The bad days are all we have now

Photo: Morguefile.com

The visual of two arms clutching each other at the wrists is impactful.

And the visual of those hands slipping down the arms, away from the core of the body, away from the protection of the mind and the love of the heart…
slipping
slipping
slipping

Until it’s just fingertips on palms, and then fingertips brushing past fingertips, and then…nothing is touching.

It’s two hands reaching out for each other as they move farther and father away from each other.
reaching
reaching

reaching

Then, with nothing left, down the waterfall.

I fear, with every breath, that we’ve finally gotten there.

Her good days are getting less and less and further between and the days and moods themselves are less “good.” Less positive and resolved and hopeful. Days and days of black depression, where she can’t get out of bed, even with no TV to watch or smartphone to use. She can’t move without drugs.

It’s almost like the bad days are all we have now.

I see other families at the movies, in the diner, on TV. I want to scream, “Do you know how lucky you are that you know where all your kids are at this very minute?” I forget that it’s the norm to know where your family is. To have them together. To not have a kid killing herself with drugs.

I have not heard from Cassie in more than a day. Before this, I went 48 hours before she texted me back.

“Alive?” I text, trying to be cool and not too mom-ish. Nothing. I restrain myself from what I want to text: “ARE YOU FUCKING ALIVE???? ANSWER ME!!!! ANSWER ME GODDAMMIT!!!!!!!!!

I check her cellphone usage on my computer. She hasn’t made or received a call since last night at 11:16 and it’s almost that time now; her phone is either off or dead. The calls and texts she made are to names I don’t recognize from places that “we” don’t know people. Well, I guess “she” does.

She’s living in Paterson, I suppose on the streets or in a crackhouse with another addict she met in detox. Ethan, this time. She walked out the door with him after being in the facility six days.

The last time, I brought her clothes to her in the hospital in shopping bags. This time, she packed herself–with a suitcase. In the back of my mind, I expected this, but was powerless; it’s the third time she has walked out of detox with a strange guy in five months. I so admire the people who work in mental health treatment facilities. I mean, this has to get to you.

Her car is gone; she totaled it last week in her second DWI. And to not my surprise, it turns out she DIDN’T have insurance. So there’s another charge, and another family who is going through hell because of her disease and her recklessness and her thoughtlessness.

Two kids in town died this week: 23 and 26 years old and my kids knew them both.

Their wakes were horrible events and I had no choice but to picture my beautiful girl in those coffins. One was her best friend a couple of years ago. She didn’t attend. Too busy getting high.

I am not a worrier by nature. But this…this. There are so many things to worry about. Overdosing. Getting bad drugs and dying. Prostituting for drugs. Diseased. Being raped. Being beaten or killed. Being kidnapped. Stumbling into traffic, high. Being held against her will.

Being lonely and scared, waiting for me to come save her. But I don’t because I can’t hear her.

I am lonely and scared. Come save me.

Last night I had a dream that I picked up the phone and a cop said, “We lost her.” I speed-prayed about 15 Hail Marys and then remembered I don’t actually believe that prayer goes anywhere but to one’s own hearts.

I stay busy. I am preparing a presentation, creating an online directory, an infographic, “Guide for Parents of Addicts.” Cleaning floors, pruning flowers, doing laundry.

I never believed people when they said that certain loved ones were on their minds constantly.

She is on my mind constantly.

The spirit is willing, the detox facilities are week

My girl is home
Cassie arrives home Saturday night at 5:00 pm. She’s been living in her beat-up car since Sunday, shooting heroin.

We had 10 inches of snow on Thursday and the weather has been below freezing.

I hug her so tight I am afraid I will hurt her.Her father, having been through this many times and much less emotional and more pragmatic than me, doesn’t get up from his chair until she has finished bringing all her things in from the car.

Car talk
She asks for Chinese food, and she takes the ride with me to pick it up . It gives us a chance to talk.

Why the change? What happened that made you decide to come home?

Last night, the police in Paterson searched her car with no results, but told her if they saw her again, she’d be in jail. She’s had her final pass.

The prospect of being thrown in jail, in the rough city of Paterson–and having to detox there with no medical intervention whatsoever–seemed to be the nail that finally got her to agree to detox.

Getting there
I leave at 6:30 for a function at my church. While I’m out, she will do her laundry, take a shower and pack, and Vic will take her to the ER at our psych hospital to get into detox. I hug her good bye. “I”ll see you Wednesday at visiting hour. I’m proud of you, honey–go with a great attitude.”

