Aftermath

For what it’s worth, she was better the next day.  Maybe she had gotten it out of her system?  Or maybe all the attention satisfied some narcissistic urge inside her?  Or maybe all my theories are full of shit and I have no idea?  But she was brighter and more able to focus.

She also told Son 2, “Wow, I must really have been tired last night. I went to bed at something like 5:00 and I guess I slept all the way through the night.”  Was she trying to spin the event, so that he wouldn’t remember it?  Or did she genuinely black out and not remember it herself?  I have no idea which.

The next day I wrote to Counselor (whom she still sees weekly) as follows:

Hi Counselor,

Wife tried to commit suicide last night.  (Thursday evening, August 15.) 

She took some of her medications (don’t know what or how much) on top of one or more martinis and no food, and then lay down and went to sleep.  When she got up again, several hours later, she was stumbling and muttered that she “didn’t try hard enough.”  She tried to vomit and couldn’t, but was speaking in a disconnected way.  I called 9-1-1; but by the time they got there she was able to answer all their questions coherently enough that when she refused treatment they had to allow her to do so, and they left.  I sat with her until she went back to sleep and then I left too.  Son 1 stayed up most of the night on the computer but also watching her medications, to make sure she didn’t try it again the same night.  And apparently she didn’t.

I am concerned for her, naturally.  Her overall level of functioning has been getting worse and worse since I moved out, and the challenge of having to pack and move is taking a real toll.

I am also concerned for the boys: they are both competent and resilient, but they shouldn’t be in the position of having to conduct a de facto suicide watch on a parent.  Adolescence can be tough enough without adding that to the mix.  I’m not sure I know what to propose instead.  But at the very least I figure you should know about it.

If it also turns out that you have advice, so much the better.  :-)

It wasn’t until Monday that I got back to my e-mail and saw this reply:

I've tried to contact Wife on the home phone and her cell, Hosea, but have yet to speak with her.  Can you tell me how she is doing?   we should talk about the question of hospitalizing her, if that's the only way to keep her safe.   my cell is xxx-xxxx.

I know this may be traumatizing for you, and especially the kids... I'm sorry.  Depending on her emotional state, we should try to find a way to get the kids out of the situation where they are feeling responsible for her safety.

Call or email... Either way, can you let me know the situation?

And my answer, that I sent just about an hour ago:

Hi Counselor,

I only got this e-mail this morning.  Several things:

1. Wife’s mood was significantly – very much -- better the next day and over the weekend, partly because she may have found a place to live when she moves out of the house.

2. It’s also better when she doesn’t drink (and the boys have more and more urged her not to drink).

3. Son 1 is now back at school: we drove him to Hogwarts over the weekend, so he will now be occupied with school activities and not in the middle of it all.  He has a cell phone, which means she can still text him (and sometimes she does, sending him long screeds of panic).  But as far as day-to-day supervision or intervention goes, he is out of the picture.  He can still be splashed, but he can’t be called on to do much about it.

4. The downside of Son 1’s departure is that more will fall on Son 2. In the normal course of things that ought to mean just “More of the work of packing the house.”  But of course if she takes a downturn it could also mean “More caretaking.”

5. Traditionally Son 2 has taken on a significant amount of parenting Wife, starting as early as when he was three.  From time to time I have tried to suggest that she’s the grown-up and he’s the kid, so really he’s not responsible for her.  But he has spent a lot of years acting as if he felt responsible for her emotional well-being.  It may take the advice of someone besides his dad (i.e., a counselor) … and on a regular basis (not just once in a while) … before he really accepts that it’s not his job.  Or maybe I’m wrong and worrying too much.  I don’t know.  I guess someone who understands this stuff should evaluate him …?

6. For what it is worth, Son 1 several times urged me to take the next two weeks off work completely to help with the house, “because otherwise Son 2 will have to do it all by himself.”  Ostensibly his words were all about packing, but I wonder if he had in mind the emotional burden as much as (or more than) the physical burden?

7. Our custody schedule has Son 2 with me for two weeks now, starting last night and continuing until Friday night August 30.  However, while that addresses where he has dinner and breakfast and where he sleeps, I have not been able to articulate a plausible reason for forbidding him to help pack the house: so this morning, for example, I gave him bus fare and a map of the busses to take to get from my apartment to the house.  I plan to pick him up in the afternoon after work.  And unless something changes, other days are likely to be the same.  This puts him back there for most of the hours of the day.

8. I totally agree with you that the boys should not be in a situation where they feel responsible for her safety.  I’m not sure how to make that happen.

9. Son 2 goes back to school on Sunday, September 8: two days before escrow closes.  So one way or another, he would normally in the middle of things until the end unless some kind of deus ex machina removes him.

10. On the other hand, once he is gone he doesn’t have a cell phone (and his school forbids them).  So his only window into the home situation becomes his traditional once-a-week phone call home.  And if it were important or advisable, perhaps that could be cancelled or cut back.  It would need someone besides me to say so, though.  I could not appear to be disinterested, obviously.

11. The boys haven’t been acting traumatized, so far as I can tell what that looks like.  Maybe I can’t tell.  We can talk more about this if it is relevant.

12. My cell number is xxx-xxxx.