It has been almost four weeks since I picked Ben up, curbside delivery (not allowed to enter the unit due to Covid) from his over-five-month stay in a “behavioral health center” (AKA psychiatric hospital). He was so full of hope, the day so full of promise – but we family members know to enjoy the moment, and prepare for a fall.
Man, I hate to be right about this. But I knew – I knew – he was on the wrong medication, and it was only a matter of time.
Timetable of deterioration:
(first few days covered in more detail in the earlier post):

Thursday, Feb 4th – pickup, home to pack, delivery to new housing I’ll call B Home (very very grateful for that arrangement, don’t get me wrong). Ben seems excited and open to his new life.
Friday, Feb 5th – I drop off a few items he forgot, and already Ben seems off. He’s on a time-release injection of Haldol, and wasn’t kept in hospital long enough to observe how to time the next needed dose.I call to inform the psychiatrist via Ben’s case manager (who can ever get the actual doctor on the phone?) and am told he’ll get back to us on Monday. That’s three more days that Ben can deteriorate.
Monday, Feb. 8th – the doctor has done nothing. No oral boosters prescribed, no change in the next injection date. Ben seems not much worse, which is good, I guess – but he is still not good. Families know.
Thursday Feb 11th – I drop off a few shirts to Ben at B Home. He holds it together enough to talk to me through the car window.
Good news: he is wearing a mask.
Bad news: he has gone on a shopping spree for hoodies. He has about 60 hoodies already, folded neatly (by me, while he was hospitalized) on a shelf in his old room.
Man, I hate to be right about this. But I knew – I knew – he was on the wrong medication, and it was only a matter of time.
He is stable (ish), but it’s like the nine years he spent getting off Disability and working up to full-time employment have been erased completely, like an extended version of the plot of Groundhog Day.
We still have not heard a peep from his psychiatrist.