On New Year’s Eve, we rang in 2020 with smiles, laughter, Chinese food, and games. The next day, I attended a memorial for my nephew. Both were celebrations of life – a celebration embracing the good moments and bidding good riddance for the bad and a life cut short, but to be honored.
How sad that there has to be a “National Suicide Month.” I understand it is to bring awareness to the (lack of) mental health situation in both society and the medical world. My primary intention here is to present a positive picture of a caring, vibrant and brilliant young man suffering from paranoid audible schizophrenia.
It happens a few times a year, this feeling of not wanting to take a shower. Not wanting to leave the house. I just want to plant myself on the couch, watch TV, and be alone. Always the holidays, again late in winter and then the summer. Being sad when you know you should be happy.
This past Tuesday night at 12 pm, the phone rang. I heard it but it took me a minute to register. The phone number on the TV said my Isabella. I grabbed my cell phone thinking somebody got in a car accident or somebody got arrested. On my cell phone, it said I missed a call from my brother, Christopher. There was also a text from him saying to call him.
Three of my kids have had to deal with learning disabilities and/or psychiatric disorders; Joey has Down Syndrome, my son Artie, has ADD with a reading disability and my Isabella was diagnosed with ADHD. I refused to put either one on any medication because I never believed that was the answer. Addiction is hereditary and runs in the family, so I always stayed away from anything that could be addicting.