The Hard Way

There is an easy way to do this and a hard way.

The easy way is simply to trust the people who do the most for you.  The people who do all your bidding and who ensure you have what you need and are where you need to be.  The people who sit at your side while you’re in the ER and become your voice when you are too delirious to return to reality for even a question as simple as “what is your name”.   When those people come to you multiple times with a long term solution about how to keep you safe and cared for and out of the hospital the easy way is to agree. 

Alternatively, you can do it the hard way.

You can villainize those two people to anyone and everyone you speak to.  You can say vile and hurtful things to them so often that you don’t notice them caring a little bit less about your future each time.  You can lie to your therapists and doctors and nurses and even yourself.  You can agree to literally anything they offer as a condition of going back to your own home and then fight those conditions immediately upon getting there.

You can miss appointments with your primary.

You can call and scream at your family. 

You can vandalize your garage entry lockbox to cut off their access.

You can go behind their back and call a locksmith and get a FOURTH key made for the car in your garage.  You can tell the locksmith that while he is jumping the dead battery in the car to not make any noise because your family has appeared at the worst possible time and you feel busted.   And then you can drive off to meet your friends for dinner feeling like you won.

But miss your nighttime meds.

And get lost on the way home.

And get into an accident.

And have to talk to the police.

And then somehow manage to get home in the middle of the night.

And then rely on some strangers your family has never heard of to pick you up the next day and keep you out much much longer than you every want to be gone doing gosh knows what.

And then miss your nighttime meds a second time.

And then, possibly then, you are faced with the reality that every time you need something that is not already at your house you need to figure out all by yourself how to get it. 

Maybe you remember that your care team has asked you these exact questions before your discharge and you always had an answer. 

But you probably don’t.

You also don’t realize that your family is sitting back waiting for you to fail because you realizing that you’ve failed and realizing that you cannot do this on your own is the only thing left to get you moved to a safe place.

And failing in front of the people trying to help you is most definitely the hardest way.