"He Used to be Somebody's Baby"

Family can bring us the greatest joy, the deepest sorrows, relief from burdens and stress almost beyond bearing. The hardest thing in life is to watch a loved one dealing with the consequences of poor choices and knowing that there is no longer anything any family member or friend can do to help. Waiting for the phone to ring to hear that your prayers for their incarceration have been answered is a torture. It sounds cruel but at least there is a measure of relief in knowing that someone you love is not roaming the streets as a homeless individual, eating out of dumpsters, and putting themselves and others in danger.

Watching that loved one slowly deteriorate over time from a mental illness exacerbated by substance abuse is slow torture for those who no longer have the means or ability to provide assistance for someone they love. We live in fear of the unknown and breathe sighs of relief when we are told the police have intervened. We scream in frustration when facilities and mental healthcare professionals allow the doors to open, knowing that our loved one has been legally declared mentally incompetent and not capable of caring for themselves. We rage at the system and wait with baited breath to hear of death or jail.

We grieve at the loss of mental acuity and pray for others to show compassion when they do or say things that frighten others because we love them and know their history. We also feel anger over the choices to shoot heroin with dirty needles, drop LSD, surround themselves with friends who were never the embodiment of what a friend should be.

We feel guilt over our inability to do more and struggle to come to terms with the fact that we cannot assist someone who has no desire to follow medical advice or take the medications that could alleviate some of the mental confusion. We feel guilt for blaming the ill individual for making poor choices that have destroyed their life and negatively impacted ours in diverse ways over decades. We fight for years in courts desperately trying to make sense of a legal system that declares an adult incapable of making their own decisions and a healthcare system that allows the mentally incompetent the right to refuse treatment.

It is exhausting and terrifying. We have spent the last two weeks in a frenzy trying to find a facility that would accept our loved one as a resident, only to have the loved one walk out the front door to roam the streets without food, money, or shelter. We turn the ringers off on phones to sleep at night because the manic calls and death threats are too much to bear. And the police can do nothing to help before a crime has been committed. Someone has to be hurt, a home broken into, et cetera for the police to become involved in the protection of those who are only guilty of desperately trying to find a medical facility that will allow their loved one to live in a safe environment and provide some semblance of quality in their shattered life.

I have been unable to sleep for the past 24 hours as I worry about the safety of myself and now another loved one because of phone calls threatening her life. She refused to live in fear of what if and chose to act as if it was just another night, secure in her plan to call the police if and when our loved one arrives to do only God knows what. Ten days ago it was legally taken out of our hands and we were given some measure of relief knowing our loved one was put under state guardianship and that when the police are inevitably called in to intervene once again, the social workers and attorneys will take care of a dangerous situation we can no longer handle.

I sit in vigil awaiting a phone call and pray no domestic violence has occurred; Pat Benatar's voice echoes in my mind,

"He used to be somebody's baby..."