Today I made a pact with myself to just enjoy the day. I think it was pretty successful. I had lunch with my friend and our clients who are due almost any day now, and got some work done that needed tending. When E got home we snuggled and played for a long time, which it seems like we haven't done in a while. It felt good to just sniff her and see her big jack-o-lantern smile light up, and look deep in her eyes. It feels like a luxury to have the time to do that and just relax into it. It was sunny and beautiful and it felt good.
Unfortunately N walked in the door from school saying he'd had a lot of intrusive thoughts today. He looked troubled. He had an 'episode' (I say in quotes because we have a hard time buying into new symptoms after he's fresh from the psychiatrist, but we're always wrong. I don't know.) today on the bus consisting of I don't even know what now. The second he starts saying this kind of thing I think my bowels want to empty, I want to run, and then I get flat inside. I can't worry about what's not happening, and the inclination is to tell stories about what everything means. I'm gotta stop it.
I can't even describe how I'm coping right now. I feel like I have to just sort of ignore everything that's happening to stay sane. Son losing his shit? That's okay. I'm buttering toast. Husband venting his rage about how helpless he feels? That's okay, I'll wash this plate. I ask myself how I feel and I can't find anything. I don't actually know. I just know I shake a lot and my chest hurts almost all the time, but that's okay as long as I don't stroke out. Now I'll vacuum.
At the end of the day, it'll be a process. We have to get better support for us so that we can keep taking care of N, and not lose sight of E's needs in the process. Right now the whole family structure rests on top of us like a very heavy hammock and we just aren't bolstered and knotted to be able to hold it all. If we drop it, our kid is going to hurt himself or someone else. If we drop it, we might snap at our own seams and lose each other. If we drop it, E might be damaged by all of this too. D is conveniently living somewhere else for a couple of weeks and isn't in the mix of all this. I'm sort of grateful for that, even though I miss him a lot.
A part of me wonders if returning him to the hospital wouldn't be a better thing for him, and then I wonder if I think so because I'm so exhausted of having to be the safety net all the time, and this is my brain's way of asking for a break. Like when I'm with a client and I start hoping she'll say she wants an epidural because I just need a nap so freaking badly. I'd never suggest it to her, but that doesn't mean I'm not chanting it in my own head to make myself feel better. So maybe this is my own emotional epidural - he goes to the hospital so we can get a break, and hopefully gets more attention on his meds. I don't know. I don't know what's right, we're reliant on others to tell us, but they're not here for every single thing. And we're hanging on to each other, R and me, and I worry about what that will do to us over time, too.
How did this happen?? I don't even know.
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