Well, my son has decided to identify as straight, at least for now! That doesn’t mean things have been okay or even good lately. The bully has been allowed back into school even though he has missed last 6 weeks of school 2 years in a row now. He is still in my son’s grade. We have done a comprehensive job of letting the principals, counselors, community safety officer, and security know that this boy is not to be near my son at any time…oh but wait, you do not know why we have to keep insisting on specific arrangements. If you have read older posts, you know that my son tried to commit suicide for several reasons last year. This summer, as we switched from private insurance to Medicaid, my son’s antidepressant lapsed. We had been to the therapist earlier this one day in July and had finally gotten a refill for him. We had not been home from the appointment for more than an hour or so when he came out of the bathroom and went out and sat on the couch. From my bedroom I heard him say something to his dad and his dad reply in a low, concerned voice. Immediately concerned and curious, I went out to find out what was happening. My husband told me our son had taken 7 pills of his antidepressant. Our son was half lying on the couch, shaking and mumbling. We called Poison Control and were instructed to call an ambulance or drive him to the hospital immediately. We drove him to ER and the place was packed. We have 4 ERs in town and the one we arrived at was the only one still accepting patients! The others had so many people coming in, they had run out of beds. We thought it would not matter because our son was a minor and so would be treated in the Pediatric ER, but we were told they did not have a doctor for the pediatric emergency room and so it was closed. We had to sit in the ER waiting area with our son, shaking and trembling, on the verge of possibly having a seizure from the overdose. It was so full there, people who had already had xrays were made to sit in the waiting room rather than their own exam room because they were needed to examine others coming in with emergency situations. After vitals were taken, we had to return to the waiting room, as well. Finally, after an hour or more I could not take the strain and just covered my face and pretended I was alone so I could cry.

It seemed to take eons, but hours later we were in a room in the Pediatric intensive care unit, where we spent the next several days waiting for all the medication to clear his body.

It has taken me this long to write about it because, oObviously, it was traumatic for our entire family; me especially. My son made this impulsive decision, which he said he regretted immediately, on the anniversary of my brother’s death. He was 9 years older than me when he was killed in a car crash. I was in third grade. Now, to help you understand how deeply my brother’s death effected me, I have a memorial tattoo on my back that is about 12″ square. None of my sisters have any type of tattoo about my brother. My brother was my hero, and he disappeared in a split second in the middle of a long, summer night decades ago.

I have hit some very obvious stages of grief in the past 6 weeks. I still cry almost daily, worrying that he is hurting himself every second he’s out of my sight. If I’m not crying, I’m steaming mad. He did this pretty much in FRONT of us. The other attempts we only found out about weeks later, this one was right in our faces. That is where I am at emotionally, I am hoping that I will move past it soon, so I am emotionally available for my son, but also ready if another attempt occurs.

Posted by MyOnlySon