I come back at 9, and as I pull up to the house, I’m not happy to see that the cars on the driveway have not moved. I walk in, Vince is in his chair. Cassie is upstairs, still packing.

She comes down and I see she is having a manic episode. Packing while you’re manic. Let’s say that is pretty interesting. But I have seen her have a manic Christmas decorating episode, and I have to be honest, I don’t imagine any manic episode will ever top that.

Back and forth, up and down. Pack, take out, search, pack again. By 11pm I’m clenching my fists so tightly I’m about to draw blood.

“Okay, let’s go,” she says as if we haven’t been waiting for her for two hours.

 

We drop her off at the emergency room. As we pull away, I breathe what feels like the first full breath I have breathed in four weeks. She’s in a good, safe place. It’s a long road ahead to be sure, but she’s finally in the right direction.

Early morning phone calls
I drift into a peaceful sleep…and then wake up in a start to my ringing phone. I look at the time; it is 4:02 am. “Can you come get me?” She is sobbing. “They won’t let me stay.”

I drive back to the hospital through cold, empty streets. She’s still crying when I get there. They didn’t believe that she was suicidal. Since that is the only reason to fastrack a bed in detox, she has to leave. Get in line, honey, with everyone else. There is a two to three WEEK wait.

What heroin addict has the self control to plan to detox in two or three weeks?

She calls an opiate resource line that just opened and she gets a recording–this line seems to be for addicts with daytime issues.

Cassie can’t sleep and she calls one of the few detox facility alternatives that take Medicaid. She leaves her information on the recording. They will “return all calls” the day after tomorrow.

She goes to sleep in my bed.

I dread the next days.

 

 

I miss your voice

She’s been living in her car for the past five days. At least she has a flipphone this time, so we’ve been texting–just a few lines here and there–a couple of times a day. I don’t want to make this too comfortable for either of us. This is not normal. It is not how I envision her or my life.

It’s snowing again today and getting colder. Her car is falling apart. I warn her against going out to drive to Paterson to pick up (she stays in a covered garage space at a local hotel where she used to work as a waitress).

And then I text:

I miss your voice. Would you give me a call when it’s convenient?

Not only do I desperately need to hear her voice, but I’m praying that her hearing my voice will move her a tiny bit further from the homeless heroin-addict life she is now leading and back to life.

She calls me a few minutes later.

We chit chat. Gossip about what’s happening in the family, the fire in her brother’s apartment building, how my job search is going.

I tell her I want her opinion on my new website.  And I really really do. She’s so smart about things you’d think she wouldn’t be. Much smarter than some “successful” people I used to work with. But talk about unfocused and no passion!

By asking for her opinion, I’m also hoping to affirm her value; that I think she is smart and insightful and her advice is meaningful and worthwhile (all true).

Anybody listening in on our conversation would expect her, at some point, to say, “Okay Mom, there’s my secretary at the door. I have to run.” She sounds so normal and upbeat.  A cruel tease at the life I envisioned for her 23 years ago when I first held her in my arms.

We talk about an extended family dinner that’s planned for a week from now. She’d like to come.  Without thinking, I say “By that time you’ll either be in detox or dead.” Why do I say such stupid things? Here’s the upside of Cassie: she doesn’t even seem to notice and we go on to the next subject.

I tell her how scared I am for her. She tells me not to worry; she isn’t wandering the streets of Paterson, she has a regular dealer (yay!) and a bodega where she sells the baby formula she steals from supermarkets in Bergen County (I think that’s her main revenue producer). Every word she uses to comfort me instead turns the wrench in my stomach another twist. I know she isn’t picking up temp receptionist jobs to support her habit, but I don’t want to think about she is actually doing.

One of her objections to detox at the county psych hospital (which is the only one that has Suboxone) is that you lay in a cold empty room with no TV or books or magazines until they have a bed on the unit to take you. Aren’t you bored now, sitting in the car alone all day with nothing to occupy you I ask? No, she says, she is busy figuring out ways to get money continue to feed her habit. Wow, just like her own little business.

She had to drive into a curb yesterday because her brakes are almost gone. They’ll impound your car (again) I tell her. Then what will you do? She has no answer. An end to this maybe. I pray they impound her car.

When she is ready for detox, I’ll buy her new warm sweats, a soft T-shirt, a hoodie and warm socks so she can prepare for the cold bed. Go when you’re already tired, I suggest, so you can sleep while you’re waiting.  Yes, she’s thought of that. One of her old using buddies told her that a while ago.

     When that fog horn blows
     You know I will be coming home
     And when that fog horn whistle blows
     I gotta hear it
     I don’t have to fear it                  Van Morrison – Into The Mystic 

 

“I’m okay, Mom. Please don’t worry about me.”

