I think I’m FINALLY over my ex-boyfriends. There was a reason (or many) that the relationships didn’t work out.
I can be their bestfriends or workout buddies… and NOTHING else.
Call me Walmart, because I’m cutting out their benefits!
Alex and I have been fighting for months, since early November, to get Drea the serious help she needs.
Finally, I think, Drea is going to get the help she needs through a in-patient residential center. It’s expensive–tens of thousands of dollars a month–and it had to be ordered by some governmental agency. The agencies all passing the buck because whoever refers, pays.
After 3 trips to the same 7-day, short-term, acute center, the fourth time she was transferred to a DIFFERENT location and THIS time they are taking it seriously. We met with the psych team and she’s likely to be transferred to a long-term residential center outside of Baltimore. THANK GOD!
THANK JEEBUS!
I’m sad that this is her only solution, sad that she’s not going to be around in the house, sad that she is so upset by this and so angry at us, and wants me dead… well, it’s what she’s saying at any rate.
BUT… when she was here, I was taking care of both her AND Alex.
Now, Alex can finally rest, take care of herself. I don’t have to worry about Drea killing herself, running away, fighting with Alex, destroying things, threatening my life…
I need to do something good for the world now, to pay back the karma. I only had to fight for this for the last 2 years, and more directly, during the last 8 1/2 months…
A week has passed since the cops whisked my niece away to the ER where she waited 24 hours and then subsequently transferred to the pysch hospital.
We’ve been through this cycle 4 times before:
1) niece exhibits psychotic behaviour (breaking things, threatening us, hurting us)
2) 9-11 called, cops arrive, handcuff her and shuffle her to the ER
3) she gets checked into an acute treatment center, which is only meant to triage and recalibrate her medication dosage
4) 7 days pass and Drea comes home wanting to do better… and then
5) 2-4 weeks pass before she deteriorates and gets to step 1 again
This time, we’re fighting against a reluctant child protection services that could put her in RTC but would have to pay if THEY were the ones to refer her.
We’re also finding that we have to work through an education system that could also refer her to RTC, but has to go through bureacratic process to rule out the other, less costly, options.
We have one year and 5 months (before she turns 18) to get her into an Residential–a life saver and the only hope to preventing her from running away, getting pregnant or killing herself.
So it’s 7 days into her stay @ this acute care center and today/tomorrow will tell if they release her. When they do, she’s going to take her suitcase and hasta la bye bye. The cops are tired of us calling them for her running away and for her violence. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT SHIT? The cops are complaining about having to do their fucking job? And if the cops are tired, then WHY THE HELL isn’t the Child Protection Services agency stepping up to refer? BECAUSE they don’t want to pay. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!
We shall see what happens in the future. For now, please send positive vibes or prayers, even, to Drea and her momma.
So the cops came, Alex and Drea spent hours and hours at the ER in Rockville. They arrived at noon and spent hours waiting, then filling out paper work, then a psychiatric evaluation, and finally a recommendation for her to get acute care and then longer-term residential.
I finally thought we had success until they told us there were no beds available in treatment facilities in the area. Well, of the facilities who took her insurance.
Only place in the area that accepted her insurance, had a bed available and it was located in Hagerstown, Maryland–2 hours away… They would have an ambulance ready to take sister and Drea up to Hagerstown, but they probably wouldn’t get there until 1 or 2 in the morning. Alex didn’t have a car, didn’t have cash (or a way of getting cash) and would be stranded. Hagerstown. She also didn’t even have a jacket for the increasingly cold night.
I called the Hagerstown clinic and they told me that they don’t have a waiting room and she would be kicked out after Drea was admitted.
God, this story is already long, but to shorten it some:
I called the Hagerstown clinic screaming that they would have two patients they would be dealing with and not one if my sister went. She would be pulling an all-nighter (for the second or third night in a row after all she went through with Drea earlier in the week and with her own illness on Thursday night)
Hagerstown called Rockville to sort out the fact that my sister, with pulmonary hypertension, was in no condition to commute to Hagerstown and then spend the night OUTSIDE of the hospital. freezing without her coat, tired and sick 
Finally, Rockville called me and after yelling, screaming, and crying, I got them to cancel the ambulance, allow niece to stay overnight (with my sister) and then figure out where to go next.
