Dad spent 3 weeks in ICU. The last two weeks he was on a ventilator and we were waiting for him to wake up and breathe on his own. He is doing better now but is still in the hospital. Needless to say we are all really stressed out. I haven't had time to blog so I will make a list of things I wanted to blog:
Sister is the only one who is dealing with this and not avoiding it! Sister is the only one having a normal reaction to Dad being in the hospital!
I am amazed at how Sister is interacting with everyone at the hospital (including me) and handling this sad and frightening situation!
I have often thought that we have done the wrong thing in keeping Sister and I apart - that made the delusion more real. Seeing me on a daily basis has made her realize that I am not the voice she is hearing and that I have not done or said the things she hallucinates. We're making progress.
Sister spends her nights wandering around in the field listening to music on her phone and then cries hysterically all day - scary!
Sister is giving me murderous looks and hissing, "icky" when she walks by me.
Sister attacked me yesterday and beat me up. I should have called the cops. I just went to my room and locked the door. She needs to go back to Duluth!
That brings us up to date. This morning all I wanted to do was to get her the fuck out of here! Her presence does not benefit Dad and it's making her more psychotic. I would rather not be fistfucked or have my face burned off and we seem to be closer and closer to that happening. Mom's way of dealing with the tension between us is to attempt to keep us away from each other. She took Sister for a ride this morning. When they returned Sister was screaming, "Leave me the fuck alone! I want to die! I've had enough of this shit!" She didn't hurt Mom and wasn't yelling at Mom. She was having a psychotic episode and yelling at the voices. The voices have been too loud to drown out for the past week. This morning I witnessed Sister scream and beg the empty space on her right to "shut up and leave me alone! Please! Please!" Then she would sob and sob heart brokenly before turning to the right and viciously yelling at the emptiness to leave her alone, before desperately begging and then crying again. This went on for 20 minutes. I have not seen her actively talking to the voices for years! I'd forgotten how freaky and shattering that is to watch. It shattered me, I refuse to contemplate what it's doing to her. I was at the point where I didn't care what happened to her as long as I no longer had to deal with her. Now I'm back in the fight. In my mind Sister had become a crude, violent bully instead of someone who is suffering from a disease and worthy of compassion. I can look beyond my own fear and frustration and see hers. There has to be someone who can help her! She doesn't deserve to be tormented like this!
Indulge me for a moment and imagine that you hear the person you love most in the whole world - your husband, daughter, sister, besty - yelling angrily from the next room. You run to find out what is wrong and you see them violently arguing with... no one. But No One is louder than you, and insists it is more real than you, and is always there. You see how this is destroying the person you love most in the whole world. And you are terrified and helpless and miserable but not as terrified and helpless and miserable as they are. What can you do to save them? What should I do to save my sister?
