~Horsham
Last week went really well. Life is supposed to be one day at a time and I thought things went really well considering.
Tuesday JC had a really good session with the shrink here in Phoenixville, Dr Catton, that we like so much. The doc was concerned that he has so little memory of his childhood. They agreed that they needed another intense session to come to a diagnoses.
Wednesday the shrink at the American Day Program agreed to take him off of the Lithium and prescribed Lamictal. Wedenesday afternoon, he was feeling very detached from himself. The doc said it was dissociation. Thursday he started the new meds and was rather down compared to the rest of the week. Thursday PM we went to the group therapy session at the STAR program and he was chipper on the way home. Once we were home, he wrote in his journal for a bit and discovered that he's had 14 jobs in the last 15 years. Between that and a memory of mouthing off to an airforce captain that had dared to compliment him, he was angry with himself till he went to sleep. Friday morning he woke up still angry. The wonderful dreams he has been having on the lithium had gone away and he was angry for having lost them. Friday we had a family therapy session scheduled in the afternoon. He only called once (instead of every smoke break) and it was just to confirm that I was coming to the meeting.
I get there for the session and I am told about his morning. He spent the meditation session in the am plotting his suicide plans once more. This time it was a complete sceanerio in his head from beginning to end and pulling the trigger. He could not contract with anyone there that he would not hurt himself. They suggested he check in for more outpatient. he did not want to go. I told him he did not have to go if he could tell me that he would not hurt himself and he said he would have to lie to me to do that.
While we waited for the therapist to call around for an available bed, he tells me about the Voices. Voices that had screamed at him last Tuesday pm when Scott & Eric came over. Voices that he could understand clearly what they were saying and what they wanted him to do. Voices that told him to feed the anger. Voices that he had told no one about till now.
The therapist came back. There were no beds in Bryn Mawr, we headed to Horsham.
We stopped at home to pack a bag. He said he had not fed the birds. Funny, didn't look like anything had been done all morning. He said all he had time for was to eat a quick breakfast. When he went upstairs, I checked the computer and found a bimbo bikini breasted volleyball cartoon game. Dr Catton returned my page and I talked to him before we left. He wanted a special kind of EEG run on him with nasopharyngial probes and sleep deprivation and something else I can't recall. Asks if I thought it was another session. Huh? Said something about a petit mal ... ??
On the way over, we argued about it. He had about 60-90 minutes free between dropping off the boys and going to the day program. He said he only played the game for maybe 5 minutes. Yeah, right.
When he tells the intake dr about the Voices, he says the voices had screamed at him every time he got angry with me this past week. Says the voices were yelling at him about me on the way over in the car. They were telling him everything was my fault.
So Friday and Saturday, there were murmurs among those I talked with about demons and exorcisms. Where *does* one find a quality exorcist?!? They weren't listed in the yellow pages under E.
Saturday night I looked up nasopharangial (sp??) and the special EEG stuff along with auditory hallucinations. They all came up with the same links. Links to Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Often misdiagnosed as manic depressive, usually caused by brain trauma (like maybe a car accident at 16?), can cause voices and dissociation and little black outs and memory loss (especially that of say ... your entire adolecense?). One can be wide awake through the whole thing and just be acting or feeling a bit out of sorts while a "seizure" or storm is going on in one's brain.
It's just been the weekend babysitter docs at Horsham so we don't expect anything exciting till Monday. We both think he's on the extended stay plan this time. Hopefully. Visiting hours were today from 1-3 so I took him a Bible, his crucifix and some stuff I printed out on TLE. He's nicely medicated, bored to tears and would love to see and hear from folks. Decided Horsham is Motel 6 and Bryn Mawr was the Marriott. Hours are rather limited, to say the least. T, Th & F from 6:30-8 pm. Sat 6-8 pm and Sun 1-3 pm. That's it. I can't possibly see him till Friday. The pay phone numbers are 215-555-9051 and 215-555-9219. He asked that folks talk to him about silly day to day stuff and politics (hello??) but no religion and no talk of how much he's loved.
And then, the icing on the cake for the weekend was my mother. As suspected, she just had to ask, "So what's JC up to tonight??" So I pulled her aside and gave her the "major-depression-doing-a-little-inpatient" talk and left out all the gory details of the addiction and the voices. True to form and the supportive woman that she has always been, she soaked it all in and told me to file for divorce.
