Danny went home willingly that Monday morning. It took MUCH coaxing and reminding. In order to get him to leave with his mom that day I even told him that if he always behaved as well as he had, he could visit and stay again...not right away, but again. Once he was home the endless texts and voicemails began again.
Wednesday I received texts from Danny's sister Kim that he had "snapped out" and grabbed her and hit her. She said the cops were coming to remove him. I called her in a while, my stomach churning, and she told me the police were telling her they could not take him to a mental health facility. I asked to speak to the officer and asked why he could not be involuntarily committed, and they said because he was calm in front of them. Kim text later and said the police were taking he and his mom to the hospital to try and get him in. She said she was "done" with him and that he could no longer live there. I can't say I blamed her...I knew what a handful he was, and she has two small kids in the house.
I felt, and still feel this was brought on because his mom took it upon herself to bring him to my house. Now he had all that in his mind, and it was working on him. I don't know, to this day, what to think about it.
It turned out by later in the day, that the hospital would not admit him, even after he took a swing at his mom in the hospital. He called his uncle in my town to come get him, and by evening he was in my town, and walked to my house and in the front door, smiling and saying "I'm home." GREAT...
Back in January the police told me when they came, that because his address was here, they couldn't make him leave and neither could I. I sat Danny down that Wednesday night and tried to explain over and over, that he couldn't stay here, and we had to figure something out. He had it in his mind that because I'm his power of attorney, I somehow signed his whole life over to myself and was obligated until eternity to care for him. In reality the POA was so that I could make medical decisions and sign papers, since I was the only one involved with his care. That night in bed he talked crazily again, threatening suicide and other strange comments. Thursday morning I talked at length on the phone with mental health crisis. He had a psychiatrist appointment that day at 2pm, and they told me to bring him and they would get him admitted somewhere while we were there. All the way to the appointment he questioned me about what was going to happen. I was honest and told him I didn't know. He started to threaten me...
Once there, we talked together and apart, with the psychiatrist and the nurse. She had me do something so awful for me...to just leave him there and then crisis would take him. He went into a room to sign papers and I left and headed for home. I cried all the way. My son happened to text me that he had run out of gas, and so I went a half-hour in the other direction to take gas to my son's car. When I was almost home the nurse called me and told me that crisis didn't take him, and he called a cab and was heading to my house. When I got here, there he was, in my house, with a cab out front waiting to get paid. I was so beside myself now. I called the police station....again they told me, as before, there was nothing I could do. Oh my God, what was I going to do. His moodiness and agitation was increasing steadily as well. I was so confused. My kids were in the forefront of my mind. My older son had had it with Danny's loss of control, and had no patience or tolerance left. He was tired of seeing the drama and wanted me to make a clean sweep for my own and the whole family's good. Still though, he was calm and waited until I was ready.
We got through Friday...Danny spent the day on my brand new computer downloading all sorts of unneeded and unecessary things and all kinds of error messages were cropping up. Saturday this continued. He also was ordering out for food over and over and asking me to buy him expensive cigarettes and cigars. It was his money, yes, but as his soc. sec. payee it was my job to see he spent money wisely. It was just an impossible situation. At one point I kept asking him to leave and go to his uncle's and he refused. He wrestled my cell out of my hands when he thought I was calling the cops. I went down to the police station Sat. afternoon and asked them to at least come talk to him. I told them something was going to go wrong....but they couldn't...or wouldn't.
Saturday evening it came to a head. Danny was trying to take over something I was trying to straighten out on the computer. He made a fist in front of my face, and when I asked him not to, he gave me a quick jab to the eye. It didn't hurt, but it was somehow all the further I needed or wanted to go with this. I hollered for my son, he called the police,they looked at my eye, which now had a big lump under it, and they took Danny out. My heart hurt so bad. I just couldn't believe things were like this now.
