L2K A.K.A. Legal 2000

This is why I am fluent in crazy… I have spoken and have interpreted a lot of crazy over the years …

My brother is schizophrenic/bipolar/manic depressive and several other diagnosis’s… he is on an L2K right now as they fight an infection in his diabetic feet.

 

He had previously been in two different hospitals for the last two months … the last hospital released him with wounds on his feet and an infection that was starting… He then ran around Las Vegas for 3 to 4 days on those bad feet and made them worse because that’s what he does when he’s crazy …

We live in Las Vegas.

 

He likes to run around the city and play the big shot when he’s manic … he throws hundred dollar bills around … that’s how he made it to the ER this time, to help treat his feet… He arrived in a private limo from Caesars Palace looking like a homeless guy … wild crazy hair, torn dirty shirt, shorts, bloody shoes, manic as could possibly be … The limo driver knew something was off and was able to get on the phone with me when my brother called me… I asked him to bring him to the ER please and I would meet them there… he did, and we threw $100 his way … So appreciated him bringing my brother to safety… Didn’t appreciate his ‘extra’ concern for me after he did so … leaving messages about how he’d like to make sure that I was doing OK and to have lunch or coffee… He had mentioned along the way that he had a girlfriend… sent me a video of himself with music in the background, telling me he’d like to be there to support me, his behavior was very sus … just sayin’ … made me a bit crazy …

 

My Brother waved around another $100 bill in the ER demanding the nurse order him some pizza because he was hungry, offering the ER doctor a playboy that he had packed while preparing for his trip to Cali he had planned with the Caesar’s limo ride before his plans were foiled by his kill joy sister, me …

 

He packed several items in the bag … the playboys, his bible, candy bars, his meds (at my suggestion), socks, shoes, water, shades, and a few items of clothing …

 

I mentioned My crazy, My crazy comes from my alcoholism … I am 24 years sober … with I know as a mental illness … most of the time my crazy is under control to a level I can stand due to the tools I have acquired over the years to combat the crazy … but that is another story for another time … Some days are better than others … this shit with my brother makes me crazy … he has called me approximately 200 times in the last two months while hospitalized … I usually don’t answer, I let it roll to voicemail, but I do answer sometimes in order to show him support …

 

When he calls, he is either super sweet or pissed off & cussing me out … I had someone, who is not fluent in crazy, ask me in bewilderment when I said it how it bothered me, “didn’t I know he was crazy” … duh … as if that will stop me from being bothered or upset by it? They don’t understand what it feels like when you are trying to help someone save their life, who you love dearly and would do just about anything for, and you are exhausted because you’re taking care of their business as well as your own in a very, very full time capacity, are exhausted emotionally, physically, mentally, in every which possible way … and how discouraging and frustrating it is … in a system that just doesn’t know how to handle crazy… as if it’s not going to bother you?! I think THAT sounds crazy … and they act like I am the crazy one?!

 

People try to help, but they don’t know how to help, because they haven’t experienced this … even if they have experienced it, there is not much in 36 years we have not thought of or come up against in this fight to stay sane in the midst of insanity … people make endless suggestions trying to help… It doesn’t help… It just irritates me and makes me a bit crazier … so now I must overcome that crazy with more understanding… I hand it to God to deal with because it’s too big for me to handle on my own …

 

Most people don’t want to hear me talk about it … “Oh, she’s talking about all That again …” I don’t feel heard or understood much of the time … there are a few along the way that help tremendously … I am forever grateful for them … most of them have a little of crazy too, so they get it … to a degree …

 

I digress ….

 

The last phone call I was on with my brother two days ago, while on the L2K, in the hospital, I asked him how he was doing over the weekend… He said he had died a couple times but that he was happy that in Jesus he could be born again as many times as he needed to be … then he rambled on about some other insanity …

 

I got a call from the doctor over the weekend, she said that My brother was getting “a little agitated” today … that was the first day she had seen him like that… they had to call the police to calm him down … HA! welcome to my brother …

 

Try 36 years of that Doc … I am unphased and unimpressed with this report …

 

She wanted me to call her back, but I didn’t … I was on my way to a Stones concert and was going to rest for the rest of the weekend… I need my own life … looking after my brother could be a full-time job if I let it … I can’t do it… I already have a full-time job and a full-time life … add him, and it makes three full-time jobs …

 

