When something catastrophic happens there’s an urge to tell someone - or everyone. You might want to think maybe it’s due to growing up with social media where personal stories are made into clickbait for your friends, to gain attention you otherwise lack. I rather say others make pain tolerable.
“When tragedy strikes, one of the things that make life bearable for people is the sympathy of friends and relatives.. Those closest to the person afflicted offer help, extend their sympathy, and generally provide important solace and support in the person’s time of need. ‘Sympathy is a supporting atmosphere, and in it we unfold easily and well.’”
On Sunday I pressed ‘send’ at 8:16pm for an Order of Protective Custody. I sat in a car down the street and waited for cop cars. For almost 2 hours my heart raced and my head spun. Guilt. Sadness. Anger. Resentment. Fear. Doubt. Heartbreak. Loneliness. I felt my heart beat in my throat when we drove into the driveway behind the cop cars circling the house. I ran after the police, who’s hands were on their hip gripping their weapon. They offered me to lead the charge and I considered it, staring up the four steps to the backdoor that protected my mother and brother from the outside world. I backed up and retreated. I was not meant to be there. Truthfully, my brother had been inside waiting for my arrival all day. I was supposed to be stopping by hours prior. My tardiness was just another suspicious, except this one stood on solid ground. I couldn’t face him and stood against the shed, my whole body shaking. This was an ambush.
“The paucity of those with schizophrenia make it that much more of a disaster. Being afflicted with the disease is bad enough by itself. Those of us who have not had this disease should ask ourselves, for example, how we would feel if our brain began playing tricks on us, if unseen voices shouted at us, if we lost the capacity to feel emotions, and if we lost the ability to reason logically. As one indivual with schizophrenia noted “my greatest fear is this brain of mine... The worst thing imaginable is to be terrified of one’s own mind, the very matter that controls all that we are and all that we do and feel.” This would certainly be burden enough for any human being to have to bear.”
I panicked and my wife held me, but I waited to hear a loud bang, yelling or screaming, something that would indicate I would be left hated by my best friend. There was nothing. The silence was maddening. It took less than 5 minutes but it felt like hours. My brother exited the home with two cops behind him. “He’s okay, he’s not in handcuffs,” she assured me, her voice vibrating. I closed my eyes, breathed, and felt a chunk of my heart ripping at the seams. My mother followed out the door and I rushed behind her just in time to witness, behind the blaring lights of the cop car, my brother being taken into custody. They cuffed him at the car, for safety, but he had gone quietly and willingly. I gasped for air but felt like I was still choking. My mother turned and ran into the house for her car keys and I hurried down the driveway as the cops pulled out onto the road. I felt Laura’s hands on my arms pulling me towards her but I continued down the driveway after him. Could he see me? Did he know I was there? I held my hand up towards the flashing lights and sobbed.
I write this like it’s a short story because I don’t think I could explain what I (my family) have been through in the last year in any other way. I spent the last couple months working up to this very moment. I coordinated between my parents, pushed for action, and in the end made the call myself to have him picked up. I did that. I’m responsible. I hugged my mom in the back of my dad’s car and I begged for her to forgive me.
My brother was admitted to a psychiatric ward the next morning. He will be okay. He will get help. I will see my brother again, but I have never missed him so much in my life. My mother told me, when the police entered, he stared right at them and took a deep breath before saying “it’s been a long year.”
It’s been a long year.
