I don't even really want to write this, but enough kind souls have taken the time to check up on me here, so I can at least oblige with a synopsis of this past hellish week:
Wednesday morning: My mother attempts to kill herself. OD on Klonopin. Says she's tired of living (she's 69 years old). Was hospitalized, currently in the psych ward on suicide watch.
Wednesday night: My fiancee and I catch the red-eye to SK, even though by that point there was nothing we could do and no reason for us to be there. Something just told me I had to go.
Thursday: We visit my mother in critical care. Mom is still pretty out of it. She calls me Jessie and asks if I'm a nurse. My aunt, who as a child was my favourite aunt, is also there. She gives me the stink eye for about ten minutes before pulling me aside and, in front of everyone at the nurses' station, tells me it is my fault that this happened and that I had officially ruined my life. Said life ruining and nervous breakdown making things are apparently years' worth of my bad decisions. I break down, fall to my knees, try to cry but the tears refuse to leave my throat. She tells me to pipe down and be an adult for once. Kendra walks me to the car, goes back inside and proceeds to tell my aunt off royally. I chain smoke, scream and rage, pound the dashboard, the seats, my temples. Still can't fucking cry.
Thursday night: No sleep. Came very close to hurling my laptop out a fourth floor window just for the hell of it. Locked myself in the john for an hour and sat in the cruddy shower, just for the hell of it. Still no tears, no feelings of any kind.
Friday: Kendra is ready to go home. I am ready to hurl myself out that damned fourth floor window. We spend the day in bed. The tears are still being stubborn little assholes. Still no sleep.
Saturday morning: Kendra manages to get us an early return flight. Spend four hours in the airport. Learn a hard lesson about eating food from a place that serves both hot dogs and sushi.
Saturday evening: Back home. Complain about having nothing to write about. STILL NO SLEEP.
Sunday Morning: Currently writing this daylog. Finally crying, for the first time since this nightmare began. And finally ready to sleep.
I know now why this had to happen, as terrible as that sounds. It is my Final Test. All the things my aunt said, uncouth as they may have been, had to be said. I can no longer sit around and let life happen to me; I have to make it happen for me. And, among everything else I've had to relearn after getting clean and sober, I have to learn to feel again. I think I'm getting there.
UPDATE 15:30 MARCH 26: Mom was released from hospital. Says she learned her lesson, though this was probably largely due to my confession (finally) about my own struggles with substance abuse. I always said if I could save even just one person from that hell, it would all be worth it in the end.