Turns out that by screaming and getting them to wait until the next day, a bed opened up across the street from Rockville hospital!
Relief. Now I wait to see how this week turns out in acute care. If Drea is on good behaviour and doesn’t seem out of control, they may send her home. If she gets worse or shows signs of deep disturbance, they may send her to residential.
She’s been under acute hospital care at least 4 times since November and it seems to be getting worse and worse. I pray that they find residential to be her next step so the cycle ends.
Sunday: I’m in DC with Gianni, meeting my new renter and signing the lease, picking up his deposit check. I get a call from Alex saying that Drea destroyed the living room. She kicked a hole in the wall (again), threw couches over, broke a jar of pickles (I assumed she threw it), and kicked a hole in the couch.
My reaction: FUUUUCK! It’s over. She’s out of the house. She is out of control and is either going to be homeless or put in a psych hospital. I was SOO mad. I told my sister that she’s OUT and my sister starts packing her own bag.
Eventually, she realizes that I’m threatening to make them both homeless to show her that she cannot simply allow Drea to continue going crazy without action, without attempts to get her residential treatment that she so desperately needs. My sister tells Drea directly that she needs to go into residential and Drea tells both her mother and me that she would kill herself before going to “resi.”
Drea threw my sister’s phone up against the wall and into many pieces and then ran away…
Long story short, I had to call the cops (remotely from Virginia!) and they took Drea to the pysch hospital.
Not sure where to begin, but I’ll start with Thursday night.
Thursday PM: I went to the gym with Gianni and we proceeded to grab dinner nearby in Silver Spring. My 16 year old niece Drea calls me 5 times during our meal (I usually don’t answer as she’s been known to excitedly call me with “urgent news” like “they’re playing Ramones at the Safeway”) Anyway, I finally answer and she tells me that her mother was throwing up, really pale and needed to go to the ER. Gianni and I head over there and take her to the ER, leaving Drea at her bedside.
FRIDAY 4:00 AM: I wake up and find Drea and her boyfriend intertwined on the couch asleep. The boyfriend is banned from the house after we catch the two of them post-sex in her bedroom. I discover from the lovebirds that Alex has pneumonia, needs to be hospitalized for at least 72 hours to recuperate, and that Alex asked boyfriend to bring Drea back home so she could rest.
FRIDAY 4:01 AM: Immediately dawns on my that I am responsible for crazy, out of control, teenager. For the next 72 hours. I start ordering her around (mistake) and telling her that she needs to sleep in her bed separate from her boyfriend, that her boyfriend can only stay for a couple of hours, and that she has to listen to me or else! She flips out and the fighting begins.
Friday 5:00 AM: After a tug of war over her cell phone (which I took to discipline her) she kicks a hole in the hallway and I threaten to kick her out of the house. I threaten to change the locks and I tell her that she needs to be committed. She runs away and I call the cops. Her mom sleeps peacefully at the Emergency Room getting her illness treated. Cops come and I give them a description of her, they let me know that if she turns back to the house, they can take her to get psychiatric evaluation.
Friday ALL DAY LONG: I sort shit out:
Eventually, I have to leave to show my condo to prospective renters. I set these appointments up on Tuesday and I had t-minus 5 days before current renters move!
Alex ends up not having pneumonia-the local docs read the EKG incorrectly and didn’t take into consideration that with her disease, pulmonary hypertension, the EKG is going to be all screwed up. So Alex gets discharged on Friday afternoon while I’m in the city showing apartment.
Drea shows up and Alex calls the cops to say that she’s returned. On Friday night she tells me that she’s too tired to go through another 12-24 hours at the ER getting Drea evaluated, so she lets the cops go. Over the weekend she tells me that they won’t send her to the “Operation Runaway” services at Potomac Ridge in Rockville (this is what they told me would happen on Friday morning)
Saturday AM/PM: I’m showing my apartment, so I just stay in the city. Not sure what’s going on in the home, but things seemed to have settled down.
