Intervention

[threeplusfire]

I watch a lot of episodes of A&E's Intervention. It's sort of masochistic, I suppose. Many of the episodes are about meth, and alcohol. I watched one this morning about a kid not too much younger than myself, from a place not more than four hours away from here. He was a meth addict, bipolar, angry, out of control, and in trouble with the law. The new episode for the week has a woman who has injected meth for ten years, and has uncontrolled hallucinations and paranoia. In the faces of their family members I recognize something of myself. They remind me of Alan, of course. I recognize the facial tics, the angry expressions, the fury, the grandiose and bizarre words. I recognize it all.

There is a part of me that will always feel like I failed him. There is a part of me that will always feel like I did not do enough, that I did not fight hard enough. Maybe if I hadn't cried at the thought of sending him to Shoal Creek, maybe he would have gone. A thousand what-ifs and maybes, a thousand nights of laying still in the dark and listening and wondering. Maybe I should have tried to get this show to come and save him. Though given the way he hated for even our friends and family to know about his illness I can't imagine he would ever participate in something involving cameras and strangers. I wish I had sent him to rehab, I wish I could have made him go. I see these people go into rehab, and get sober, and it makes me cry because I will not ever see that happen for him.

Comments

[nimlowyn.livejournal.com]

I am learning the art of letting go. After five years, I am realizing that in the face of my mother's illness I am truly powerless; she cannot even begin because she cannot see it for herself.

My fiance told me, "Know that the end will always be the same. In the meantime, do what little you can so that you can look in her eyes, in mine, and in yours. You have a life that you are entitled to live."

Our situations are different but I know how challenging it can be to cope with a loved one who suffers from mental illness...and how impossible it can be if they are uncooperative. I can't speak further than that because I'm not all that intimately familiar, but my heart goes out to you.