May 25, 2011

My last entry I painted the picture of what life was like before I looked to him as someone with schizoaffective disorder.  I'm not sure if I feel like going through the entire downfall the past year.  But long story short it was filled with outbursts, exaggerated stories, bizarre dress, behavior and obsessions, delusional relationships, frivolous spending, disconnected communication and more.

At the end of May 2011, my brother had some sort of an outburst to his professor/at school.  The details remain uncertain to me.  However it was enough to have campus security called on him which lead him to being held against his will at the mental health unit of a local hospital.  He called me to tell me he was in the hospital.  He didn't tell me why he was there or what he was there for.  I was at work, thousands of miles away and paniced.  I frantically called the local hospitals until I found him.  We went into a screaming match, he was filled with so much anger and hostility.  I was moments away from having an anxiety attack.  I was yelling at him, unclear of what was going on.  I called my dad and burst into tears.  The kind of tears where you can barely catch your breath.  All right outside of my office.  The embarressment was beyond me at this point.  I felt scared and helpless.  For lack of a better phrase, shit had hit the fan. 

After informing my dad of what I had just learned we had to piece as much together as we could on our own.  I called back up to the hospital to find out as much as I could and I was told that very little could be relayed to my family or I without my brother's written consent.  I then told my dad this and encouraged him to go see him.  Apparently that night in Michigan there was a severe rainstorm that was flooding the streets.  My dad told me that he would try to see my brother tomorrow.  Upon hearing this I was almost hurt.  Your son, my brother, is in a hospital for losing his mind and you cannot see him right now?!  I calmed down slightly and tried to appreciate how driving to the hospital at that late hour through the storm was almost counter productive. 

My mom was on her way home after what was already a rough day for her at work.  It was Dad's job to tell her when she got home where their son was.  I sat at my apartment, feeling terrified.  Terrified for them, for him... and the overall anxiety of uncertainty. 

Calm Before the Storm

I'm not sure where to start, with this story or my feelings.  Jim is 2 years older than me and I looked up to him pretty much throughout our entire childhood.  I wanted to do everything he did when we were little, I wanted to build legos with him, I wanted to play instruments like he did, I wanted to understand math the way he could.  As we got into middle school and eventually high school, it was slowly becomming apparent that he was slightly more of a social outsider than I was.  Coming from the same household, I didn't always understand this, and just thought he was not as socially inclined as I.  He went on to college and this was the beginning of a downfall.  One that I thought was over, but looking back, it appears it has just begun. 

My brother was on his college swim team, but it didn't take long for his life to begin to fall apart.  Jim began experimenting with hallucinigins, and very heavily.  It was years later he informed me he was tripping on mushrooms on a regular basis, and I know there was use of acid mixed in there as well.  Jim was fascinated with alternate realities, I even recall a picture of Louis Wain's progessively delusional illustrations of cats tacked on his cork board.  He dropped out of college his sophomore year and was working a near minimum wage job at a hookah bar.  This devasted my parents, as anyone always wants the best for their family.  To me at this time, I blamed it all on his irrisponsible plunge into abusing drugs.  The Jim I grew up knewing was too intelligent to not be able to pass his classes. 

I am not sure what influenced my brother at this point, but after some time of the drop-out minimum-wage lifestyle, he decided to join the Marines.  This was probably in about 2004 or so, when trouble in Afghanastan was still heavily on everyones mind.  Making it through boot camp and whatever kind of schooling they do, my brother graduated at the top of his class, allowing him to pick the location of his assignment.  Jim picked Fuji, Japan, where he would be a Legal Specialist.  Things were looking bright from our family's perspective, Jim would be safe, and his life was getting back in order.  He was overseas for about 2 years, and finished the remaining 2 years with the Marines in the deep south of Georgia, where I heard interracial dating is frowned upon.

The recession was just beginning to take a nose dive at the end of 2008, when I made my decision to move from Michigan (where I grew up) to Arizona, for a change of scenary.  The first time I saw my brother out of the Marines was Memorial weekend of 2009.  He looked great, and we spent our holiday weekend at the Detroit Techno festival.  At this point I trusted my brother was making the right decisions.  He was eager to return to school and pick his life back up from where he left off.  This weekend is sadly one of the last memories I have being around my brother and trusting his judgement and sanity.  I returned home for Christmas in 2009 as well.  This too is one of my last fond memories.  I recall bringing him around my friends, in normal Jim fashion he was mostly quiet, but didn't seem to mind being my sidekick as I caught up with everyone.  2009 was a rough year finanically for myself and many others, however considering where Jim is now, I wish I could go back in time and bring back the brother back that I shared those memories with. 

Without Laces

It is here I will document the rollercoaster of coping with my brother's mental disorder, schizo-affective disorder.  He is 28 and was diagnosed this month.  Jim is my only brother and this has obviously had a huge effect on our family the past month.