I am 28 and finally starting to act like it.
Maybe I can thank my mom for that. She left a suicidal voice mail last night. She said she couldn't live like this anymore, and that she loved me. She said everything in the past tense.
This morning I called the hospital and asked them tons of questions. I told them she's made 3 suicide threats this year, but mentions suicide year round.
"She has delusions, hallucinations, and paranoia. She's violent sometimes," I said. "Bipolar disorder is common on that side of the family. All her sisters and nephews have it."
They gave me a number for emergency hospitalization, and said she can be committed involuntarily. My second option is to call 911 and request a 5150 in which they hold her for 72 hours to perform a psychiatric evaluation.
Either way, I need her address, a mystery she tells no one, so called her. No answer. So I phoned the only other person on the planet who might know: her divorce attorney.
He was completely frank and told me she was mentally unstable. He'd had growing suspicion and wasn't surprised to hear this news from me. He told me the crazy things she'd done, and that people with a 9th grade education could figure out things she can't seem to grasp. He didn't know her home address because she was too paranoid to write it. She uses a P.O. box and sleeps in her car, refusing to cash her 10,000 dollar alimony check because she thinks someone will trace it, he said. But as of 10:30 am she is reportedly alive, having sent an email to his law office. I gave him my cell number and told him to call if he heard any news, and instructed him to call 911 if she makes any reference to suicide.
I'll have to lie to her in order to meet her, and I know she'll put up a fight if I mention a hospital, but I'd rather have her hate me forever, than, die.
The mamas take care of the babies, and when the mamas grow old, we trade places. It doesn't matter if she's ungrateful, any more than it mattered that I cried when she held me. Life is just insane sometimes, and that's okay, as long as we all keep breathing, and striving to be the babies our mamas always hoped we'd be.
3:43 p.m. - 2008-10-06