Update: The Saga Continues

Tim gets out Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Squeaky is driving me Bonkers Q. Batcrap, calling me every...single...solitary...time she talks to Tim on the phone, or thinks she should talk to Tim on the phone, or wonders if she ought to CALL Tim, or wondering if Tim is going to call HER...and that's saying nothing of what she's doing to poor Tim. Apparently she's calling him when she has nothing to say.

Now, calling when you have nothing to say is an excusable thing when you're 13. Or 16. By the time you're 20, you should know when it is or is not appropriate. "Calling your 34-year-old ex-lover at the psych unit" is definitely on the "not appropriate" side of the checklist. And, predictably, he's getting snappish with her. Then she has to call me, in case I talked to him and he said something about her. Every conversation has to be dissected and analyzed and picked-over...(I realized at one point that I was feeling guilty, and wanting to look up my high-school boyfriend to drop an apology for when I used to do this....when I was 17, 18 years old. I refrained; believe me, I owe him about ten thousand times more apologies than for THAT.)

The maddening thing is, though: Squeaky is clearly Not With the Program regarding the significance of all that's happened. Her worry for Tim is couched largely in terms of "but does he love me?" "does he know I love him?" "Is he mad at me?" The issue at hand--Tim's health and welfare--she comprehensively fails to understand; she claims in one breath to want to do what's best for him, but then in the next she's talking about how she wants him to come back and live with her and Old Bastard again. Apparently, she and Old Bastard had a discussion, entirely without Tim's input, regarding what conditions Tim would be required to agree to in order to be allowed to live there again. The conditions are fairly insulting, first of all, and then there's this other small problem: Tim doesn't WANT to live there. He never did--the only reason he lived there in the first place was that she moved all his belongings there and told him it would be a stable place that he wouldn't be kicked out of! But he hates it there; he's said this a hundred times at least.

The best thing for Tim, I think, would be to take up the offer his friend in Ohio made. His friend offered to give him a room and line him up with a job, no questions asked. The reason Tim gave for not going when it was offered was that he didn't want to just turn up on the guy's doorstep in the middle of the holidays; well, the holidays are over now, so that barrier is removed. I'm going to offer to buy him the bus ticket, in fact, when he comes by on Wednesday; the way I see it, getting him out of this stress factory would probably be $40 well spent. Between me, Squeaky, and Betty the Bartender, I'm reasonably sure that I'm the one who has Tim's welfare most in mind, and who has the fewest ulterior motives. I just want him to be healthy (i.e. not constantly drunk off his butt and using "stress" as the excuse); happy (i.e. not constantly submerged in so much stress that he can USE it as an excuse); and self-supporting (because I think THAT will do more for his mental health than ANYTHING. I remember the old, self-reliant Tim, when he had a job; sure, nothing was perfect--he still drank, still did the occasional stupid thing--but he was in his 20's at the time, so that makes sense. And he was HAPPIER--that I know. He took pride in paying his rent and bills on time. I really think being in the socioeconomic dumps has hit him a lot harder than many people realize; then again, there aren't many people in his life who knew him back then, or who have seen him in circumstances besides the ones he's in.)

I wish Squeaky would leave him alone, or at least act like a grownup.
I wish Squeaky would leave ME alone. I'm a solitary person; I don't deal well with three phone calls a night, all from the same person (to whom I didn't want to talk anyway) and all of which say the same thing, to wit: nothing.

I'm reasonably sure neither of those wishes will come true.

Maybe if I changed my number and moved to Borneo....?

And of course, the person I feel worst for is Tim. -I- can just not-answer the phone; he doesn't have that option. I'm not trying to save him, mind you; I'm long past the time when I thought I even COULD save him or anybody else. But I still feel bad that he has to go through it, and if I can give him an avenue out--well, then, so much the better.

Cross Off THAT Resolution...

Tim is in the substance-abuse unit at a local mental-health center. I just talked to Squeaky for an hour (and my respect for THAT little girl is ramped up to a fairly-amazing height, considering our history) and things are not looking too spectacular for Tim at the moment. Apparently, after having "the charcoal thing" (Squeaky's description) done to his stomach ("He wasn't real happy about that,") he "kinda freaked out" and was subsequently put in full-body restraints, with the kind assistance of "about 30 or 35 people", and once restrained, was pumped full of tranquilizers. No--I mean FULL of tranquilizers. Per Squeaky's description, they gave him a shot...then another...then another...."They seriously had to go back out to get more medicine about eight times," she said. "There was a doctor there who asked me 'Why isn't he asleep already?' I said 'I TOLD you--he's got a really high immunity for medication!'" (True; I've seen Tim take in quantities of this and that which would have incapacitated, like, ANYONE else.)

Eventually, after they transferred him from the regular hospital to the mental-health center (dumping ground of those who, like Tim, have no insurance) he DID fall asleep; they'd taken his restraints off after the shots started working enough to ensure he wasn't going to kick anyone's ass. (Squeaky told me that last night, when she called me, he had already beaten her up as she tried to get the pills away from him. That's the first time in the history of our friendship that I know of him hitting a woman. I'm not real pleased about it, but then again, he had to have been pretty far gone to even be able to do that.)

