Author Archives: David's Father

Placement begins

Today, David was placed in a psychiatric residential treatment facility.  He was a bit nervous, but hid it well. Seems like a rather nice facility. Hopefully, he won’t be discharged against doctor’s orders again. For treatment to be successful, the decision to keep a patient in care shouldn’t be up to an insurance company. It is going to take time for our family to return to pre-chaos life.  As much as we love having David in our home, we really don’t like the behaviors.  In time, his siblings will feel like they don’t need to hide in their rooms. The current placement is an hour from our home so we can have frequent visits to him.  The nice thing too is that we have family in the city, so we can couple the visit to David with a visit to other family. Wish David luck. Tweet #fighting4answrs

Well Meaning Social Workers and Good News

It has been a long day.  Because of a well meaning social worker who chose not to understand our situation, we had a Sheriff Deputy transport our son 100 miles to safe bed.  Safe bed is just that, a safe place for him to be, to rest, to get himself under control. There is no reason that I could not have transported David today, but such is life. On the plus side, our care coordinator, who also happens to be a social worker, rocks.  I can’t say enough good things about this person and the work they do on David’s behalf.  Our family would be even more lost than we already are without this person in our corner. Today, when the transport was rescheduled outside of our control, the care coordinator went to bat and defended our family. Today we also received some wonderful news.  On Monday afternoon, David will

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The Paintbrush

It is interesting, the things that we learn about ourselves when we see with the eyes of a mentally ill person. I am an antagonist.  At least according to the doctors, based in part on the things that David has said to them.  I push him to do the things that he does.  Never mind the notes from psychiatrists, doctors and team members that were documented records of the things that he said and did while in their care.  Never mind the frequent recommendations from psychiatrists that stated my son needs to be in long term psychiatric care. I am the bad guy. I hold my son accountable. I have had to restrain him.  I make no secret of the fact.  Using a restraining hold on David is a measure of last resort and only if I feel that there is danger to him or anyone else. So now, we

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