Sunday AM: this is when shit hits the fan… part 2 coming up.
Sister is hospitalized with pneumonia
Drea kicked the wall and ran away from home because I took her phone away from punishment for not sleeping in her bed (she wanted to sleep with her boyfriend on the couch… NOT APPROPRIATE)
I injured myself and can’t get a good sweat-inducing workout.
I don’t want to be in my home! I would rather live out of my backpack (which I was doing blissfully for 3 weeks recently) than be here to reprimand niece, clean up house, encourage my sister to take her meds (both pulmonary AND depression meds)… it’s too much for me to bear.
I’m slowly but surely unravelling.
I need the following things:
That’s about it. I mean, I’m not REALLY asking for much, am I?
I’m sad for my sweet sister Alex, who is suffering with an incurable and very serious heart and lung disease (pulmonary hypertension) AND… dealing with a very deep depression and hideous life circumstances
I’m sad for her daughter, my sweet little niece, who is constantly threatening to run away from home and who is deeply unhappy (also diagnosed bipolar, among other issues)
I’m sad for myself, because I can’t think of one person I want to talk to about it, and would rather write a couple of words than to think any more about it than I have to.
I’m sad for my damned cat saffron. I’m going to get her balls chopped off soon and she ain’t going to be happy.
I’m an addict.
I get easily attached to things. Eating, drinking, partying, dancing, f’ing, working… I’m hard wired to latch on to things and I’m totally aware of it. My boss loves my work addiction–I’m here 60-80 hours/week on good weeks (er, bad weeks?) The only time I’ve gotten into trouble is alcohol and I’ve had to quit drinking after a terrible ordeal at my sister’s wedding (4 years June!) I still swear that these guys slipped roofies in my drank.
ANYWAY… back to my point:
I’ve recently I’ve gotten back into working out like an addict. That’s a good thing, right? Better than my summer of love… anywho, I have been going daily for the last 3 weeks. Every now and then I’ll go twice in a day.
I’ve had this addiction come in waves. The only thing to break it is injury, illness or travel (and no access to gym… work travel with hotels keep it going)
Right now I’m praying that I don’t repeat my gym addiction mistakes of the past: wearing out my knees running, destroying my wrists with weights, jacking my foot on other cardio…
How can I moderate this? I’m down in the dumps when I’m not working out and I’ve been on a constant endorphin flow for the last 3 weeks.
I wish I was addicted to NOT eating! Naw, I wonder what I could become addicted to that would actually be healthy?
Addicted to saving money?
Addicted to helping others?
As if those addictions exist!
I would rather go to bed early than party at a club where a world-class FAMOUS DJ is spinning!
I would rather go to bed early so that I can wake up early on Sunday and get a good workout in, instead of staying up til 4am dancing with Carl Cox bangin out beats?!
I have a ride to the club and a VIP (no cover) hookup…
So I have NO REASON to stay at home.
And here I sit. Typing into this stupid blog.
What is my problem?
I’m old. I think I might be coming down with a cold and I would rather rest up than risk getting too sick to go to work. I would rather not have work pile up on me. I would rather catch up on sleep than struggle through a week of work.
I feel like an old lady!
And while I’m complaining like one, let me add to this:
I’m going to end up a spinster! I don’t care. I am not going to settle down with someone just because I’m 31. There. I said it! I’m 31 years old! That doesn’t mean I’m going to compromise my needs.
I’m having an pre-mid-life crisis. Basically.
More complaints: I lift weights until I can’t move my wrists, I run until my knees are worn down, and I do cardio until my face turns red and then turns white… and I still don’t lose weight!
My life doesn’t suck, but boy am I frustrated.
Gotta think about the good things in life and not let the sucky shit bring me down. I think I’m just sexually frustrated… I’ll leave it at that.
