (turns out he'd been hit by a two separate cars after wandering out into the street up in Stockton and had been helicoptered to Modesto. we still don't know where his clothes and other things are)

Bec was supposed to work today as well. But, instead, of course, she had to call in sick in order to stay home and figure out what the hell to do with her son (he is 27).

I left though I felt very torn and wished I didn't have to go into work.

From the time I saw him on the porch I've just felt this overwhealming sadness, mostly for Bec, and also for her son. What is she going to do? She just can't drop him off out on the street somewhere. He can't stay with us because he always just gets drunk and frightens everyone by going on Old Testament rants about Babylon and sin and the devil and on and on. He won't go to rehab for the alcoholism.

I'm here in SF hoping for my own selfish reasons that she finds a way to get him out of the house before I return tomorrow night after work. Which makes me feel bad and selfish but I hate him there alone with my kids. He is just so weird and sick and crazy and I have no idea how to deal with it, so you can imagine how confusing he is to them. I don't like it that they have to go through that.

I feel so sorry for Bec. She looked so lost and frightened and sad when I pulled away this morning.

This is real and it is awful.

It feels better to write about it a little. Thanks for reading. I have no wisdom regarding this situation. No practical thoughts on dharma practice.

It sounds really hard, and beyond sad, Mike. I don't know if there IS any wisdom beyond just looking reality in the eye. And I'm sure that doesn't feel like any wisdom at all.

Mike, I appreciate your willingness to share this experience with us. I know there are at least a few of us in the forum who are or have been in relationship of some kind with persons suffering from addiction and other psychological problems. Our experiences are unique, but there are some common thoughts and feelings that arise from these situations. A big one for us adults is whether or not it's immoral/unethical to continue caring for ourselves when we could be directing that energy to someone else. Not having one's needs met is painful, and yet so is knowing that our loved ones are potentially in a position to experience great suffering.

Hearing some of your thought process is encouraging. It makes me happy to see that you're openly acknowledging the issues and considering how others could be affected. I don't know if there's a "right thing to do" in these situations. But I do know that approaching these challenges by, as Kate said, "looking reality in the eye," is a terrific start.

If you're comfortable sharing further details as things unfold, I would love to hear how you and your family are doing. I'd also be curious to know if you think having a meditation practice is helping you to engage with difficult situations like this in more of a wise way than would otherwise be possible. Even saying, "Practice didn't really help," is an acceptable answer.

You're in our thoughts, Mike.

Jackson

I can't stress enough what makes this situation oddly frustrating -- after three years of knowing this man (and he is a grown man at least chronologically) is that I know that there isn't a "solution." This is his life. His mind is so twisted from schizophrenia that he cannot make the normal connections in reality that tell him that he, too, needs to get up, go to work, be normal, pay his bills, take care of himself and just be subject to the same conditions the rest of us grown ups are subject too. (Phrophets of Jehovah don't have "jobs" -- but they sure love beer)

So, there is no getting better, it's just a matter of patching him up from time to time and experiencing the heartbreak of watching him careen off again.

He is such a liar too. Right now he is telling his mother that she can drop him off at a rehab place today and that he'll be good and do the program. So, she'll drop him off and in a couple of days she'll get a call that he is in jail, or in another hospital from another accident.

The dude doesnt do "getting better." He doesn't "go with the program," because he just can't seem to get that the "program" actually applies to HIM. It's so weird.

I want to believe that he could have a moment of clarity, a moment of maturity and just get it enough to be somewhat straight but I that would be self deception.

To bring "dharma" to all this --

Aren't we all, in a way, living our own version's of my son-in-law's life? (from now on I'll call him "DJ" )

We take our senses, our DNA, our own particular conditioning, our survival instincts, etc., and try to meet each moment in a way that makes the most sense to us at that moment.

While maybe some of us can look the part of "good citizens" better than DJ can, many of us can be just as deluded in our own ways about who we are and what is happening around us. DJ is just dealing with some DNA, and conditioning that causes him to behave in a deviant (old fashioned word I know) manner.

More to come.

So, in dealing with DJ himself (his particular problems, mind process, issues) and with my own reactions, fears, anger and other feelings about DJ, makes me constantly challenge my own assumptions and views on what is right and wrong, how to live, what is, really, reality?, how to communicate with other people, how to just .... LIVE, you know?

It's funny to admit, but I relate to him way way more than I am alienated by him. So many of the things he says and does, so much of how he reacts to life seems so close to reasonable. It's like he has no skin and is completely sensitive to all fears and pain and feelings and everything he does is a strategy to deal with all that suffering.

