The Not Knowing

November 17, 2013

Do all mothers worry when they haven't heard from their adult kids in a while? Do they jump each time the phone rings? Do their imaginations run wild with the possibilities for not receiving a call?

Or is it just me?

It's been a week and I haven't heard a word from my incarcerated, twenty-one year old son. This is very unusual--we speak almost everyday-- so I am quite worried. After checking in with his dad, I've discovered he hasn't heard from him either. This has me doubly worried. Why no call?

My son was scheduled to have his wisdom teeth removed--all four--sometime this week. We didn't want him to do it behind bars fearing the quality of the health care would be subpar, but his pain had become unbearable and the prison dentist insisted on taking immediate action... but he wasn't told exactly what day it would happen--only that it would happen this week sometime.

What they did tell him was he would not receive the anesthetic typically used in this kind of oral surgery. He was terrified and so were we.

Now, today marks one week since we've heard from him. We've called the prison and received no assistance.

So not only am I worried about my son's well-being behind bars (like I am every day), now I'm worried that his oral surgery has gone wrong and he's suffering terribly. I can't get this vision out of my head that he's writhing in pain and no one is there to comfort him. Though he's twenty-one years old, he's still my baby.

When he was younger and skinned his knees, I cried when I cleaned his wound. After he tore his ACL in a high school basketball game, I actually passed out in the ER as they examined his injury. I feel it when my sons are hurt. Isn't that part of being a mother?

This time, though, I don't even know if he is hurt. I don't know if he's had the surgery, and I don't know if he's recovering well.

This time I don't know anything at all. So for now...I just wait.

The Wait Is Almost Over and Yet Has Only Just Begun

Oct. 7, 2013

Through blurry eyes streaming with tears I type this today. Gasping for breath, nearly vomiting with nausea, I struggle to manage my fingers on the keyboard to spell out my thoughts. Maybe I should have waited to post something once I calmed down? No. I need to share this now. While the pain is still fresh, ripping me open. I need to document this agony.

Waiting. That's all we've been doing for months. Waiting for news about my son's potential sentence. Well, the news has finally arrived.

All we've wanted to know for 7 months is what time will he actually have to serve for his crime? This first offender with a history of mental illness. This man-child who has been nothing but cooperative from the start, confessing to everything and asking for help with his substance abuse and bipolar disorder. This boy. My boy. What kind of time will he be away from society unable to make positive contributions of his talents to the world outside cement walls?

I yearn for the feeling I had yesterday of not knowing. That hope of hearing, "Time Served" or something equally as positive. That feeling of hope that maybe they'll see the boy I know and realize that he doesn't belong there.

But instead, when his attorney calls today to tell me what is likely on the table at this point, I hear "3 years." There were more legal details discussed explaining that they have to go before the judge who ultimately hands down the final sentence, but all I remember were those words: 3 years. He entered prison almost 21 years old. He will be nearly 24 before he is out. A third of his twenties will be gone.

I'm trying to wrap my head around this news, trying so hard to find the good here. It could have been much worse and I realize that. His attorney did a wonderful job and got some other charges dropped or brought down to lesser charges.  My brain sees that. It's my heart that is so very broken.

So the wait is just about over and a new wait will begin.

The Tipped Scale

August 22, 2013

Keeping things in balance is difficult. At times we have all felt like we're adjusting and readjusting the time and effort we're spending on certain aspects of our lives in an effort to keep things in check.

But Bipolar Disorder can hinder that ability to keep things in balance. In fact, those of us with some form of Bipolar may not even know what true "balance" feels like. For us, the scale is always tipped one way or the other.

As the disorder suggests, there are two poles of me: depression and mania. As a BD2, I usually gravitate toward depression, but I have plenty of mini spells of hypomania too.  These fluctuations in mood not only alter my feelings, they alter the choices that I make. If I'm not careful, they can affect the people who are the most important to me. So how is it that even knowing such consequences exist, I still allow my scale to tip?

An example. Sometimes my energies are so devoted to composing my own music that I forget to eat. I don't want to go to sleep. And I can't concentrate to do necessary routine things like clean the house or pay the bills. My son, patient as he is, will eventually cry out, "Mom, could you PLEASE stop playing piano?" For this I am ashamed, yet I can't explain the magnetic force that draws me back to the keys the very next day.

Then sometimes my focus at home is completely dedicated to doing school work (I'm a teacher). While this may seem like valuable time well spent, when it conflicts with recreational time I could be spending with my 16 year old son, the cost of missing my son far outweighs the gains I make with my school work. I know this yet, mentally, I am unable to shift from school-mode to parent-mode sometimes. My relationship with my son may suffer on days like this. Again, I am ashamed to admit this.

Here is a list of things that ebb and flow on my life scale: working on my novel (I've got 53 pages but just can't get to #54), running with some sort of routine (I had a half-marathon in sight months ago...missed that one), eating healthfully (which involves shopping the same way), playing word games on my ipad (I could spend an entire day doing this), becoming a better cook (a goal of mine), completing the house projects that have loomed overhead for years, and writing on my blog (ahem, here I am).  And the list goes on.

So mentally, I know when my focus is adrift, I feel it, I hear my son say it, I see the consequences of it, yet somehow, I am unable to change the course. There are times, many times, that my life is out of balance and I yearn for that stability. But for now, I suppose, I am just a tipped scale.