Today is my dad's birthday. I just found out that my dad checked himself into the V.A. (Veteran's Administration) mental heath hospital a few days ago. He said he was feeling severely depressed and was contemplating substance abuse and suicide. In the past couple of days at the V.A. he's fallen face first and hit his head twice...once while in the middle of a conversation with a nurse, which caused him to go unconscious. They aren't sure what's causing it, but probably won't do the tests he needs to find out. This V.A is HORRIBLE...he's had so many problems with the staff in the past, they won't file reports, the nurses lie to cover their own a**** and they are awful caretakers. I mean..truly awful. They told my dad they suspect his falling is caused by a new medicine they just put him on called Geodon which is a very powerful anti psychotic drug.
So here's the thing...my dad has had a host of mental problems his entire life. He's abused drugs and alcohol since he was in his early teens, and has caused A LOT of damage to his body because of it. He's abused pretty much every drug you can think of, namely heroine, cocaine and crack. He's been in and out of recovery my entire life - and I, above everyone else, has been the one to standby him through all of it, even when I knew flat out that he was wrong, even when he drained my bank account to feed his drug habits, had to rush him to the E.R when he would overdose just to get my attention, had to give up my pets because he was in rehab, missed so much school i lost credit and failed classes, threatened to kill my mother, tried kidnapping me and my sister, was in and out of jail and rehab...all of it. I have gone hungry to feed my dad's crack habit. And I could care less. He's my dad, and I love him. I have spent my entire life trying to change him, to help him get better, and it will never work. And that's okay. He has his up months and his down months. And right now he's spiraled downwards and I'm really worried he's not going to make it back out this time.
My dad has schizoaffective disorder, which is similar to schiphrenia...but different. He is Bipolar and suffers from severe clinical depression. He also suffers from heavy short-term memory loss along with paranoia and hallucinations...on occasion he has heard voices which told him to kill family members. He suffered from a very traumatic closed head injury in his early twenties when he was skiing on my grandparent's lake and got ran over by a boat. He's also had at least one stroke in the past couple of years which they didn't even know about until they found heavy scar tissue in his brain. He has been in at least 5 MAJOR car accidents in the past 15 years, at least two of which were purposefully self-inflicted in an attempt to kill himself.
He is on a crazy amount of prescription pills..too many. He's overdosed on them more times than I can count, and every doctor with his case file should realize he CANNOT be allowed narcotics, because he WILL abuse them and/or become dependent on them, even given in a hospital setting.
My dad and I just got in an argument over the phone and he is now saying he's going to refuse all of his meds tomorrow and also said he will not sign a medical release form so that I can speak with his doctor's and social worker about the kind of care he should be receiving. The second time he fell...the nurses did absolutely NOTHING for him. The real reason he won't sign it now is because he let slip to me they are giving him Vicodin every 6 hours and he knows I will have his doctor put a stop to it.
He also said he is going to up and leave and move to Texas...where he has no family or anyone close to him, and he gave me this huge guilt trip about how I abandoned him and moved to Florida and all of this crap.
I am just so upset right now. I am so worried about my dad.
