MJ is in ER by her choices

Maybe that sounds a little harsh, it's just meant to be accurate.

MJ tried to kill herself Wednesday night in a new way. She used all 230 pumps of her inhaler at once. Then regretted the decision and frantically tried to get help (via emails) because she didn't have a phone. Her heart rate sky-rocketed (140+), her body started shaking uncontrollably, and she began to devolve into a panic attack and couldn't breathe.

I know this because she started pumping at 9 (according to her), and we came home at 9:07 because I got her 'I feel suicide. Don't know why.' (Legit, that's all she sent) email and came straight home instead of stopping for dinner like I'd planned. Hubby was with me because he had a last minute tutoring session. This is kinda a recap of Hubby's blog, I think. Not sure.

Anyway, we get home, and I'm not taking it overly seriously because I never heard you could die from that inhaler. 'Course, it's never occured to me to take all the doses at once either, and I thought it was a placebo inhaler. But I pull her out of her panic attack (I must say, I'm getting ridiculously good at that), calm her down, and ask Hubby to see if we need to take any actions about her inhaler usage. He reports back that he needs to call poison control cause yeah, she could die.

I'm just kinda like '.....hubby say wut.....?' and feign calm, half disbelieving. He hands the phone over to me so I can describe her symptoms, and poison control dude is like, where's your nearest ER with a pediatric division? I'm pretty much in shock, like 'Uh, you tell me, cause I'm out of my element now.'

So he gets us checked into DUER, and I'm herding us all out of the door. I'd never unpacked anything, so just grabbed my purse, found clothes for MJ and started herding. As MJ and I walk out of the house, she quietly and sincerely apologizes. I just can't even process it fully then, but tell her not to worry about that right now. So we drive there (7 minutes, where I remind MJ to keep breathing, and quietly panic because I don't know what to do), go down the wrong road, I ask for directions, my voice breaks, I start quietly losing it, but have to stay steady for MJ, find the right place, and take her in.

She's still clinging to my blanket for comfort, legs shaking something awful, and we get hung up at the metal detector because somehow my nail clippers and measuring tape looks like a knife. Get sorted, checked in, and I'm just beginning to contemplate the vending machine food (remember, haven't eaten since 5) when they call her back. That's when I hit my 'Oh shit' level.

See, I think everyone knows the rule of the ER that says the more serious cases go back more quickly. Every minute we waited? Would have been a minute longer for me to calm down. Nope. Called back, MJ doesn't want to speak, so I have to, my voice is breaking, tears are leaking, Hubby is still dropping off the car, and I'm doing everything I can to keep MJ from seeing that I'm crying. Nurse man assures me it's not fatal, we just need to calm her heart rate, take some routine tests, no problem.

Door knocks, and he looks at me, just as startled. ''Are you expecting anyone?" I pause, feeling like a saviour has come. "My husband." so he tells me to open the door, and Hubby comes in and for a minute I feel so relieved, I just wanna drop into his arms and cry and let him answer the questions, but he sits down quickly and angrily and I realize: Oh. MJ could see if I cry, and he's not in a fit state to handle this either. Fuck.

So I move behind both of them to discreetly (not discreet enough) wipe my eyes and continue to plow forward. MJ's eyes follow me, and she asks if I'm crying, and I blather some bullshit that I don't remember. We get checked into a room, and then wait. An hour or so later, they assure us she's going to be fine, but needs an injection of K, two hours later, psych eval lady comes in and talks to MJ alone for a long time.

During this, Hubby goes to find food for me (It's after midnight now, not sure anymore), I try to make small talk with MJ's 'minder', fail that, and just observe the area around me. Hubby comes back, I eat a few bites, and the psych eval  lady comes back out. Her face is fairly set, but looks a little unsure. She asks a few personal questions, as I answer I see her face firm up in resolve, and she apologetically announces that she has to commit MJ.

My brain loses a surprising amount of comprehension past that point. I remember vividly holding myself back from screaming at her and demanding she give her back give her back don't take her, oh god, no no no no nooooo. I turn to Hubby, hoping he can ask all the logistical questions while I fight for rational thought, and try my best to stop crying and calm down.

I fail completely. Like, I'm not sure I've ever lost my composure so completely in public before. Every time I opened my mouth to speak, sobs choked out instead. My voice wouldn't steady, the pain in my heart stabbed every time I tried to think, and I'm just lost.