Turns out they kept him in custody about 20 minutes and dropped him at his uncle's, but it was after midnight and he couldn't get in. For 2 1/2 hrs he texted and called. He seemed to have no realization about what was happening. At 3am he was tapping on the back door, and at 3:15 he busted the door down. This time the police took him to jail. Myself, my sons and my son's girlfriend had to go to the station and write statements. This was the end....
Since that night, 13 days as of today (Mar. 24), he has been in jail. He has no where to go, so at least he is warm, has food and a bed to sleep in. I have had to go to court twice in this 13 days, to obtain a protection order. I didn't want to do this. I didn't want to go this road. As much reality about Danny as I can see, I still love him....I don't know how to make that go away.
I will most likely write one more post after this...Danny's story is not....CAN not be mine anymore. The journey we have been on will always be there, for me anyway. It's been a tragic story...one I hope other families don't have to go through. It's been a different story than most....
Saturday, March 24, 2012
A Book Must Close
Bittersweet time together...I had missed him so very much. My family was shocked and annoyed to see him there. I had promised them this was over, but here we were again. Danny was pretty well-behaved, but moody, and I basically just went along with irrational comments and behavior in order to keep things smooth. A voice in my head was screaming louder and louder how wrong this was. Dangerous actually. But I was still clinging to the now destroyed idea that my love for him could make a difference...bring some great change. I knew the reality, but I wasn't ready to accept it. Lying in bed that night, I kept thinking that this was our last one...I laid my head on his chest and listened to his heart all night. I never slept. In the morning, which was Sunday, his mom called to tell him he could stay one more night and Danny's uncle would take them home Monday morning. I remember wondering why I wasn't being given any choice in this. I text his sister, who told me she had told her mom that this was a real bad idea and that her mom had said she "didn't care"
I was starting to realize other things as well...mine and Danny's relationship wasn't a normal healthy one even before his accident. Oh I loved him to death, but I barely coped with his personality flaws and dysfunctions a lot of the time. With the memory loss and no sense of time passage or sequencing, it was worse. I'd been laid off from my job for months, but he accused me of saying I went to work but went out with other guys. I couldn't go to the store without being called half a dozen times and/or questioned of my where-abouts. The wives of the brain-injured I talked to were going through the same things, and it was I suppose "easier" for me to blame all his behaviors on brain injury, but in all honesty, these were things I had dealt with all along and which were improving with medication before the crash. And at night before falling asleep...he talked crazy...at times psychotically. I knew I was entering the final chapter of a book that must close.
I was starting to realize other things as well...mine and Danny's relationship wasn't a normal healthy one even before his accident. Oh I loved him to death, but I barely coped with his personality flaws and dysfunctions a lot of the time. With the memory loss and no sense of time passage or sequencing, it was worse. I'd been laid off from my job for months, but he accused me of saying I went to work but went out with other guys. I couldn't go to the store without being called half a dozen times and/or questioned of my where-abouts. The wives of the brain-injured I talked to were going through the same things, and it was I suppose "easier" for me to blame all his behaviors on brain injury, but in all honesty, these were things I had dealt with all along and which were improving with medication before the crash. And at night before falling asleep...he talked crazy...at times psychotically. I knew I was entering the final chapter of a book that must close.
Early March 2012:A final Chapter Begins
It had been over a month and a half since Danny left here for the last time...I thought it was the last time. I had seen and talked to him last over a month before. While away he had overflowed my cell with texts and voice mails every single day...apologies, promises, pleas, demands, threats and mostly just highly confused babble. You have no idea....every day for hours and hours... EVERY day!! It got so that I didn't text back or pick up his calls at all...when I did it was nonsense talk and demands to come home, arguing or confused banter about all sorts of things that were total UNreality. I turned my phone to silent much of the time, actually joked that I was "hiding" from my cell...So I read texts daily that either broke my heart and made me cry, or angered me tremendously. I listened to voice mails that made me want to throw my arms around him and just hold him til his pain went away....and many that made me very fearful of his actions.
