Here's the reason for my 'gently caress phenazepam' comment.
I was gone when he died. I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself for the guilt I feel for being gone when he died.
I was gone because he had scared me with how out of it he was the days before. I was just going to let him ride this one out on his own and ... I don't know. But I was gone.
That Wednesday night, he hallucinated for two hours. Severe, complete, unmistakable hallucinations. Then he fell asleep. He didn't remember anything Thursday morning. I asked him what he had taken and he said phenazepam, but only one milligram (I think he said milligram). I left him to do his work like he had been doing from home. Later in the afternoon I took the boys to karate. When I came home, he was dressed and waiting for me to give him the car keys.
He was stumbling, though, and I said no. He said he needed to meet a friend just up the street. After a convoluted chain of events, I threw the keys at him and said to just go. He sat for ten minutes in the driveway before he drove off. He came back and said he had forgotten something, and we talked for a few minutes; he was forgetting things he had said only minutes before, so I called the discussion a loss and he went back out; on his way out he said, "If you've been recording this conversation I'll degauss your iphone."
"Why would I record our conversation?"
"So that you'd have evidence when you take the kids and bail."
"Why would I do that?"
"When you get tired of all this and take the kids."
"I'm not recording anything. What the gently caress is wrong with you? What the gently caress?"
And he left.
He came back once again, and this time I asked him if he had taken more phenazepam. He said yes, but told me two milligrams (or x measurement, I don't remember exactly). I begged him to let me hold it for him and dose it properly since it did work for his PTSD and it did help him sleep. He was vehemently opposed to that because he feared I would stop wanting to give him any.
Here's where it got scary.
He went into the office and grabbed the safe keys. Now, I followed him because I was sure he'd go to wherever he had his stash of phenazepam. He took the safe keys into the bedroom and closed the door. I, of course, opened it and he immediately sat down.
"What're you going into the safe for?"
"I'm not, I'm just sitting here, thinking."
So I sat down and waited. Then I remembered we had a spare safe key in the closet so I got up to get it. I stepped into the closet and he pulled his gun out of its holster. He didn't point it at me, but he drew it.
"Why do you have your gun out?"
"I don't know if there are any other weapons in the closet."
"Are you serious? We cleaned this out last week. There's nothing in here."
I had my finger on the button to call 911 but he put his gun away as I stood there. I was mad but calm.
"Give me the safe keys."
"I don't have the safe keys."
"Yes you do, I saw you take them."
"I don't have the safe keys. Do you want me to empty my pockets?"
"So if I go into the office right now, I'll find them?"
"Yeah."
I walk into the office, eye on him the whole time, and find no keys. I made him empty his pockets and got the safe keys. I opened the safe and emptied it, hoping to find his drugs. I found nothing. He said he needed to get money out of the safe and I said no, he could use his debit card for anything he needed money for (for my own tracking purposes).
He asked me if I wanted a divorce. I said no, wholeheartedly no, and asked him the same. He said no.
He left, finally, to "go clear his head" at the bar down the street, and I called my ex-prison-guard friend for advice.
Because he had drawn on me, I didn't feel safe. Because he was having such a major psychotic episode, and because phenazepam overdose causes extreme psychosis, I didn't know what was coming next. My friend and his wife came over and he removed all the magazines from the guns we couldn't take with us in the car while she helped me gather a bag of things for the kids and myself. The kids and I went to my sister's house to stay the night.
He had turkey and coke at the bar down the street. He tweeted about it. He texted me to see if it was ok to come home. I didn't respond. When he got home he texted, at 11:43pm, "well, I guess I have a loaded .40s&w for whether it is you're planning on doing. if you aim to shoot first, make it cout. all that said, whatever you're planning on, it won't end well." (text is exactly as he typed it, spelling errors and everything)
The next morning, Friday, after a few normal-ish texts about an issue with his paycheck, he sent, at 8:43am: "is the 50 in my wallet for cab fare? wtf is going on here"
Shortly after, he began this:
"house keys
where are they"
Me: "I have them, why?"
"I need IMO
in
now
I NEED TO GET SOME THING INNHOUSE
because I'm leaving early for my apt
keys, or I'm leaving"
Me: "I'm not home, sweetie."
"where are you
and the kids
this will be problem 2 later"
Me: "Out. Why did you lock the door? How did you expect to get back in with no keys?"
"ok. this convertation is over
talk to you later
angry"
Me: "When you get to your doctor's appointment, you should leave your gun in the car. In case you're still angry."
"my anger is focused"
At this point, I called his pain management doctor. I told him how he had been acting, what he was on, and that he had a gun. The doctor had never heard of phenazepam. I gave him a brief rundown. He said he would call Metro for backup, just in case. I knew I was breaking the rules of the contract and it could get my husband booted from the office and banned from pain management, but at this point I didn't care. I was too concerned about the welfare of the people in that office and my husband to worry about pain management; I was actually thinking about rehab for him by then.
