Not Quite Mr. Buckley

Savant is going through a rough patch. Which means I'm distressed at my helplessness to fix it and make it better. We have been grateful for small signs that he may be becoming more mature. He's only 21, but his plate is pretty full and keeps shape-shifting. Lately, the symptoms of his illness have been stronger than his medicine.

When he is in this place he is so anxious and miserable. You never know what becomes part of a delusion. Something as simple as my earrings can feed into the delusions. I don't mind letting him inspect my ears for wires or devices that he thinks may be recording him as part of a conspiracy. I took them off so that he could stop worrying about it.

He had his job, earlier this summer, digging up skeletons, for four days. I was amazed that he went back after the first day. No coffins, just skeletons. He is afraid of a ghost that followed him home; a very white little girl dressed in white. There might be more, but he doesn't want to talk about it, he just wants to know how to make it go away. I told him he could try telling her to go toward the light that she had family waiting for her there. I saw that on TV. I don't believe in ghosts. He was worried that if her family frightened her, that it would make her more determined to stay with him. I suggested changing the wording to, you have loved ones waiting for you on the other side. I'm afraid he'll need to go back to the hospital if this gets worse; not that that would be a bad thing. Savant, my loved one, I wish I had the power to grant you peace.

A cherry in the yard. I had put my Sonic cherry limeade cup in the trash can outside without inspecting it for more cherries. A rain storm blew the trash can over and in the process, it's collection of cigarette butts, trash, Sonic cup, lime wedge and cherry ended up on the grass nearby. When Savant went out for a smoke, the sight of the cherry freaked him out. He saw it as a calling card, a la Kill Bill, from "Black Cherry". He is sure his life is in danger and is worried that we might become accidental targets as well. Black Cherry is the blog identity of someone he knows, but she is gentle and would never think of harming anyone. But, she is an expert at martial arts and dancing. This is further complicated by his reasoning that an expert assassin is the last person you would suspect.

His idiot doctor reduced his daily dose of one of his medicines a few months ago, just for the hell of it. Well... IT'S NOT WORKING! She won't give him anything for his anxiety either!

I know she won't talk to me, but I'm going to give her voice mail a piece of my mind! Husband is trying to teach me to keep my anger in check when leaving any messages or Dr Dumbshit might take it out on Savant. I know he's right.

Vicious Poodles

Fancy Dirt Definition For The Day

Vicious Poodle: a person who reminds you of one of those pampered little lap pets, that looks harmless and affectionate on it's owner's lap, but if you reach out to pet it, it will fly into a rage and try to chew your fingers off.

Look, Ma, I Have All My Fingers!

I like to look at the picture of my sister and me, that I have on my blog profile. So, I know that the most frequent visitor to my blog is me. One day after I put it up I realized that the fingers on my left hand were still intact back then. Hello, Finger Tips. Miss you. Then I thought about the quizzical little bit of a frown on my face. It has changed into a deep furrow as I've aged, so I must do that a lot. My sister is still very cute; in a slightly Sally Field sort of way. I thought I was the only one who had felt that comparison was a good one, but one of my kids said the same thing after they got the movie "Mrs. Doubtfire".

I haven't felt much like blogging this week. I'm sick and before that, I was doing too much yard work in the hot sun. This time it was me in the E.R. Usually I'm in the waiting room and Savant is the one in the bed. So until I feel better, I'll just sleep and read. I'm almost through with "Kim" by Rudyard Kipling. I finished "Night" by Elie Wiesel and the first five books in the Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card and I really liked them. Proust (Swann's Way) got shoved in a drawer, unfinished. It's too bad babies can't read or it would be prescribed to put them to sleep. A few days ago Savant said "I wonder how Proust would describe a White Castle hamburger?" I said, I don't know, but it would probably take him about fourteen pages.

Madman In An Italian Train Station

I was just trying to read a book, but I became distracted from the story. I remembered something that happened when my daughter and I were in Italy last year, and I began to weep. Unfortunately I suffered from an unending migraine headache and nausea for most of our trip so I was pretty fragile. I didn't know that I could have just gone to an Italian hospital for help. Silly American.

We were in the lobby of a train station that had lots of people buying tickets, sitting, waiting, rushing around and there was an old, unkempt, obviously mentally ill man, standing in the center of this place. He was waving his arms and franticly talking non-stop in Italian, a language I don't know. He was hoarse, and had obviously been there for a long time, maybe he did this every day. No one was looking at him. They were ignoring him, tolerating him, annoyed by him... What I saw was my son.

I moved to within a few feet of him and did not take my eyes off of him. Schizophrenics frequently do not want to be touched, but they do want to feel that they have been heard. My daughter, I think, felt I was being rude to stare at him, and was a bit embarrassed by what I was doing. As I listened to him, tears began to roll down my face. To me he was a lost child. He did not look at my eyes, but began to slowly turn around toward me, and direct his speech to me.

