Documenting my journey through the mental health system

A little glimpse of dysfunction into my family – we still have not got together for Christmas/New Years. The several attempts led to postponements over illness in my brother Sam’s family, with his wife and my diabetic nephew getting sick. My youngest brother George breaking his foot and being really drunk. I have no idea what’s going on with my older brother Shane. The plan was finally meet this weekend, today, where they will stay the night at my house and leave Monday. So far, so good.

Except George is back in rehab for “detox.” But we handled it ourselves, so I don’t get what his PO is playing at. I drugged him myself to prevent DTs from alcohol withdrawal, and after three days, he was fine and sober and I was so relieved he wasn’t drinking anymore. He’s a belligerent, angry, mean drunk. He is still working on accepting that but admitted a lot of his crippling anxiety is because of the drinking and his heavy handed probation officer looking for any reason to lock him up again.

So he did, but this time it’s locked back up in rehab. He says he’s allowed to smoke so I brought him a pack of smokes yesterday. He pleaded for books.

Part of me wonders if he really fully did quit drinking, is he being fully honest with me? I can’t watch him all the time and he’d be a real fool to go through a detox process on his own just to keep drinking again after. But for whatever reason, the PO felt it necessary to drag him back to rehab and so, we won’t have him for our “holiday” get together with the rest of the family. The nephews are who will be disappointed, they think Uncle George is so cool. (Because he’s still like a kid in many ways). But they are getting old enough to understand George has a lot of “grown up” problems.

So far the plan is to meet at the house – for me, this will be before work – and finally do a gift exchange haha. I got everyone gifts from Temu for Christmas because I thought it would be funny and because Temu is a really fun shopping app with way higher quality items than Wish.

But I haven’t been shopping, I’ve been saving. My only goal is prepare my house right now, get it ready for me, somehow. I perseverate on it a lot. I work grinding hours for it a lot. At least that’s what I tell myself. I admitted in IOP when we were talking about coping skills, good and bad, that I use work as a coping skill. If I’m working, moving, worrying about other patients, then I’m not thinking about me as a patient. It’s easier to get through the day when there is structure and something I need to do. It’s easier to sleep when I work myself to exhaustion.

I use writing to cope too. I write in a VERY private journal, and I write here. It’s a lot of nonsense at this point as I have largely written out my psychiatric past already. But the flashbacks never stop. It gets a little easier though, driving by the mental hospital on my way to work. I still shudder and moan inside, but I don’t need 10 minutes to come down from sheer panic again.