And with all the stuff Squeaky's going through with Tim, bullshit is now apparently coming from an unlikely source: Betty. Apparently Betty has decided that the reason Tim is in the condition he's in is traceable directly to Squeaky. "Why did you buy him beer??" Squeaky said Betty asked, during one of several increasingly-hostile phone calls. (Which, to me, is quite hilarious; Squeaky claims she bought him a six-pack, which I believe; whereas, when he's out with Betty, the festivities usually include pitchers of beer (plural) and shots of hard liquor, sometimes with other substances involved as well. Betty's not got a leg to stand on for THAT accusation, unfortunately; "Ms. Pot? I've got a kettle on line 1...something about colors?") Betty is blaming Squeaky, loudly and repeatedly, for every bad thing that's happened to Tim. Now, in the long dark days before Tim knew either Squeaky OR Betty, I have experienced a similar Tim-plosion; he drank himself senseless and started threatening self-harm, and somehow the police were called (I think that time, Tim did it himself) and he was taken to the same hospital. This was back when we were living with CR, so it's a good nearly-ten years ago--and I don't think Squeaky, at 10 years old and not even known to either of us, could be said to hold any responsibility for THAT. The fact of the matter is, Tim needs help; has needed it for a long time, if even only on the substance-abuse level; and right now, no matter how much he hates it, Squeaky hates it, Betty hates it, or I hate it, Tim is exactly where he needs to be. He certainly does NOT need to be in the roommate environment he was in--though that's apparently a moot point, since Old Bastard has told Squeaky that if Tim returns, they will BOTH be kicked out--and he does not need to be motel-hopping/sofa-hopping/whatever with Betty, Squeaky, or both. More than anything, I think, Tim needs some stability; a solid place to stay, and a solid job that he's not going to be "downsized" from, or shut out of when the place closes because of the economy, or whatever. He needs a routine (says the woman who herself is in dire need of a routine, but still).

Squeaky's in a bad way, as who wouldn't be after seeing the person they love put into full-body restraints and shot full of tranquilizers. She's still a kid, really; I have to remind myself of that. I couldn't have handled that when I was 20; then again, at 20, I was still kind of a sheltered, moderately-spoiled, unthinking little product of my upbringing. It wasn't til I met JP, when I was 21, that I started seeing the world through different eyes; even when we were just friends and verbal sparring-partners, he always made me THINK.

I went to the doctor today, and as I suspected she raised my dosage of Effexor. I'm a teeny bit concerned, because my legs seem itchier since I started taking it three weeks ago; but that could be just dry skin and healing from the old condition. The doctor said if it starts to get really bad, stop taking the meds, take Benadryl, and call her. I'm not going to cold-turkey STOP, though; I've heard the withdrawals from Effexor are rather unpleasant, and I don't do well with unpleasant withdrawals. The increase is definitely needed, though; my regular psychologist was worried enough after our last appointment that she scheduled me for another one in two weeks, rather than our usual four. Some of that's the holidays, I'm sure; and some of it isn't. I don't like being in a rut.

Of course, I'd rather be in a rut than be Tim, or Squeaky, or Betty right now.

And then, when I'd hung up with Squeaky (after promising to call her tomorrow), CR called. He hadn't called much recently; in fact, I hadn't heard from him for three months or so, til this morning. "I thought you weren't talking to me anymore," he said. "I thought the same thing!" I told him.

As I suspected from those pictures, he's not in a good way. He told me that within the last three weeks, he found out he has diabetes and high blood pressure (I THINK he got the numbers wrong, or he should be approximately dead--108/180?? Is that possible??) The doctors want him to lose 75 pounds (40 of which he's gained since leaving Chicago) and he's scheduled for a sleep study. (The whole fricking WORLD has sleep apnea, seems like.) And tonight, his best friend at work--an older woman who helped him immensely when he was starting there--the one who, when we first started talking again, he got so emotional when telling me about her influence on him that he actually choked up and cried, which is pretty major for him--anyway, she got fired today. Not only that, but she got fired for being a whistleblower--something about the way the staff was being treated. CR didn't go into detail about that--but basically this woman went to bat for the employees and lost her job for it. Between that, and the health problems, he's feeling really, really low just now. "Thanks for listening," he said, as he promised to call me tomorrow night. "No problem," I said.

I am a sad person surrounded by even sadder people. In one way, it's probably not ideal; in another way, it makes me realize how fortunate I am. I have a solid job, a stable place to live, no current substance-abuse issues; moderate mental-health issues, but none completely incapacitating; several minor-to-moderate health problems, but nothing currently at a critical stage; food in my fridge, two gorgeous cats, and a host of things I could do to change my life, even in small ways, were I only to make the choice to do so. So, although I am a sad person surrounded by even sadder people, I am also among the most-fortunate people I know. I AM in a rut; there is an astonishing lack of magic in my life right now; but under the circumstances and with my friends for comparison, I'm doing pretty well for myself.

I do wish I was happier about it, though.

I've got a phone number for where Tim is; Squeaky says it's a pay phone in the ward and it's often busy, but I'm going to try to call him tomorrow evening. I suspect he's probably very angry with me for calling 911--he always has been in the past--but as I said last night, and as I told Squeaky tonight, I will tell him tomorrow: I'd rather have a pissed-off live friend than a dead friend. He can be as angry as he wants, but it won't shake in the slightest my belief that Squeaky did the right thing by calling me, and I did the right thing by calling 911.

This year isn't starting out very auspiciously, though, is it.