Thanks for continuing to share, Mike. I can tell that you're being honest, and really considering this issue in a multidimensional way. I notice how incorporating a broader perspective into your personal scenario is resulting in increased acceptance and compassion, which are real signs of emotional and spiritual maturity.

Is DJ still in your home, or were you and Bec able to point him back in the direction of getting some outside help?

I don't know if you are making me sound better or worse than I actually am here.

This "broad perspective" that I have toward DJ has pretty much been my point of view from the time I first met him. That's pretty much how I've approached life for years now.

And, to be honest, I'm not feeling very accepting and compassionate at all right now. I've gone through all that and poor Mike has always been disapointed (cause he never gets better, never tries to get better, he's always lying to his mother, father, sister, , he can be scary and abusive to those same people with remarkable regularity, and on and on). See what I mean? I really gave up on him, it's his mother whom I'm compassionate toward.

---- I guess this means that in my world you only deserve compassion if you are willing to try and do what I think is the right thing. I'll have to look at that

---

Anyway, no, he is still in the house. I really think Bec wants to, in a way, use his injuries as a way to get me to be okay with him staying a while. But, she did spend yesterday trying to find a rehab for him and I think she will keep at it.

My kids are very uncomfortable with him there and I don't blame them. Which, of course, puts me in an uncomfortable position. Who am I loyal to here, Bec? Lily and Drew? Myself? DJ? Fuck if I know.

When I came in last night he was laying on our couch under a blanket. As I walked up to say hello, he put the blanket over his head. I said, "DJ, are you trying to avoid me?" No answer. "DJ, won't you say hello?" muffled reply: "Not now."

Yes, I certainly didn't mean just compassion for DJ. Though, I see that too. I know you're frustrated with him, and want him out of your home so he'll stop making the kids uncomfortable. But see, you have compassion for the wife and kids as well, and also for yourself. You're doing your best to consider what will be best for everyone involved, with an emphasis on those who are most vulnerable. I know it's easy to feel like a jerk for being frustrated with someone, or feeling as though you have "given up." But you haven't given up on the kids.



You're doing good.

Cool, thanks. I know that if the kids were no longer at home I could handle DJ being there.

But, the one creepy thing right now is that he is like a time bomb. As long as he is in our house, it is a certainty that he will go for the alcohol we have and get really drunk and start playing the fool. I'm dreading this.

Chris. when he isn't drunk he doesn't say a word and is a master at hiding out. You can sit in the same room with him and an instant later turn to look at him and he will be ... GONE. Bec says he was even doing that as a child, just disappearing. (Apparently he did the same things on the few jobs he's had, which of course didn't go over very well.)

Now, when he is drunk, he is capable of ranting and raving about religious things and/or his various resentments against family and friends. I've never seen him be violent but I do know that he has threatened people in the past.

Mike, I think one of the hardest realities to begin to understand is mental disorder. Somehow our view of 'psychological' matters is that they are amenable to expectations of responsibility, that they have to do with will power, that they are a measure of whether someone is a good or bad person. But if I interpolate my very small personal experience of 'altered states', I understand that merely giving a name to neurochemical malfunctioning doesn't give anyone any control over states of hallucination . Any more than saying 'brain tumor' or 'stroke' is going to change the perceptions or motor abilities of one whose reality is impacted by them. The one thing I can understand about a mentally ill person is that they are experiencing a different reality from most of the rest of us. This may be exacerbated by choices they make, but it isn't something that is their fault. They are not really in a position to MAKE rational choices. As you very accurately described it--"It's like he has no skin and is completely sensitive to all fears and
pain and feelings and everything he does is a strategy to deal with all
that suffering."

And because our whole godforsaken society is incapable of even basic decency about medical care for straightforward PHYSICAL illness, not to mention mental illness, all the burden falls on whoever happens to be nearest-of-kin. Everything you've said about the situation points to the need for 'DJ' to be in care for the schizophrenia-- I can't imagine alcohol or drug rehab places are equipped to deal with ongoing mental illness, rather than the transient effects of intoxication. Would your wife welcome help researching mental health resources?

If I'm butting in too much, I'll let it go; the issue of mentally-ill children becoming adults-- it's been like watching lightning strike all around the last few years, somehow.

I don't know much about schizophrenia beyond some of the basic diagnostic criteria. Though, I do know that no one is quite sure of what exactly causes the disorder. I also know that one of the reasons it is so difficult to treat (in a way that brings lasting change in the patient) is that folks who suffer from the disorder often also suffer from paranoid delusions. This makes them more likely to be suspicious of a therapist's motives for treating them, which is a serious impediment on treatment. At least 30% of what makes any treatment successful is positively correlated to the quality of the therapist-patient relationship. If the patient does not trust, or even like, the therapist, treatment is unlikely to result in a desirable outcome for the patient.

