Made a big mistake

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Let me lay out a little background.
My nephew Jake who is schizoaffective lives with me and is basically my lifeline to the world outside of my work. We are both estranged from the rest of the family and for the most part that is fine with both of us since neither of us have had good experiences with them. Unfortunately Jake, like most with his illness, thinks that because he feels fine, he doesn't need his meds. Since we moved to the new apartment in August, he has developed severe paranoid delusions about being followed by people who want to hurt him. He started buying weapons to defend himself. Long story short, he bought a gun off the street and carried it with him everywhere. 2 weeks ago, he got stopped riding his bike home from work because it was dark and he had no lights. The officer decided to search him for some reason and found the gun. When the officer took it from him, he snapped and tried to get it back from the officer (in his mind, it was the only thing keeping them from attacking and killing him). After a brief struggle, he was tased and arrested. He repeatedly told the officer about his illness, but no mention was put in the report and it was not reported at his bond hearing. He was denied bond because of the seriousness of the assault and battery charge upon a police officer and no mitigating circumstances were presented. Right now, he faces a mandatory 3 years in state prison if we cannot get the charges dropped or prove insanity. I put together everything I could get my hands on and hired the best lawyer I could find. He seems pretty confident, but I am so scared for my nephew right now. They finally listened to him and put him in psych and started him back on an anti-psychotic (he really needs a mood stabilizer as well). After only two days, while he was still pretty sedated and just starting to realize just how much his illness has screwed up his life, they move him to maximum security with the most violent offenders in the county. Needless to say, as doped up and depressed as he was, he was attacked and unable to defend himself well the second day he was there and given a black eye. I immediately started writing letters to anyone and everyone I could think of, especially the crappy medical services company that ignored all good medical practice and procedures by not keeping him under careful observation while he is stabilizing on his meds and basically throwing a kid who has never been in trouble before into a shark tank. It's amazing what threats of a lawsuit can do, especially when they know they didn't follow procedure. He was moved back to psych the next day.

Now, I am not coping very well with the whole situation. I started drinking heavily at night just to get some sleep. My safe place is no longer a haven where I can cook dinner dinner for us, relax and discuss how our days went. My entire nighttime ritual is destroyed and my stress has been climbing daily. I find myself going on crying jags at some of the worst possible times at work. It all came to a head on Thanksgiving day when I went to visit Jake and was told I couldn't see him because he was on suicide watch. I completely lost it. I had a full on meltdown right there in the jail. The police response to a hysterical man screaming at the top of his lungs and pounding on a desk leaves something to be desired from my perspective. Every procedure they followed simply escalated a bad situation. Fortunately, an officer with whom I had interacted before and who was aware of my condition was passing through and helped defuse what could have been a real tragedy. They let me use a small office to get myself back under control. After I was rational again, I tried to logically explain how stupid their policy was. To deprive a deeply troubled young man of any contact with loved ones, especially on thanksgiving was simply unconscionable. Oddly enough, the officer agreed, but told me it was due to budgetary constraints. They simply couldn't afford to have an officer assigned solely to escort him to the visitor area and stay there watching him while the visit was going on. This nearly set me off again, but I managed to get out of there before I did anything else stupid.

Instead, I went home and did something even more stupid. I drank an entire fifth of vodka, but instead of passing out, I got the idea in my head that Jake would be better off without me. He is my beneficiary on the insurance and 401k account. I somehow convinced myself that with the money, he would be able to get out of his problems and live a normal life. It wasn't rational, but I wasn't in a rational frame of mind. I researched my medication, and found out it was surprisingly easy to overdose on a couple of them. Before I could chicken out, I took enough to basically drop my blood pressure to nothing. It would take about 5 hours or so according to what I read, so I settled down to die. After about 2 hours, I sobered up a bit and realized that what I was doing would devastate Jake. He relies on me as much as I rely on him. I would leave him with no one to care about him. I went to the hospital where they pumped me out, made me drink charcoal, and gave me medication to restore my heart rate and blood pressure. Of course I was involuntarily committed. The psychiatrist took one look at my list of meds and called my primary an idiot. For the last year he had me only on wellbutrin and anytime I complained that it didn't seem to be working, or that my anxiety was getting worse, he simply upped the dose. The psych took me off of it and got me on an anti-psychotic, anti-anxiety, and an ssri. Within 2 days, I stopped having crying jags and I felt hopeful for the first time in what seems like years.

After 4 days when I had stabilized, I was released. Within 10 minutes of me getting back my cellphone and turning it on, Jake called. He had been trying to call me for 4 days and was hysterical with worry. After I told him what I had done, he started crying and calling me all kinds of stupid to which I agreed. He told me that I can never do that to him again. He would be totally lost without me. I assured him that it wont happen again, that I will be there for him no matter what. Turns out that he was on suicide watch because they had finally started him on the proper meds (because of my emails) and it's standard procedure to closely watch them for the first 24 hours to make sure that the meds don't make things worse. So, the real reason I couldn't see him on thanksgiving was because I did my best to get him proper treatment. And it directly resulted in me getting proper treatment as well. I think this is pretty ironic.

Thanks for listening. And take any lesson you like from my experience.

_________________
ASD, ADHD-PI, PTSD , BI-Polar 2

Quetiapine 300mg Morning
Quetiapine 100mg Night
Depakote 1500mg Night
Sertaline 75mg 2xDaily
Bupropion 100mg 2xDaily
Gabapentin 600mg Morning
Gabapentin 300mg Night

Imagine my therapist's embarrassment when it turned out they really were after me.

I can only imagine what it must be like to deal with police in a situation like this; I'm glad I have no personal experience of such things. Maybe when your nephew finally extricates himself, he will remember to take his meds; it sounds as if this situation never would've happened had he done so.

There is a bright side: Be glad the weapon was confiscated before your nephew did something unspeakable with it. Had that happened, he would be permanently ensnared in the clutches of the justice system, not to mention both of you having to live with what he did. As things turned out, you will undoubtedly be reunited; had he used that weapon, he likely would never have walked free again.

Good luck.

Oh my goodness, I wish I had some wise words to say to you, but you've both been through a terrible, terrible ordeal. I hope that your young fella's condition is properly accounted for during the legal process and that the two of you can be reunited very soon and resume some semblance of normality.

Thinking of you ...

Thanks for sharing your story. I'm sure it wasn't an easy thing to do.

*imaginary hugs* I am glad that you are getting better treatment. I am also glad that your nephew is back on the meds he needs. I hope the court case goes well.