Escape.

Growing up, I experienced many of my mother’s mental health episodes. From what I know, the only mental illness she was ever diagnosed with was bipolar disorder. Every now and then, years apart, my mom would become depressed (usually around the winter time) and would discontinue all of her medication. Her medications included medicine for diabetes, high cholesterol, emphysema and more. I imagine her depression mixed in with her lack of taking her medication, caused her episodes or possibly made them more severe. I witnessed her first episode when I was around 7-9 years old. I remember she was always nurturing and caring of me although she would call me ashes and sometimes even put her cigarette ashes on me. When her episode was too much to handle, my family sought help. I remember her clawing at her husband’s back, police officers hand cuffing her and escorting her to a mental health facility. The other episodes after that were not violent but just delusional. She thought her husband was a mouse and would throw meat behind the stove to feed him. Another time she thought he was being unfaithful and showed up at the woman’s door. One episode, she would strip naked and try to leave the house, sometimes succeeding. I grew up witnessing it all. I grew up watching her go in and out of mental facilities. She would have to stay about a month and would last a few years in between. In the Summer of 2014, my dad had his first mental episode. He began talking and chuckling alone. He believed he was part of the NASA and would write endlessly in books about plans they had, inventions they were creating, etc. This really hurt my mother. She was constantly worried about him and trying to find ways to keep him indoors rather than outside where he was more susceptible to being hurt. She would send her husband to follow my dad and make sure he was okay. After a month or so, she was able to get him into a mental facility after many attempts. It is so incredibly hard to get someone admitted into an inpatient treatment program when it is involuntary unless they are violent which then makes them a danger to themselves and others. My mother visited him religiously. Every day she was there to bring him food from home and to support him. But every day he claimed he was okay and it was all her fault that he was in there. That hurt her deeply but I tried to help her disregard it. Soon after his released Oct 21st, 2014 – her episode began. Only this time, she did not make it out. We tried to get her help. We tried to get her admitted. The hospital would only keep her a few days to maybe 2 weeks and release her. She was bed bound, would barely talk, would throw things, was delusional, etc. After 3 attempts, her husband continued to take care of her. Her insurance wouldn’t cover a home health aide, it would not cover her diapers, bed pads, etc. He had to spend most of his money to buy it while I helped here and there financially. I could not do much since I was already very far in my pregnancy. I tried talking to her. I tried motivating her to get out of her depression for me and her two great-grandsons. Nothing helped and all I could do was cry. Towards the end, she would talk to herself but in gibberish. One day, an hour after I had checked on her, her husband found her shaking. We called an ambulance. They did whatever they could for 15 minutes or so and then rushed her to the hospital. She suffered a stroke and was intubated for a week and a half. There was one tube providing oxygen down her throat and another taking out phlegm. At the end of the week and a half, the doctors said they had to take the tubes out or it would cause an infection. Her chances of surviving were 50/50. If she was able to cough up her phlegm on her own, she would make it. My family and I surrounded her, telling her to please cough up when they removed the tubes, begging her to follow whatever directions were given and that we loved her. This was hard because she was not mentally fit so we were unsure of what would happen but she made it. She spent another week or so at the hospital while my Aunt found a good nursing home for her to be rehabilitated. She spent 14 days there and on her 14th day, she was taken to the hospital because she could not breathe. Hours later she passed away. Right before her passing, my dad began his second episode. He was talking and chuckling alone again, using bleach to skin his mouth and body, going in and out the bathrooms with the lights off, etc. When I told him the news that mom had died, he did not believe it. He did not process it at all. Then he claimed she was poisoned and the hospital murdered her. On the day of my mother’s wake, he almost did not come although he said he would. I had to waste my last hour and change with her to pick him up. When I arrived, he said he was not going because he did not have clothes to wear. I convinced him to come and he began to shave and get ready slowly. He claimed it was not her in the casket. I went through his things and found his diagnosis paper from Oct 2014, he is schizophrenic. A few days after my mother's wake, he was put into a mental facility again. Less than a month later, June 2015, he was released. Now it is March 2016 and he is having his third episode in less than 2 years…