As Kate brought up, I'm not sure whether or not rehab centers are adequately equipped to treat persons with schizophrenia. I imagine it is pretty common for centers to see those with this flavor of psychopathology. For example, a significant percentage of homeless individuals are either abusing substances or are substance dependent. Combine that with the fact that many schizophrenic individuals end up homeless, and you can see how the probability of a schizophrenic person being substance dependent is probably pretty high. I'm willing to guess that a lot of these people have made their way to a rehab clinic at least once, by court order or otherwise. So, maybe there are procedures for schizophrenic patients at some rehab centers. Also, maybe not. One can hope.

The last time DJ was in the "behavioral health center" (Our County's version of a public mental hospital, which is mostly a temporary place for people on 5150s), the center's psychiatrist, head nurse, and head social worker had DJ and Bec in for a meeting. It was this team's opinion that since everytime DJ came in (which during that period had been every three or four days) he'd been extremely drunk they thought he should first get treatment for his alcoholism, THEN they'd move on to diagnosing and treating his mental health symptoms. They referred him to two different places. DJ agreed to go.

Upon discharge he was sent to a local group home filled with similar people and Bec was to pick him up every morning and take him to these rehab centers in the hopes that there would be an opening. The first morning DJ refused to get out of the car and go into the rehab center. Bec had no choice but to take him back to the group home. He left the group home that night and has been homeless ever since.

When DJ first got his schizophrenia diagnosis about two years ago, (and was put on state disability) he was given an MD shrink, a therapist, a social worker, a treatment schedule, and two different drugs to take (I think zyprexa and wellbutrin a combo to combat both his schizophrenia and his depression). He was told not to drink alcohol. In these past two years he has never taken the drugs, never attended any therapy sesions, and, of course, he drinks. (He happily takes the disability money however) (also this was the one and only time he'd gotten that diagnosis and I don't know if it is correct or complete)

Of course it would be interesting to see how DJ would do after a sustained period of time on the drugs, off the drink and in therapy. But how does one get him to do even those things? Bec and I have no power over him.

I'm not really sure how much of his condition is due to something really serious like schizophrenia and how much is just addiction, depression, extreme shyness and, a really bad attitude. I know Bec's hope right now is to give him a chance at our house to relax, recover from his accident (he was run over by TWO cars just three days ago), get sober, and just have a chance to emerge into life a little bit without the pressure of being homeless or being in a creepy group home or just being alone.
She hopes he doesn't start to drink and she hopes he goes to AA meetings (there is an AA "club" about a one minute walk from our house that has meetings morning noon and night I'm willing to walk him over there and get him oriented and stay at meetings with him) and then, I guess the idea is he'll save his disabilty and get a studio apt. in Modesto and continue some kind of sober lifestyle and treatment.

Okay, she knows this is a shot in the dark and that any moment he might be drunk, or might flee in the night not to be heard from for months (from jail, the looney bin, or on the road somewhere), etc. But she wants to at least give him a chance, along with a mother's love and support. If it doesn't work, at least she'll know she really tried. My kids seem to be dealing ok (i'm spending a lot of time talking to them about it) and as long as DJ is sober he is really no problem other than the fact that he is so strange (doesn't engage, appears zombie-like, disapears into the backyard or the garage, or who knows where all the time, etc.) but if he gets drunk and wigs out they won't tolerate it and I won't blame them and will be their advocate.

The situation is ripe for so much good, bad or ?

I'm very close (brothers basically) with a nephrew who is 10 years younger than me. From about 20 years old to about 25 he had severe schizophrenia and was constantly in the care of shrinks and on prescribed drugs. At one point he just weaned himself off of the drugs, stopped treatment, moved to San Francisco with his girlfriend, got a clerk job in a legal support type firm and ... just slowly got better. Now, he is in his mid 40s, married with two adopted daughters, owns two houses, and works as an engineer at microsoft. He is a little odd, in that he is always obsessed with physical fitness activitities (he runs 100 miles a week or more and participates in those 50 and 100 mile trail runs) and, his marriage is very strange. but, basically, he is a happy, mature guy who takes care of himself and his family. Also, when he was in SF during the time he was getting better, he had a pretty serious practice at the zen center there. He's not sure how much that helped or not