The nurse called me two days ago and told me to call her back about something very important … so I finally called her back … she was concerned because he was on the phone with the bank … I let her know that that is normal for him… He has all his bank accounts memorized, and the phone numbers, in order to call them from any mental institution or hospital … he does his banking from the inside … he has actually had his checks and bank statements delivered to the mental institution before, because he needs to do his banking … we had to get them changed back

 

I don’t always answer the phone when I see the phone number coming from whichever particular hospital he is in, because it will twist my mind into more crazy with his insanity babbling into my ear… So sometimes I find these voicemails from doctors and nurses a couple days later… also because my voicemail doesn’t drop in right away… That’s a bit crazy too … but I’ve learned to live with it because it would cost me more money to get it fixed and sometimes I just don’t even have the time in a day to get everything done I need to get done … so I compensate as best I can in this crazy life … besides … I am really tired … the really tired you get for doing too much and having too many things happen for too many years … so I conserve my energy where I can …

 

He has a fiduciary that takes care of most of his money, but he does get an allowance so he can piss that away if he wants, I can’t control it … I have stopped trying … well, to a certain degree… I did pull his wallet from him … he keeps trying to get it back because if he had it back he would be running around again… He’s not in a lockdown facility because of his feet… They have to treat him medically before they can send him to another mental institution … since he doesn’t have any money or clothes at this moment, he is staying put… But if he did have money or clothes, he’d be off and running again …

 

Even though he is on a legal hold, he is not locked down right now … is it just me or does this seem insane?

 

I also think it’s insane that a judge would release him to the street to harm himself more … because that is what happened … A judge deemed that he was OK to leave the last mental ward, against doctors’ advice and against my begging that he was NOT ready to go…

 

The judge threw me out of the zoom court room and decided to listen to the madman, my brother, because it is his civil right to decide his own fate, even though I have a both a Medical & General Power of Attorney that states, when he is not able to make his own decisions, I am legally able to make them for him … again, is it just me… Or does THAT seem insane?! She didn’t care that I have that legally binding, notarized, document, in hand, but chose instead to release someone who is severely mentally ill, in the middle of a psychotic break, back onto the streets so they can hurt themselves more, both physically & financially … and be put back into another facility where now the patient’s meds have been disrupted once more, so there is not a consistency in treatment?!

Each time he goes to another facility, the hospital staff wants to know more background… I recount the last 36 years of my brother’s insanity, hospital stays, mental status and history, family history, and answer invasive questions to several different staff members, who sometime have very unhelpful suggestions … over and over and over again … several staff members inquiring about more information, for each stay … doctors, nurses, social workers, intake staff, therapists … they do not seem to share the info with each other, but decide to call me, individually, all times of day and night for the info … years and years of this … it is maddening …

 

Sometimes I just get so discouraged… My coach calls it learned helplessness… That after a certain amount of time you just feel like there’s no way you can make a difference or a change… But I’m lucky this time… The judge pissed me off when she threw me out of the court room, so I have a little bit of fire under me to go fight this to the best of my ability … I will be filing a formal complaint against the judge … someone’s got to do it … even if it is only a drop in the bucket… It’s one more drop to fill the bucket and hopefully make a difference somehow …

 

I could tell the judge didn’t care of the moment she came on the zoom call … I could tell she was miserable … I had several staff members at a couple different hospitals tell me that she is horrible and there’s nothing they can do about it … their hands are tied… I had a doctor tell me it is like they are on trial trying to keep patients in their facility to care for them better… And this judge doesn’t care… She bangs her gavel and releases another crazy person onto the streets of Las Vegas again … against doctor’s recommendations … WTF?!

 

Again… Insanity!!!

 

… And they call my brother the crazy one ?!

 

I’m just crazy enough to think that I may be able to make a difference somehow … I like that kind of crazy … it’s the kind of crazy that KNOWS anything is possible … with God, all things are possible …

 

I’m going to keep showing up sober … doing the foot work … see where it leads …

 

I think that’s all the crazy I can tell you about for today … I have another full-time day today in the world of crazy … so I’ll get back to you with more crazy when I have time …

 

I will leave you with this…

 

Stay crazy enough to believe in yourself even when others don’t have the frame of reference to understand a word you’re saying and it sounds crazy to them, because they’ve never experienced it… just know that you may be speaking another language that they are not fluent in … give yourself, and them, Grace … be kind to yourself and them … and carry-on with your crazy self.

 

Love you all!!