A young man had seen the two of us and he joined me in directing his full attention to listening to the old man. The old man would look into the face of the young man next to me, and I could feel the pace of his speech slow a bit. The young man was shaking his head, yes, yes. I could feel the old man become a little more calm, and he reached out and took the hand of the young man. I still had tears streaming down my face, and took a step toward them and clasped their hands, so that all three of us were touching. I may have startled the old man by touching him. But he nodded his head in farewell and left slowly down a hallway; still talking, but slowly, more softly, as he went out of view.

I know there are street people who try weird stuff to get money from tourists, but this was no act. I was crying and overwhelmed with sadness for those among us that must bear burdens they don't deserve, and that they are sometimes made invisible by the way we ignore them, because of our fear. Sometimes the fear is from not knowing whether our reaction will be considered rude, and not wanting to hurt them even more. My rule of thumb is that an expression of caring is probably always OK.

I'm sure it was upsetting for my daughter to watch, and when she was trying to get me to leave him, I could hear her worried voice saying, "Mom?". All I could say was, "That is my son."

POST SCRIPT:
I need to make a clear distinction between the behavior, and mental normalness, of medicated versus non-medicated mentally ill people.

Idiot Like A Savant usually functions well when he has not forgotten to take his medication. The man in the train station was obviously unmedicated for a very long time.

The listening to him, in my story was not meant to be rude gawking. It was a silent 'you are not alone' that I hoped might calm him. Focusing on him, to let him know the message he was transmitting was important to at least one other person. His message was so important to him, that he was shouting it to all who could hear.

He didn't know I couldn't understand a word he said. You, sometimes, can't understand a word of what an English speaking, non-medicated, mentally ill person is trying to tell you either. So the words become moot in any language. Reasoning with someone who has been unmedicated for a long time is useless. They are in a very different mental and physical landscape. What looks like 'crazy' to us, is really their valiant struggle to live in that landscape.

Didn't You Want to Be Indiana Jones Too?

Savant got a summer job. Working for an archaeologist. Some of the friends he met at school are working there, and got him to call for a job there. And by wonderful chance the office is only a mile or two from our house. So he gets to spend the summer with his friends! They meet at the office in the morning and are driven to the dig site.

I'm reminded of the children's story where you tell part of it and ask the kids, "Isn't that bad?" and of course it is, but then you hear the next part of the story, and it turns out that if this bad thing hadn't happened, the good thing that came next would have never happened, and the story goes back and forth that way many times. No summer classes turned out to be a good thing!

I want to get on the crew when they go back to school! I had Indiana Jones (Mary Leakey) dreams too.

P.S. See "Not Quite Mr. Buckley" for the truth about this "archiological dig".

Savant Is Coming Home

Savant had planned to stay at school, and take classes, but because of a few SNAFUs and persistent mental illness, he found himself without housing for this summer. He just assumed he could stay in his on-campus apartment. He got an apartment, instead of a dorm room, because, though he had only completed two semesters of college, he had enough credits to make him a Junior; and upper-class men get perks. As of yesterday he completed two more classes.

He was fairly delusional earlier in the semester, he had to drop all but two classes, to survive. He had to repay his loans and grants, because they are only for students who are taking a full load of classes. His psychiatrist, Vocational Rehab, the Disabled Students Office, etc., may have been able to intervene, but I don't know if that would have helped him keep any of the funding in place for just two classes.

Last week, I tried to get specific answers from him about whether he had made arrangements with the housing office. Had he gotten the bill for it paid, etc.. He had not signed up for classes in the first summer session, but didn't think that mattered... It mattered.
He had not checked into it!
I called the housing office to see if I could rush over with a check, before the semester ended (yesterday was the date to be out of your on-campus housing). I was told that the on-campus apartments he lives in, were closing for demolition and remodeling!

*(Anyone who has read some of my old entries knows that, (Idiot Like a) Savant is schizophrenic, but on medication, many medications over the years, none of which have given him back normal sanity. Before he became ill, when he was in high school, he earned the highest SAT scores in the school (only missed 5 answers), and was also the only Merit Scholar. Was accepted to a private university in Massachusetts when he was 16, but even with the scholarship he was offered, we couldn't come up with the remaining tuition, etc. Picture the amount a small house costs. So he stayed in high school for his senior year and added to his cache of college credit courses. The story gets way too long here and you'll have to check past entries if you want to hear the rest of it.)

*I'm going to have to start using links to this, as an explanation for any reader who doesn't want to read the whole freaking blog archive, to figure out what I'm talking about. I always feel annoying, like Hyacinth Bucket, when she describes her sister Violet, as the one with a pool, a sauna, and room for a pony, in every episode.