My older brother also had huge issues with schizophrenia, drug and alcohol addiction, and depression in his teens and 20s. Lots of suicide attempts, mental hospital stays (back before state budget cuts that basically eliminated long term stays in mental hospitals), serious addictive behavior to speed and beer and wine. He was a mess. But, about 1972 I think he got sober in AA, and has stayed sober ever since. He got on disability for his alcoholism, which financed going to nursing school. He was a nurse for years in, of course, mental wards, and drug/alcohol treatment wards and I believe he is an expert in both fields (he is brilliant and in high school his IQ was found to be some huge number). However, in spite of all this impressive stuff, he is an odd odd man. He's never had a serious relationship, he's always lived an essentially hermitlike existence when he wasn't working, he basically hates people and is very paranoid and suspicious of all of them. Most of his adult life he was 350 to 400 pounds and would spend his entire time off work binging on food. (now he has diabetes which somehow keeps him down to about 200 pounds while still binging. I don't get it) He is now on disability for a back problem and rarely comes out of his apartment. He spends all day writing rants for an extreme right wing blog (he likes Glen Beck and Sarah Palin)

Thanks, Chris.
You know the weird thing is, my nephew and my brother are just the first two people in my life that I thought of as other examples of mental health issues. Believe me, they are everywhere around me.

Both my nephew and my brother are examples of people I've seen who were once very very sick and unable to care for themelves who became, at least, able to care for themselves. Will DJ be such a story someday? I dont' know. I really doubt it,but it is possible for sure.

Also, when I look back at my late teens and early 20s and even beyond a bit, there were times when I was very nearly incapable of going on in a basic functional way. I got rescued a lot by my parents or one sibling or friend or another and I always managed to pull myself up somehow in spite of great discouragement, moderate depression, the fact that I was often living my life under some fundamental dillusions (lies) that I was mostly using to avoid having to show up for hard things like everyone else has to. Now, one important fact is that during any of those rescues I was either employed or willing to be employed in some fashion and when I told my rescuers things like -- "let me just stay with you for a month or two and use your couch and eat your food I promise I'll be out of your hair as soon as I can" -- I meant it, and it was always true. At that time something as basic as embarassment and a desire to not be a burden on others was a big motivator to get my shit together.

This is the seventh day of DJ.

He's been "good."

Coincidentaly, we'd just created a "rec room" for my kids that has a futon, a tv, doors, and is right next to the kitchen. So, it's been a perfect place for him to hole up for a week and get better and relax.

It's been clear that he is getting better and is a little restless.

This morning he took a shower and got dressed and walked out the front door. I had to kind of prompt him to say goodbye, etc. which is normal (I'll come in at night from work and look right at him and get NOTHING) but I insist on trying to gently behave as if he is normal. If I greet him he always responds, but with as little as possible.

Anyway, Bec and I do not know if he has gone out to get drunk or if he will even come back. He left behind his meds and his bible, which is basically all his has except for the clothes we bought him.

It's so weird. As long as he stays sober, we will let him stay here until he is ready for his own place. We will feed him, shelter him and be nice to him. If he drinks, we can't have him here and are forced into the very unpleasant position of calling the police, just telling him to leave, dropping him off "somewhere" -- who knows.

But, he is an alcoholic and no matter how good his intentions are, his mind can easily talk him into getting drunk. We know this. It really is bizarre.

Dude just came back drunk and high.

He came to our back door swaying and mumbling and handed me an opened can of Mike's Hard Lemonade and the little baggie of pot he'd just bought and smoked partly.

He wanted to go "take some meds and sleep." I tried to talk to him but didn't know what to say. called his mother at work and she was very upset of course.

I talked about alcoholism to see if he had any idea of what it was. I explained about the "first drink" idea which he acted like he'd never heard of. I told him how as long as he was sober we'd take care of him and shelter him and help him and get him whatever he needed, but if he got drunk it was all over. Simple as that. When I asked him if he understood all these stakes he said he did but "I thought I could hide it from you." (Great, just what I always wanted to be the alcohol police for a 27 year old man).

After my little lecture he looked at me and said "you want to split that last Mike's with me?"

What a challenging situation, Mike. I hope you and the others in your family are holding up. Thanks for continuing to share what you're up to. I think you're doing a good job.

I called the local AA office and asked them for advice and the guy said "call the police to take him away."

I feel a little weird about sharing all this, but I have this sense that something good will come of my sharing this situation.

I think the first 'good' thing is that daylight is a great antiseptic-- for you and your family, and for your friends and even mere onlookers. What 'can't be said' TRULY can't be dealt with; it becomes cast-in-stone Karma.