This brain injury stuff...its just so painful. When you think of it, the brain is where we live, its our persona, our being...who we are. It governs the smallest things from blinking when you see a gnat coming toward your eye, or making a decision when driving a car, knowing a fork goes into the food and progresses to your mouth, to detailing everything you are as a person...if you cut off someones head, there is just a body...the "person" is gone.
There were always a million texts from Danny saying he was going to show up at my door. I ignored them knowing his mom and sister wouldn't let him take a cab or something to actually do it. For over a month and a half his sister and I had gone to tremendous lengths to meet away from the house so that I could take some of his money to her when he needed it...we used extreme caution. I continued scheduling his appointments but they took him to the few that were close by. I oversaw his medication changes. I tried to give my understanding and support to his family, but I knew deep down everything for us was ending. The last few times we had seen each other the time was sweet...until I had to leave. Trying to smack me, grabbing me, yelling, refusing to get out of my car so I could leave. We truly were at an impasse. But that particular Thursday and Friday he was texting and leaving voice mails saying his uncle (in my town) has cancer and he and his mom were coming up to stay the weekend and he would be arriving at my house.
I had the oddest feeling and fear that he would be here. I somehow instinctively knew it was a bad idea. We were going through a detachment process...well I was anyway. I didn't want him at the house anymore. I was not prepared to have Nick witness any more outlandish or violent behavior. I had made a decision last episode and needed to stick to it. I believed his family had the good sense to realize that first of all, I did not want him at the house, and to respect that, and more than that, how hard they were going to make it on Danny by bringing him and making him leave again. At 2pm, my front door opened and there they were...he and his mom. She was as cool as a cucumber, telling me they were staying in town the weekend and did I want her to stay WITH Danny. My first response was "What's the deal here? This is a bad idea. We will never get him to leave." She proceeded to chastise him as though he were a little boy, telling him not to "carry on" and to "be good". As she went on and on it frustrated Danny and he started stamping his feet and yelling at her to shut up. She said they were going home Sunday, and his reply was, "Doesn't mean I am." I knew then I was going to have a real dilemma.
This brain injury stuff...its just so painful. When you think of it, the brain is where we live, its our persona, our being...who we are. It governs the smallest things from blinking when you see a gnat coming toward your eye, or making a decision when driving a car, knowing a fork goes into the food and progresses to your mouth, to detailing everything you are as a person...if you cut off someones head, there is just a body...the "person" is gone.
There were always a million texts from Danny saying he was going to show up at my door. I ignored them knowing his mom and sister wouldn't let him take a cab or something to actually do it. For over a month and a half his sister and I had gone to tremendous lengths to meet away from the house so that I could take some of his money to her when he needed it...we used extreme caution. I continued scheduling his appointments but they took him to the few that were close by. I oversaw his medication changes. I tried to give my understanding and support to his family, but I knew deep down everything for us was ending. The last few times we had seen each other the time was sweet...until I had to leave. Trying to smack me, grabbing me, yelling, refusing to get out of my car so I could leave. We truly were at an impasse. But that particular Thursday and Friday he was texting and leaving voice mails saying his uncle (in my town) has cancer and he and his mom were coming up to stay the weekend and he would be arriving at my house.
I had the oddest feeling and fear that he would be here. I somehow instinctively knew it was a bad idea. We were going through a detachment process...well I was anyway. I didn't want him at the house anymore. I was not prepared to have Nick witness any more outlandish or violent behavior. I had made a decision last episode and needed to stick to it. I believed his family had the good sense to realize that first of all, I did not want him at the house, and to respect that, and more than that, how hard they were going to make it on Danny by bringing him and making him leave again. At 2pm, my front door opened and there they were...he and his mom. She was as cool as a cucumber, telling me they were staying in town the weekend and did I want her to stay WITH Danny. My first response was "What's the deal here? This is a bad idea. We will never get him to leave." She proceeded to chastise him as though he were a little boy, telling him not to "carry on" and to "be good". As she went on and on it frustrated Danny and he started stamping his feet and yelling at her to shut up. She said they were going home Sunday, and his reply was, "Doesn't mean I am." I knew then I was going to have a real dilemma.
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