Tuesday JC had a really good session with the shrink here in Phoenixville, Dr Catton, that we like so much. The doc was concerned that he has so little memory of his childhood. They agreed that they needed another intense session to come to a diagnoses.
Wednesday the shrink at the American Day Program agreed to take him off of the Lithium and prescribed Lamictal. Wedenesday afternoon, he was feeling very detached from himself. The doc said it was dissociation. Thursday he started the new meds and was rather down compared to the rest of the week. Thursday PM we went to the group therapy session at the STAR program and he was chipper on the way home. Once we were home, he wrote in his journal for a bit and discovered that he's had 14 jobs in the last 15 years. Between that and a memory of mouthing off to an airforce captain that had dared to compliment him, he was angry with himself till he went to sleep. Friday morning he woke up still angry. The wonderful dreams he has been having on the lithium had gone away and he was angry for having lost them. Friday we had a family therapy session scheduled in the afternoon. He only called once (instead of every smoke break) and it was just to confirm that I was coming to the meeting.
I get there for the session and I am told about his morning. He spent the meditation session in the am plotting his suicide plans once more. This time it was a complete sceanerio in his head from beginning to end and pulling the trigger. He could not contract with anyone there that he would not hurt himself. They suggested he check in for more outpatient. he did not want to go. I told him he did not have to go if he could tell me that he would not hurt himself and he said he would have to lie to me to do that.
While we waited for the therapist to call around for an available bed, he tells me about the Voices. Voices that had screamed at him last Tuesday pm when Scott & Eric came over. Voices that he could understand clearly what they were saying and what they wanted him to do. Voices that told him to feed the anger. Voices that he had told no one about till now.
The therapist came back. There were no beds in Bryn Mawr, we headed to Horsham.
We stopped at home to pack a bag. He said he had not fed the birds. Funny, didn't look like anything had been done all morning. He said all he had time for was to eat a quick breakfast. When he went upstairs, I checked the computer and found a bimbo bikini breasted volleyball cartoon game. Dr Catton returned my page and I talked to him before we left. He wanted a special kind of EEG run on him with nasopharyngial probes and sleep deprivation and something else I can't recall. Asks if I thought it was another session. Huh? Said something about a petit mal ... ??
On the way over, we argued about it. He had about 60-90 minutes free between dropping off the boys and going to the day program. He said he only played the game for maybe 5 minutes. Yeah, right.
When he tells the intake dr about the Voices, he says the voices had screamed at him every time he got angry with me this past week. Says the voices were yelling at him about me on the way over in the car. They were telling him everything was my fault.
So Friday and Saturday, there were murmurs among those I talked with about demons and exorcisms. Where *does* one find a quality exorcist?!? They weren't listed in the yellow pages under E.
Saturday night I looked up nasopharangial (sp??) and the special EEG stuff along with auditory hallucinations. They all came up with the same links. Links to Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Often misdiagnosed as manic depressive, usually caused by brain trauma (like maybe a car accident at 16?), can cause voices and dissociation and little black outs and memory loss (especially that of say ... your entire adolecense?). One can be wide awake through the whole thing and just be acting or feeling a bit out of sorts while a "seizure" or storm is going on in one's brain.
It's just been the weekend babysitter docs at Horsham so we don't expect anything exciting till Monday. We both think he's on the extended stay plan this time. Hopefully. Visiting hours were today from 1-3 so I took him a Bible, his crucifix and some stuff I printed out on TLE. He's nicely medicated, bored to tears and would love to see and hear from folks. Decided Horsham is Motel 6 and Bryn Mawr was the Marriott. Hours are rather limited, to say the least. T, Th & F from 6:30-8 pm. Sat 6-8 pm and Sun 1-3 pm. That's it. I can't possibly see him till Friday. The pay phone numbers are 215-555-9051 and 215-555-9219. He asked that folks talk to him about silly day to day stuff and politics (hello??) but no religion and no talk of how much he's loved.
And then, the icing on the cake for the weekend was my mother. As suspected, she just had to ask, "So what's JC up to tonight??" So I pulled her aside and gave her the "major-depression-doing-a-little-inpatient" talk and left out all the gory details of the addiction and the voices. True to form and the supportive woman that she has always been, she soaked it all in and told me to file for divorce.
posted by Cherrycat at 8:14 PM
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