Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Today is Brian's 29th birthday. It was a good day! Until about 10 pm, when I was browsing through Flipboard on my iPad, and saw a facebook post Tyler had made about an hour prior. It said "Help me put a gun in my mouth. I'm to scared." My heart started pounding, and I felt like throwing up. He was downstairs, so I picked up my phone and texted him. This is how our conversation went:
"What's that fb post about?"
"None of your business"
"It is definitely my business if you want to kill yourself"
"I always want to"
"What happened?"
"Nothing"
"Are you hearing voices?"
"Yeah"
"Are they telling you to kill yourself?"
"No"
"What are they saying?"
"They told me I needed to punish myself so I cut my wrist up"
The tears came immediately and I almost dropped my phone in my rush to get downstairs. When I entered his room, he was laying limply on his bed. I grabbed his right forearm, and there were over 20 horizontal cuts starting at his wrist and ending as his elbow. They were superficial, but all were bleeding, or starting to bleed.
He was very unresponsive, lying there staring at the wall. I asked his what he cut himself with and he pointed to his nightstand. I saw a straight razor there. I asked him why he would do this, and he just shrugged. It was the same conversation we have had many times - Please don't kill yourself, I don't want you to die, Don't you know what this will do to me, I can't handle it if you die Tyler. He gave me the same response he has as many times - Flat effect, I don't care what it does to you, It doesn't matter, I don't care about you.
I was bawling. All these things were running through my mind - do I call the cops? If so, they will arrest Tyler and take him back down to Grand Rapids, and for what? Going to the hospital doesn't do any good. I literally didn't know what to do. My fight or flight mechanisms had kicked in but had hit a block wall. I was prepared to do anything to make sure my son lived through the night, and the next day, and the next. The reoccurring realization that my son needs help so badly and he is SO mentally sick that he has no idea what he is doing resurfaced again. It hits me so hard that I feel like puking, and it actually makes my heart hurt. I am so torn between doing what Tyler wants (not being committed) and doing what he needs (getting outside help). I have to constantly remind myself that he is not in his right mind, and this is a sickness. The hard part is, he seems so normal 75% of the time, that I want to forget the other 25%.
As all these thought were rushing through my head, I realize that as much as I want my son to live, I can not be here all the time. I can't lock up every kitchen knife. I can't hide all the belts. If he wants to kill himself, there's nothing I can do about it. Telling him how much I love him and need him has no effect.
Brian came downstairs at this point, and his mood was very nonchalant. He approached Ty with indifference, sat in the lazyboy and put his feet up. "What's up Ty?" and Tyler responded.
I decided to let Brian handle it from here, mostly because I needed to go back upstairs and decide what to do, but also because I needed space where I could totally break down.
As I stood up, I saw a spiral notebook on the floor with writing on it. I picked it up and saw there was some lyrics written. I asked him if this was a song. Tyler said he didn't know. I asked him if he wrote it. He replied that he thought so, but he couldn't remember. I ripped the page out and took it with me. I was going to google it to see if it was perhaps song lyrics.
It wasn't.
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