The Boy

                Jim sat back in his chair, leaned his head against the wall, and succeeded in falling asleep to dream of being anywhere other than the waiting area of a psych ward in a hospital in another town. He had been up for 24 hours and needed to catch some sleep after driving 180 miles in the middle of the night in the fog.

            Jim didn’t know much about mental illness, but what he did know were the stress, fatigue, fear, and anguish that go along with being related to someone with a mental illness. He had experienced all of those, but not as completely as his sister Debbie. After all, it was her son they went to visit.

            This was due to just the latest of his nephew’s Baker Act commitments. The Baker Act was so named for Florida state representative Maxine Baker, who was the sponsor of the Florida Mental Health Act of 1971. In the state of Florida, if someone shows a possibility of mental illness, or is in danger of harming oneself, or another, or is showing signs of self-neglect, they can be forcefully and involuntarily institutionalized, or “Baker Acted”. Once they are deemed medically stable, they can be institutionalized for observation up to 72 hours. This particular involuntary commitment was for yet another suicide attempt.

            This was at least the third attempt Jim was aware of at that time. I say “aware of” because he wasn’t always in the loop when it came to family matters. Things were often kept secret. He was typically only called when situations were dire. A 3 A.M. call from his nephew’s girlfriend to his mother stating that he had tried to hang himself in her bedroom qualifies as dire. 

            While Jim dozed against the grimy, lime green wall outside the meeting room, his sister and nephew took turns crying inside it. She was a single mother, and mostly bore this stress alone due to the lack of the father who hadn’t seen the boy since he was 5 years old. He was now 21. His nephew bore that stress growing up; wondering why his father didn’t want him. Crying over that fact well into his college years. Drinking in excess to help get over the pain of that rejection. Jim always assumed that those issues, along with his sister spoiling the boy and advising him that discipline would only come from her, and from no other family member, and allowing him to drink in high school all helped to contribute to his problems. In hindsight, what Jim didn’t know about mental illness could have been credited for thinking the way he did. All of those things certainly didn’t help, and sometimes even exacerbated the issues, but they didn’t cause them.

            His nephew suffered from comorbid bipolar and anxiety disorder. Along with those come deep, dark depression, panic attacks from out of the blue, and suicidal ideation. Medication can treat the symptoms, but not the condition itself, so adjustments in medication are common. Dosages too high or too low can trigger the return of panic attacks or suicidal thoughts. Those were made all the worse by his alcoholism. Alcohol, being a depressant, counteracted with the medication he took and often triggered suicidal tendencies. The bipolar disorder and alcoholism were both handed down to him by his father’s father, the grandfather he’d never met – the grandfather who refused to acknowledge his existence. Jim often thought “I had my share of problems growing up – terrible nearsightedness, bullies, zero luck with girls – but this kid had the deck stacked against him from day one.”

            Jim had always been uncomfortable with emotional displays taking place in front of him. He had seen too many tears since his nephew was a teenager, either from the boy or from his mother, who was a very emotional person herself. Jim’s greatest displays of emotion took place when he was watching football or driving in heavy traffic, and often included a stream of profanities. He was not a crier. At all. So, when Jim felt that his nephew’s crying was unwarranted (which was practically always), he would turn rigid and scold him, and try to appeal to reason and to his logical side, which was surprisingly more effective than you would think. Debbie said that Jim seemed to be the only one who could calm his nephew down when he was having an alcohol-induced suicidal tendency, but he couldn’t be with him all of the time, nor did he want to be.

            So Jim took the call that late night/early morning at 3 A.M. He was house/petsitting for some friends and had to make an arrangement for someone else to take his place, then he drove to his sister’s house, and together they drove the 180 miles to see his nephew. After Debbie and her son talked for a while, and after Jim had gotten some sleep, he went in and talked to his nephew for a while. Shortly afterwards, he couldn’t remember anything either of them had said. He wasn’t sure if that was a result of him being so tired at the time or what. Later, all he could remember was his sister and him leaving, grabbing some food at McDonald’s, and driving the 180 miles back home. They were home by noon, and Jim was in bed by noon o’five. His nephew spent the next few days in observation, then went back home for a while, then not too long afterward went home for good. As I said, this was not the first time, nor would it be the last time, nor would it be the saddest time.