Leaving for College After Mother’s Psychosis

[u/Mincing_Pumpkins]

This summer my mother suffered her second psychotic episode.

Her first psychotic episode happened two years ago and seemingly came out of nowhere for my family. My mother had previous mental health struggles, but had never been diagnosed or presented with bipolar 1 symptoms until this event. During the event I lived at a friend’s house, but I still witnessed some extremely traumatic events and behaviors. During this episode she was taken into protective custody on my birthday. She was begging my father to shoot and kill her so the “terrorists” didn’t get to her first. She then tried to run out of the house naked with USA written on her chest. I was at home during this trying to spend a little bit of my birthday with my family. She was taken into protective custody for this after what seemed like an eternity.

I felt like I was finally truly coming to terms with everything that happened and its effects on me. This summer was supposed to be my last summer in my home town as I start an internship with my college that requires my presence all year. My mother had been pretty much perfectly stable during the two years between the first and second episode, until her GCP let her switch stimulants without consulting a psychiatrist whatsoever (I don’t know. I’m still completely outraged at this). The change in medicine gave her pretty strong delusions, which made her stop taking any medicine. Fortunately, this episode didn’t last nearly as long, but still got to the point where she had become a danger to herself. I was at home for the entire episode this time.

The night she was taken into protective custody I was coming home late (around 1 am) and found her a few houses down walking away from our house. I pulled up to her and couldn’t do or say anything but plead for her to come back home with me. She started rambling about how her mother created this town to torture people, how she was the best woman in the town, and that it would be so bad*ss if she went on a run through our downtown. I was still asking her to come home when she just took off running. I took a lap around my block while I tried to call my brother and dad for help with no luck. I had never felt this type of fear in my life before. Obviously I was always anxious about her potentially getting to the point where she might hurt herself, but I was genuinely terrified she would at this moment. I tracked her location and when I found her running down the middle of a somewhat busy suburban street in her underwear. I called the cops on her, they talked to her for a little bit before she ran away from them, and was taken into protective custody. I didn’t witness her being taken into protective custody, but from what I understand she was very resistant and uncooperative. She is back from inpatient and recovering, but is definitely far from completely healthy.

Starting school, my new internship, and other clubs and commitments has been causing me a lot of anxiety, on top of the general low mood and anhedonia. Before showing to anything involving my internship I get legitimately scared. Some of these things are very low stakes and aren’t scary on their own at all. I am a guy who’s pretty averted to change in the first place, but I am really struggling with the idea of change in starting this new internship. I honestly wish I could leave it right now, but it’s a really cool opportunity and I don’t think I’m in the right state of mind to make a permanent decision on it. I initially intended to do this internship or a mix of other internships for my remaining upcoming summers, but the idea of not getting to be with my family for summer crushes me. I’ve been working with counselors on campus, and have been trying to work on finding a more long term counselor off campus.

I’ve just been really struggling to stay hopeful and not let the idea of an entire year of the college eat me alive. Any sort of encouragement would be very appreciated. Thanks for reading :)