The point is, this disease impairs your judgment even if you are on meds, and have an awesome I.Q. Add whiskey and pot and cough syrup for fun, and you become retarded in some areas of your brain. That is why I have begun to be less supportive when he has poisoned himself with that shit. The first 50 times it scares you to death. And nothing I have done or said has changed his behavior a bit. So, I'm going to try to be nice when it happens again, because I adore him, but I need to brush up on my non-enabler skills.

Anyway, summer school isn't going to happen this year. I'm really sorry things got so screwed up, because he has made some friends there, which is a huge benefit to his happiness. And he likes living on his own, even though he is "transportation impaired". His dad and I think it would be great if he could buy a condo near the school; but we are assuming that the payments would probably exceed his disability stipend. He gets so bored at our house, and I understand that. What 21 year old wants to be stuck in the country with Mom & Dad?

Welcome home Darlin'.

Enough With The Jars Already ! ! An Angel Jar

I'll get back to writing some other day. I just feel like putting up more pictures of another jar I haven't seen in a while.

I like angel's depictions in art. If I have a guardian angel, she has a sarcastic sense of humor and must really get a kick out of irony. They do make a pretty jar. After 30 years of collecting pictures, you end up with enough beautiful pictures to make a jar about almost anything. I know it sounds like a syndrome, like a crazy newspaper hoarder or something, but until recently, I always preferred the pictures to the words. Saved the ones I liked.


Putting pictures on something that sits in view, is like having my favorite book open to a picture I like. I look at the book case in my office and I am sane enough not to tear up all the books and paste the pictures to the wall, but don't think I don't want to! That is where bottles and jars come to the rescue! I don't know if I'm making Folk Art or tacky tchotchkes, but you'd be wise to call them fabulous to my face.

A Jar For Little Kids

I think my Mother-in-law gave this jar to our nephew's family. I didn't find a picture of the whole jar, all I have are these close-ups. Behind the glass, on the inside, are more pictures for little kids. So, if the cookies are gone, they still get a treat.






The last picture is of part of the lid. I wanted the pictures to be happy, and to reflect the time, not so long ago, before electronic toys made their way onto children's gift lists.

George Washington Jar

I love this portrait of George Washington painted by Raphael Peale. The Peales were an interesting early American family; all the kids were named after famous artists of the past, and they were a very talented bunch.

I put a mirror behind the jar to try to show what was on the other side without taking so many pictures, but they are too little to see anyway. The weird, long, "scratch" marks are just light reflections.


It is hard to see, but the green "We the People..." at the bottom ends with, "are sick and tired of getting the run around." And I liked the weed whacker, etc., in the spoof on G.W. Crossing the Delaware.


Below the picture of the puppy in the helmet, and the rare U.S. coin, is a copy of the telegram telling of President Kennedy's death. I wanted to make this jar a combination of the humorous and the serious.



There are many pictures that aren't easy to see here, including very small pictures of the World Trade Center in happier days, slave shackles, old coins and flags, the U.S.S. Constitution (the ship), former Presidents, eagles, bison, Native Americans...


This is the inside of the lid.


This is one of the jars I still have. This is the inside bottom of the jar.

Pro-Choice Means You Can Choose To Stay Pregnant

Everyone who is "pro-choice" does not believe in abortion. They believe that it is each person's private choice to decide how it goes.

Everyone has different circumstances to deal with. Sometimes a woman is too poor, or ill, or abandoned, or on the edge of mental collapse, to cope with another child. Not everyone in the world lives in a nice place, or has an income, or a husband, or any family to support her through a pregnancy or after. Perhaps she loves this child but feels she is backed into a corner and will not survive. The people who told her that "if she ever really needed help, they would be there for her" have backed away.
What they had really meant was, that if they ever saw her run past their house, while being chased by a man with a hatchet, they would call 911 or yell for help from the neighbors.

It is a heart breaking choice to make, and I don't think it is done lightly by very many people. Many times a girl has been victimized into becoming pregnant.

I knew a woman who had an abortion when she was young. She was a person who was pro-choice. But personally, for herself, she would never resort to an abortion. However, she lived in very bad circumstances, was victimized. She had never imagined being in this situation and felt she would not survive.

When it was done, she was not prepared for what the doctor did. It was a pregnancy that was only a couple of weeks along, probably not much past the blastocyst stage. After the contents of her uterus had been emptied into a jar, the doctor dumped the jar into a colander in the sink and dug through it with his hands. He then turned on the water, dumped out the colander, turned on the garbage disposal and began to rinse off his gloved hands. A situation that should have been solemn turned gruesome. Her mind shrieked but she was too frozen with shock, to make a noise with her mouth.

She suffered tearful, heart breaking anguish, and was crushed by the memory of it, for the rest of her life. She remained pro-choice though. Knowing that no one would have helped her. And knowing that other women feel they have no other choice, because they will not live through it, and no one will help them. Taking the choice away will result in deaths too: they will be young helpless women.