Deciding to go

It was January. I began to realize that I was feeling very bad. This was unusual. I hadnt felt this bad in several years. Not since I finally was able to control my mood swings with the help of good therapy and good medication. Why did I feel like I was loosing control for the first time in a very long time? 

It was Dan, my alcoholic son. He was in a car accident in November. He was at fault. But he wasnt drinking. We went to his side in the hospital. His injuries could have been so much worse. But the car he was driving, worked as it was designed to work, and saved him from serious injury.  As we have done so so so many times before, we took him into our home to recover from his injuries which included a concussion and several cracked ribs and a cracked sternum.

He was in need of a car. So we sold him my old Camry. And bought me a new one. This made the 6th car we had helped him get. He always paid us for the cars. 

After a week he went back to his condo, and we went back to our lives. I was busy with my therapy dog group, my weight loss program and my exercise plan. I felt happy and busy. But there was the nagging concern about Mike. I could see that his liver was again failing as his stomach was enlarged from acites, a major symptom of alcoholic liver failure. 

Christmas came and went. Dan did not participate as usual. We had a happy family time in Northern California with my extended family. It included Mom's 90th Birthday party, a highlight of the festivities.

January came. And with it, came increasingly unsettling communication from Dan. He was still recovering from the accident. He stopped by one day to tell us he was going to the desert, and not to call out the search teams if he didnt come back. He showed us on a map where he planned to hike alone. He describe the survival provisions he was bringing with him. 

A few days later he called to say he hadnt gone into the wilderness yet. And had been car camping in the desert.

He called several times and each time his calls were longer and more rambling and more troubling. At one point he told us he had pointed a gun at someone who was quite a distance away because he wanted to see them better through the sites. 

This was extremely troubling to me in light of the fact that a young man had shot several people in cold blood in Arizona. I decided  to talk to my therapist about this. I hadnt felt a need to see my therapist in two years. When my therapist heard this, he told me to call the sheriff in the desert and so I did.

A couple of days later, Dan called me and berated me for calling the sheriff. I explained why I did it. 

I felt extremely troubled by all of this. My therapist told me that Dan's behavior was abusive.  I realized that I didnt want to be there in Southern California and be abused by my son. I wanted to go to Northern California where my family was.