The Crash

The days following Marcus’s admission to residential treatment are a blur. My husband and I spent the time looking at each other and saying, “what now?” We had been so used to not being able to leave the house that it took a while to realize we could now. We went through a bit of a honeymoon period where Marcus was doing really well and we felt sort of free. What I didn’t realize was that the honeymoon period wasn’t for Marcus, it was for me. Once I realized that they weren’t going to call me to come and get Marcus like every other place had done, I crashed and crashed hard.

It took until January for the crash to happen. Marcus went into residential in November of 2007. We were able to visit him on Saturdays and he was allowed to stay overnight for Thanksgiving. After that, he got to come home every weekend. Sometime in January I fell into what can only be described as a deep depression. I spent months on my couch. I went to work for meetings and class, and then came right back home. I never told a soul what was going on. Morris was doing the same thing. I began to struggle with my temper at work. Mind you, I had never been known as a quiet or demure faculty member, but I took thinks up a notch with making sure everyone knew my opinion. And my opinion was always negative. And of course I was always right. My normally thin patience with what I considered stupidity was completely gone. I said some horrible things. I didn’t think they were horrible at the time, but I do when I think back. It was the worst semester of my career. I considered quitting.

Around April I began to say to myself, “I think you are in trouble”. It took me a few weeks to let my counselor colleague and friend know that I was struggling. She gave me a referral to a therapist. Therapy again! Ugh. I danced around her card for a few weeks before finally calling. Another therapy road begun.