 

As if I would ever ever ever stop worrying.

Aaaand this is why people don’t detox off heroin at home

If there’s another choice, I wish I knew it
While Cassie was on her two-month wild ride, she went from snorting to shooting heroin.

Now that she has nowhere to go, the run has ended but only because she is home.

The Medicaid rehab beds in our affluent county here are difficult to come by; you have to call every morning to keep yourself on the waiting list until one becomes available. I know, right?

She’s home and has nowhere else to go, so the only choice is for her to detox at home.

Yesterday was Day 1; a little rough but she got through it (we let her go through the car to take whatever left overs she could find to get through the day).  Then Vince read that Day 1 is the easiest. Days 2 and 3 are not for amateurs.

She took one of Vince’s Ambiens to get through the night, woke up around noon and Vince made her breakfast. We are killing ourselves to keep things calm and smooth and get her into detox without chaos.

No, no. A thousand times: no. Well, maybe.
She’s in and out of sleep and then has a meltdown at around 2pm.

She doesn’t want to be here. She never asked to come home. She doesn’t want to get clean. She wants to get high. Please let her drive her car, she will go to Paterson, pick up, come home and use and then she’ll go right to detox at BRMC.

Her car is practically undrivable according to Vince. She is begging, pleading for the keys to her car. It’s now snowing.

This is the worst idea in the world.

The really insane part of this whole thing?  The debate is not over whether or not she should shoot heroin today, but instead how she’ll get to Paterson to do it.

I ask her to leave the room so Vince and I can discuss it.

He disagrees completely with anything having to do with going into Paterson or use drugs, but he has no solution. He calls her crazy and that drives me crazy. He says things sometimes without thinking and the kids remember it and bring it up later. Sometimes years later. You can’t do that.

Matt thinks she’s playing us (well of course she’s playing us. Life is a manipulation–everybody does what they can to get their way, don’t they?). He’s back to the “she brought this on herself” thinking. Vince is so pissed he leaves the house.

If I drive her in my car and we get pulled over it’s the end for me. The paper here loves to publish names and photos. I use my maiden name or go completely anonymous when I’m involved in my addiction efforts–the paper would love to print my name. Suburban mom drives her daughter to pick up heroin. Who wouldn’t sympathize with me, right? Right.

Let’s face it, that one’s a headline the kids will read about in the history books.

If she drives and has an accident or gets a bad batch or runs into trouble in Paterson or anything happens, I will never forgive myself and Vince will never forgive me. She’ll kill us both.

Matt leaves for his trip to see his girlfriend. Vince storms out, tells me he wants nothing to do with this. To me, the chicken way out. He just beat me out the door. I would have loved to leave and have him deal with it.

The world’s worst solutions
I’m alone and without an answer. We’v tried every solution on the Internet to detox at home and nothing is helping of course. Especially when she does’t want to be detoxing. This is totally our idea, not hers.

I suggest she call her old dealer friend, Sarah, in another town. See if she still has oxycodones from her mother and will drive one over here, I’ll pay her for her trouble. Or I’ll drive you there. At least it’s not Paterson.

She doesn’t have Sarah’s number since she sold her smartphone. I go to look it up on her cellphone records, but she finds Sarah on Facebook first. No, she doesn’t have them anymore (Sarah has been arrested several times and tried to set Cassie up; she may think that Cassie is setting her up now).

I relent. I give her my keys to my car. Make her sign a note that she will go to detox by 7pm tonight. Send her off with her phone, $20 and a promise that she’ll go, pick up a pill if possible  (rather than heroin) and come right back.

I saw a cardinal today for the first time in days. I hope to God that’s my mom telling me everything is going to be okay.

3:30
I call her, she’s gotten what she needs and she’s about to get back on the road.

Vince returns; he’s furious with me for letting her take my car. I’m furious that he left me to handle this by myself.

 4:00
I call; she’s getting on the highway to come home. This is an hour later than what she said but at least she hasn’t sold the phone or gotten into an accident or pulled over or taken off. Yet.

 4:25
I call to tell her what to do if the car is stuck–how to put it in first gear–and her phone goes straight to voice mail.  My heart sinks for the millionth time. Please let her be on a call with someone else. I call back give minutes later and all is okay.

5:35
She’s home.  She went upstairs, closed the door and used.  She came downstairs and her mood completely changed. How I wish a safer, controlled version of heroin was legal.

I let my own daughter shoot heroin in my house. I did that. God forgive me.