Why I have become a Lurker

Number One.

Middle son has a job.  

Hey, I hear you saying.  Surely that is A Good Thing..  And it is.  It really is.
But he starts his job at 7am.  It is 45 minutes away from home by public transport.  He is CRAP at getting up.  So my day now start at 5.20am.  I get up, wake him, make him a breakfast, let him out the back on his cycle (he cycles to the tube, gets a train, then cycles to work) and at 6.15, I really cannot be bothered to go to sleep for 75 minutes before I get up.  And I could NOT stand it if he lost his job through tardiness.  The stress would be more than the getting up causes.

Number Two

I now work myself.  I know it is part-time but the hours are flexible.  So when I arrive at 9.00, I often don’t leave until 2.30 and when I do afternoons and arrive at 12.30, I don’t leave until 6.  And working afternoons sucks.  Somehow, I do not get as much done before I go to work as I do after work.

And I still have to cook and clean and walk the dog and all that housekeeping shit.

Number Three

And the most serious and life affecting reason I just lurk is Youngest.  Youngest has been Sectioned under the Mental Health Act.  He is in a hospital 50 minutes drive from my house.  Oh, whoops.  I don’t fucking drive.  So it is a journey of between 1.5 and 2 hours, each way, on public transport.

Then he was referred to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Heath Section) where he was under the care of a physiatrist I found disturbingly sexy.  I know, I know.  Youngest was having a melt down before my eyes, and I found his shrink attractive.  I thought the person undergoing therapy had transference…
Youngest was prescribed medication, which he did not take.  He thought he did not need it, that it would not help.

By this time, he was hearing people everywhere.  When we went to the clinic for his by then daily sessions, he was hearing people next door or upstairs; at home it was the neighbours.  At one point, it was everyone in the fucking street.
It culminated in him going to our bedroom, drinking a whole bottle of whiskey, and getting out onto our roof.  We are a three storey house, so he had a long way to fall. 
I freaked.  Majorly.  I called the emergency services.

Which service do you require - Fire, Police or Ambulance.
Well, shit.  I don’t fucking know. I got a drunk son on the roof, you help me out here.
Fire, Police or Ambulance.

So I asked for the lot.

We had three fire engines, two police cars and one ambulance outside the house.  We had neighbours staring out their windows.  My lovely next-doors came home mid-crisis and could not park (she is disabled and has a marked space outside their home).  But they only worried about Youngest.

We The Police got him down safely, and the ambulance took him off to hospital.  Daughter and I followed in a police car, while Husband stayed with Middle Son (Eldest was working and did not know about this for three days).

Of course, Youngest slept all night, on a bed, while Daughter and I stayed awake, perched on hard chairs, resting our heads on the hospital bed and snatching 20 winks here, and 40 there.

It was the next day they sectioned him.  Well, first he was persuaded to voluntarily go to an adolescent psyche ward, but when he then refused medication, they had to section him.  And that was the point we had to leave him - about to be forcibly restrained to receive an intra-muscular jab.  Not the highest point of my life to date, not by a long way.

Then life became an endless round of get up at 5.20am, get Middle Son to work, clean, get Daughter up for work, go to work, shop, cook, visit Youngest, sleep…
Not thrilling.

Daughter was amazing during this - she visited every single day, after work.  It was a two hour trip for her to get there, and 90mins to 2 hours to get back.  This after a full day at work.  I am not sure how we would have managed without her - it did mean, after the first week, I could drop every day visits for every other day ones. 

He is, now, coming to grips with things.  He has been home for a weekend, he will be home this weekend and be home for Christmas.

But he is suffering.  He has zero concentration, no money, no idea what he is going to do with himself, nada.

But at least he no longer wants to dance on the roof…

So, Santa, all I want for Christmas is Youngest in a reasonable state of mind - do you think you could manage that?