The answer should be yes. Not "how can I get my loved one help?"

Author Archives: David's Father

American Express warning

So, I received this message from “American Express”.

American Express - Don't Leave Home Without It.

American Express – Don’t Leave Home Without It.

 

Now, this would be an appropriate alert, if…

  1. I was one to download web pages to my desktop to run them later.
  2. I had an American Express Card.

So how about some tips?  More and more, we are forced to move toward receiving notifications from companies regarding billing, alerts and propaganda.  Our world is increasing digitally and decreasing in paper.  Does that make sense?

  1. If you receive an alert such as this one, go to the company portal directly, do not click a link in the email message that you received.
  2. Call the customer service line to get a voice from the company on the phone to confirm what you are reading.
  3. If a company sends out an alert of any kind, they will use proper English.
  4. While I didn’t click on any of the links in the email alert that I received, I was able to tell that the links did not go directly to the American Express website.

By downloading their “page” to your desktop, you are allowing for the potential of an infection via virus or worm that will allow someone with nefarious plans obtain your personal information.  Furthermore, they can take control of your personal computer and use it to gain access to the machines of people in either your facebook or email contacts.

Be safe digitally, and you will never need to fear an alert from American Express.  If in doubt, always ask the company.

 

Reciprocity

One of the difficult things about raising a child like our son, David, is that the love that we feel for our son will likely never be reciprocated.

It isn’t that he doesn’t bond with people, he just doesn’t bond with family.

It is a facet of the attachment disorder.

He is more likely to bond with a complete stranger, at least briefly, than he is to develop a bond with us.

This is our reality.  Just as we can’t force him to modify his behavior, we can’t force him to feel any kind of love or feeling toward the family.

As a piece of that, he understands that telling someone, “I will take a knife and stab you” is not appropriate.  He shows no remorse for saying it.  To him it is no different than saying “the sun is shining”.

It’s tragic really.  The only thing that he regrets about his behavior from Friday evening is that it resulted in him being locked in a hospital.  At least this is all that he expresses to us.

This evening, I had opportunity to visit him in the hospital.  Every other sentence directed to me, began with the word Dude.  Hospital staff instructed David that it was disrespectful.  While I was talking with him about Friday, he frequently changed topics, or said the magic phrase, “I don’t know.” If redirected back to discussing Friday evening, he would slouch and cover his head with his arms.

Where I struggle with the whole mental health thing is trying to wrap my head around the idea that inside this beautiful human being, there is no remorse.  There is no empathy.  There is no caring bone in his body about anything other than himself and his own sense of id.

The key to David as I see it is this.  When someone other than family, a person in a position of authority, tells him to stop whatever behavior he is exhibiting, he will.  At least for the short term.  I witnessed this a couple of times on Friday evening, the first when the deputy arrived and dressed David down for the way he was talking, and then later when the nurse told him to knock off the behavior.  He stopped.  Immediately.   He doesn’t do this with everyone, for example, school staff.  But he does it for law enforcement.  He did it for staff at the hospital.

Today when I was visiting him, the staff in the visitors lounge did the same thing. They called him on his behavior, and he stopped.

Is he doing it for them to impress them?  Why won’t he do it for us?  The people closest to him?  So how much of this is mental health, and how much of it is just piss poor behaviors?

 

Escalating behaviors

patrol carYesterday afternoon about 1:00 pm, I was at David’s school to drop off his medications for next week.  School is 60 miles from home.  While there, the assistant principal pulled me aside to talk to me about David’s escalating behaviors at school.  At the time he was serving in school suspension for behaviors relating to an incident in physical education.

We pulled David into the office to talk about the last couple of days of behavior, and he claimed that nearly everyone who accused him of something was lying, to include teachers and a few staff.  David was then returned to in school suspension where upon he refused to listen and follow the rule of one desk interval between students.  (so that there was at least a desk separating each student serving in school suspension.)  At this point the decision was made to send David home on out of school suspension in an attempt to deescalate.

David absolutely refused to leave the school before his “friends” that ride the school van were released for the day.  He wanted to ride home with them, not me.  So I put my hand on his upper back and guided him out of his seat and out of the building.  I deposited him in the second seat of the family van to transport home.

David and I made a few stops on the way home, and for the most part he was well behaved.

Upon arrival at home, his task was to unload the bags from the van.  In the process he started swinging the bags containing liter bottles of water at me in an effort to I either hit me or scare me.  I restrained him on the steps.

At this point, David ran out into the street and started taunting me.  Because of the safety factor, I went to the back of the vehicle parked in the driveway and attempted to lock the door.  David got a hold of my head phones, and tore them to pieces.  I finished locking the vehicle up.  Told David I loved him and proceeded to move to a spot on the lawn where I could sit in a chair.

David picked up a basketball and threatened me with that, so I laid the basketball hoop on it’s side, so David couldn’t knock it over and hurt himself with it.  As I sat in a chair, David picked up a brick and threatened to beat me with it.  He looked over and saw some sticks in the garbage that had nails in one end, and said that he was going to go get one and beat me with it.

At this point, I again told David that I loved him, and just wanted him to be safe.  I asked him to come out of the street.  He said “I hope that your marriage ends in divorce.”

After that, David stated that “if you ever let me back in the house again, you better lock up all of the knives because I will stab you.”  At this point I called 911 and requested assistance.

David stated that he “hoped that the would take him to our state juvenile detention center.”

Before the deputy arrived, David poured a gallon of Blue Magic Car Wash all over the street, followed immediately by a quart of motor oil.  He then threatened to harm the dogs.  At this point, I locked the dogs in the house.

When one of the brothers came home from school, I told him that “for his own safety he needed to go in the house and stay there.”

Shortly after, the deputy arrived.

David attempted to order the deputy around, but quickly found that isn’t how it works.

I made a written statement to the deputy regarding the events, asking that David be charged with unruly behavior.  David was transported to the hospital. At this point we had been home for 45 minutes, it was roughly 4pm.

When we arrived at the hospital David was in getting vitals, the deputy was with him.

We were sent to a waiting room.  Roughly two hours after entering the waiting room, David attempted to remove the id and allergy bracelets.  I held his hand in an effort to quiet him. He attempted to bite me.  Between his mother and i we attempted unsuccessfully to keep him occupied and quiet.  He then started taking off his shoes, attempted to remove his socks and would have removed his pants.  Mom went to the window and asked for assistance from the hospital staff.

Within five minutes of her return, David was in a full restraint by me because he became violent toward me, and I was afraid that he was going to hurt another patient in the ER waiting room.  At this point a nurse came out and told him that since he wasn’t an adult he needed to sit down and be quiet.  There were three nurses that accompanied him on his walk into the ER.  They put him in a room with a security guard.

Four hours later, he was transported to the secondary hospital where the psychiatric inpatient care is located.  An hour after that, at 11:30 pm  mom and I were on our way home.

When I was completing the paperwork for admission, the nurse, Tim, asked “what did he do this time?”  They know him by name there.

It saddens me to put him in psychiatric care, but I will protect both him and the rest of the family from harm in any way I deem necessary.