HE WAS REALLY GONE

As I mentioned we were returning from the wedding of our neighbor, Katie who was married earlier in the day at church a couple miles from our house. Her reception was downtown later that evening. 

We had gone to Katie’s ceremony and right before we went into the church I had broken down sobbing uncontrollably. Then Melissa called me and said that she had learned that Anthony, a good friend of Andrew’s, had gone to the beach and she was sure Andrew had gone with him. I was instantly flooded with relief and chided myself for jumping to the conclusion that Andrew was really gone from us. 

I got through the ceremony, but when I got back outside there was a message from Melissa. I called her back to learn that she had talked to Anthony and all of Andrew’s other friends. He was not at the beach and no one had seen him. My body sagged even as John was trying to reassure me. I was trying to allow for the possibility that I was once again over reacting, but I was feeling certain that he was really gone. There would be no relief this time.

THE RAILROAD CROSSING AT NIGHT

The Railroad Crossing at Night

Let me pause here to tell you about last night. We were driving home from the movies around 9:30 PM. John and I had been to see the British comedy, The Trip. It was mildly entertaining, but 30-40 minutes too long. 

Anyway, we were driving down the road that leads to the railroad crossing that is steps from our house. The crossing was lit up as if it was daytime and my heart left my body. 

I was completely transported. The scene took me back to the night Andrew was found. Lou and Rich, Marnie and Corbin and John and I had been to Katie’s, our long time next-door neighbor’s, wedding reception. Andrew had been missing since Friday evening and this was Saturday night. We left the wedding early because I was in such a state of dread that I could not function. 

UNBEARABLE ANXIETY

The years that followed were for John, Andrew and me, full of almost unbearable anxiety that would be present until Andrew died. I was constantly waiting for the next call. He was so sick and suffered so much. 

This led to an almost constant effort at self-medication on top of struggling with us about whether or not to take his prescribed medicines. He complained of side effects, but as I mentioned before, what really seemed to upset him was the whole idea of being sick and needing to take medication.

It was very hard for me to leave Andrew with the sole discretion about whether he took his meds or not. John felt that Andrew needed to take responsibility for his illness. I agreed but could not bear the after effects of him either not taking his meds and/or self-medicating

GETTING RID OF THE TV

Nothing made Andrew angrier that when I would say something like, “Well the voices seem real but they are actually part of your disease”. He would look at me with such frustration and say, “Mom, you just don’t get it.” 

Always looking for answers, I asked Andrew if he could voluntarily limit his television viewing. My thinking was that this would help him manage his delusions. John and I were unable to monitor him during the day when we were not home. 

He said, “Mom, I don’t think I can” I asked him if he thought we should get rid of the TV and he said it “might be better, at least for the time being” In the end, we got rid of our TV, until Andrew moved in with Melissa in 2008.

NEVER FREE OF THE VOICES

Andrew found great peace in watching the television (he scheduled his suicide for the night following the last Jay Leno Show) but it seemed to exacerbate his delusions. When Andrew was feeling his worst watching television became a replacement for going out and living his life. 

We eventually got rid of our television. When Andrew first told us about his delusions, he was embarrassed to admit it but also adamant that they were real. Even when he was relatively symptom free, he was never without the voices

BIPOLAR VS. SCHIZOPHRENIA

As would later be confirmed only a couple of years before his death, Andrew was not bipolar but schizophrenic. The difference between bipolar with a schizoid affect and schizophrenia is that the former is episodic and the latter is chronic.  In other words, Andrew’s delusions, his voices, were always with him. 

They were also, always laced with reality. They included family members, neighbors and his bosses who were constantly demeaning him in the most brutal of verbal tirades. Often he experienced the television characters as reaching out to him. The television characters, Jay Leno and Brittany Spears were very positive delusion inviting Andrew to come and join them on their shows