Eventually, I calm down enough to ask Hubby about what she said, he kind of accusingly/jokingly say that I scared her off, and he wasn't able to get much info. I need information, I can't go back in there until I've calmed down, and I want my mom. Doesn't seem to matter how old you get, when you encounter something utterly alien to yourself, you always want to contact the person in your life that has always made things make sense for you. So even though it was really late at night, I called her.

Surprisingly, she didn't even sound mad, just incredulous that I would call. My voice fails me, so I ask/beg Hubby to explain. He explains, I try to talk, listen instead for a bit, try to talk, fail again, and have to have Hubby rescue me. Mom explains things that I can't believe. That they're keeping her from us entirely until she's been to a psych ward, that we won't be able to contact MJ for 72 hours, that they may ban us from seeing her until we're not a strain on her psych. My mind is just chanting 'Nonononoyourewrongyouhavetobeyouresowrongyoudon'tknownonononono' and I promise to call her if I need her. She tells me to call that night if I need to. I'm truly surprised.

Hubby tries to force me to eat, but I'm choking on previously appetizing (a little) food, and can't even really imagine eating at the moment. I decide I need to clean up, so I go to the bathroom, and we go to face MJ. We're basically waiting til 3 a.m., asking for a psych eval person to come finish explaining what happens now, while the airhead nurse keeps 'forgetting' us. MJ gets treated, Hubby gets mad enough to go talk to the front desk, where we find out that we really can't remove MJ, we could have left hours ago, and I have to be up in 5-6 hours. Lovely.

We tell MJ goodnight, head home, try to talk to each other but it feels disjointed and wrong, and we go to bed (I shower alone, something I've been doing alot more often lately. I hates it). We both toss and turn, I don't think Hubby's asleep but he could be so exhausted he's not snoring, so I turn away and start crying quietly because I can't stop, and Hubby rolls over to hug me.

I think we maybe got a total of 4 hours of sleep between the two of us that night, and Hubby chooses to go to work instead of taking the day off like he'd previously planned. I take him to work, go to work myself, and just continue working. Most music set me off, looking at things I think MJ might like sets me off, my clients set me off. I am honestly crying for no reason, constantly.

At some point between Wednesday night and today, I realized I was grieving. And grieving BADLY. It felt like my soul was bleeding out. Being in the house felt wrong, everything felt wrong, words in my mouth felt like chalk and ash and I tried so hard to talk to Hubby, but felt blocked by his anger. He wasn't mad at me, but the situation, and I don't blame him for his reaction, but it felt like a barrier to really understanding and being understood. I was lonely and grieving and didn't want to bother him with this incessant crying that he seemed to be mocking me for. I again, don't think he was purposely doing so, but I also don't think I was seeing something that was completely absent.

So I called my mom. Often, and often crying. Often with nothing important, just to cry to someone. Finally today she gave me logical reasons why they would not try to keep her permanently. I was terrified they would decide we couldn't give her the home and care she needs and take her away. I was so scared they would find us unfit parents, I had a nightmare that I got pregnant and they took our child from us, saying we'd make them commit suicide anyway, so they needed to take the baby for it's safety.

Again, I completely realize this isn't logical, but I was trapped in a spiral of thoughts like this, thinking I was losing my baby.
Speaking of, this song came on, and I LOST it yesterday:

Back to my spiral: I did NOT blame myself for MJ's actions. Logically, I did everything a parent should in the situation we came home to. I did NOT blame Hubby for accepting a last minute tutoring session, giving MJ her opportunity. This was child's choice entirely, hence my title. I just felt that it didn't matter, we'd done everything we were supposed to, and they still took her away so easily. Why would they ever give her back now that they had her?

Then Mom came bull-dozing in with logic that I understood, and assurances based on human cruelty, and that was enough to help me stabilize myself. The therapist's assurance that this wouldn't be more than a week or two was the additional help I needed to finally push through. I still lapse a bit here and there, I'm insecure and scared, and worried, but I'm not a sobbing mess. I can think logically and reason and even laugh again.

So now we're managing together. Hubby called our best friend and talked through his emotions, so now we're both able to connect with each other again and we're back to functioning well. It's a waiting game, but it's one I'm more understanding of now.

Thanks for reading!!