Sunday, December 29, 2013

We had has a great day, but the truth was that we still needed help. I made a new list of people to call. The next day I called the place in Liberal back. They answered the phone. The lady was nice and helpful. She said that they would do everything they could to help Jason. She started taking our information. What is your zip code she asked. I told her and she apologized. We were out of there service area she explained. She recommended that I call Garden City Area Mental Health. We were in their service area.  I could not comprehend. We live 55 miles from Liberal and 86 miles from Garden. I explained that we had trouble getting in to see a psychiatrist in Garden. She gave me the name of a private psychologist in Liberal.
I made him an appointment. We could get in later in the week. We spent most nights lying in my bed with me reading to him. Sometimes at two in the morning he would charm me into making him a sandwich. We read Dorothy Sayers stories, Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie. I talked him into letting me read one of my favorites, The Dark Is Rising. He laughed when I was the one who had a bad dream about The Walker. When I was too tired to read he would watch one of the Indiana Jones movies while I slept.
I wasn't sure what to think of the psychologist. Jason was having a bad day. On the drive over he told me not to talk to him. If I was not going to tell him about what was going on, why everybody in the world was fucking with him, then he did want to hear anything I had to say.  We had been over all of this so many times in the past months that it no longer phased me. I turned up the radio; he closed his eyes and laid his head back.
 We arrived in town with ten minutes to make it to the office. He was hungry and I had scheduled him an hour and a half session. At his insistence I drove through Taco Bell's drive through. He looked at the board and decided what he wanted. What do you want? he asked me. Nothing I told him, I ate before we left the house. He insisted I get something. No, I was not hungry. As I pulled forward to order we were still arguing. I yelled I DON'T WANT ANYTHING! "Oh, ok," came a voice from the speaker.
We pulled up to the address and were puzzled. It was a house. We had both expected an office building. There was a wheel chair ramp, which made me think this could be the right place. Jason refused to go in unless I checked first. I am not walking in on some family eating supper, he explained.
I went to the door and was greeted by three large dogs. Another large dog growled from underneath a desk. I waved at Jason to come up. I am not a pet owner myself, but find that pet owners often are more kind and less selfish people than I am. I petted the dogs and sat on a sofa. Jason sat beside me and played with the dogs while we waited. Even with the lightened mood, caused by food and laughter, Jason would not let me go into the psychologist office with him. I wanted to talk to her because I was afraid Jason would not explain what was going on. He had a tendency to make light of it when talking to anyone else.
He went in while I read a book. At one point I was alone in the room when the 6 month old great dane came running into the room, skidded to a stop, and peed a huge puddle in the middle of the floor. This kind of behavior is why I am not a pet owner. I looked around for paper towels. Not seeing any I settled back down to my book.
At the end of the meeting Jason and the psychologist walked into the room. Thankfully another psychologist in the office had already came through and cleaned up the puddle. I asked about medication and asked if he had mentioned his trouble sleeping. She said they had discussed his sleep problem and she had given him some pointers. She said she would like to see him again before recommending medication. She could not prescribe them herself, but would work with his family doctor to get them for him.
It worried me that she seemed dismissive of his lack of sleep. I was sure he had not explained the problem fully to her. Lack of sleep made his delusions much worse. Some days he was only able to sleep for a couple of hours a day. After several days of this he would usually crash for a whole day. I was convinced that he needed anti-psychotics to help him get over the delusions. He had been meth free for a month now, but his delusions were not diminishing much. Going a whole week more before even talking about medication worried me. Maybe she was right though. I am not a professional.

She said that next time she would like to talk to both of us. She noticed my skeptical look at Jason and assured me that Jason had already agreed to this. In the car Jason said that he did not want anyone he knew talking to her. He explained. She may be able to help me, he said, and he did not want anyone roping her into the conspiracy too. He needed to be able to trust her.

In the care


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