9:19am
"how mad am I going to be"
Me: "I just don't want you to snap in the office because you've been seriously off. And you don't remember how off you've been being. You just remember that I'm angry."
"there are only 2-3 things that might make me 'snap'/disassociate"
Me: "Phenazepam being one of them, apparently."
"...
battery dying
see you whenever to grace my presence again
I will see the kids before that"
Me: "Get help and we will talk."
"you first"
Me: "Alright."
"out.
and now I am even more angry"
Metro called me and I explained the situation. I told them I called because he was out of it on some medication and that he drew his weapon on me the previous night. They said they'd call me back after they got to talk to him.
I'm filling in gaps here from what the doctor and Metro told me after he had already been sent on his way.
His doctor got him in the room with Metro and asked him to unload and hand over his gun, which happened willingly. Then the doctor said he looked really ill. My husband's response was, "I'm just exhausted from my trip to Israel. I'm fine." And the visit continued on from there like normal. Before he left, Metro confiscated his gun for a two week period. His last text to me was "ANGRRYO" about the time that he left the doctor's office, which was 11am.
The doctor and Metro both called to tell me that he passed all the lucidity tests and "answered questions appropriately." What they didn't know when they let him go was that he hadn't been to Israel; the doctor was very upset to have heard that and said he regretted giving him his prescription at that point but that he had known what day it was, where he was, who the people around him were, and all that. The doctor offered to walk down with him to the ER but Michael said no. When Metro called, the officer even said that "he seems really out of it but we couldn't legally hold him." He then told me to be safe.
Sometime during all this, I had called my mother-in-law to have her come get the kids because I didn't want to deal with putting him into forced rehab or hashing through this latest drug issue while worrying about the kids. She showed up, got the kids, and I took a much-needed nap. This was about 3:30pm or so on that Friday. I texted my neighbor and asked her to check if he was home. She said he was. I sent him two texts asking him if he was okay but got no response.
I woke up from one of the hardest and deepest naps I can ever remember and checked my phone. It was about 4:45pm. I sent a couple of texts as I got ready to go home but I got no answer. I called his phone but it went to voicemail. My neighbor looked outside for me and said the car was there and had been there for a while. It wasn't like him to be home and not charge his phone. I got worried. I left my sister's house at 5:20pm. I pulled up to my house and called my neighbor; she was going to be my backup buddy because I had promised several people I wouldn't go into the house alone.
That's when I found him; I'll paste in here what I posted elsewhere because it's too hard to re-write.
---
I parked across the street and walked toward the driveway. I looked at the car, you know, just absentmindedly, because it was our car. I could vaguely see, through the dark tint, the outline of the headrests. I continued walking up the driveway and it was then that I saw it; one headrest didn’t look like a headrest anymore. It looked like a silhouette of a lock of hair.
Two steps took me to the driver’s side of the car. I saw him, slightly leaned toward the door, not moving. My eyes went to his chest, hoping, begging to see it rise and fall with breath but it was still. I tried to open the door but it was locked. I pounded on the window with my fists using all my strength and willpower and yelled his name. He didn’t wake up. I shook the car, screaming for him; his body moved with the motion but otherwise was unresponsive. My neighbor had walked outside to say hi already and I yelled to her frantically, “He’s in the car!” She ran back into her house to get a phone to call 911 and get her husband. There was a stepping stone nearby so I picked it up and smashed it against the back side window. It didn’t do anything so I hit it again. I hit it a third time and realized the window wasn’t going to break; I needed a stronger option. I was dialing 911 on my cell while running into my neighbor’s garage to get the sledgehammer I knew was there. My neighbor’s husband had seen what needed to be done and had run back inside to get a coat hanger to try to get the passenger side open.
The 911 operator answered and I gave my address while swinging the sledgehammer towards the side window. It bounced off. I swung it again while Medical Response got on the line. The side window didn’t break and I had to get in. I had to. Briefly the thought crossed my mind about how much repair work had just been done on the car but my husband was in the front seat, unresponsive. The back window crinkled and shattered with one desperate blow and the sledgehammer was taken from me as I climbed onto the trunk. My neighbor’s stepdad had taken the sledgehammer and was using it to clear chunks of window from around me as I leaned in and screamed out Michael’s name. I couldn’t fit between the roof and the back headrests, so I fumbled to remove the middle one. One of our kids’ carseats was in the way so I leaned down inside and unbuckled it, dragging it out through the hole where the back window was. It got stuck and I needed help to pull it out, but the second it was out, I was down inside that car, leaning into the front seat to unlock the doors for the people who were there. Michael was still unresponsive and his body was unmoving, unyielding, as hands tried to pull him out. I knocked on the window and someone opened the door to let me out of the back seat. I tumbled out and screamed his name over and over; I was held back, away from the car, as the 911 operator said to get him out and start CPR. I said we couldn’t get him out. She said we needed to start CPR. I said he’s stiff and we can’t get him out.
The officers arrived in droves at that time, and the paramedics were right behind them. They swarmed the scene like ants and reported to dispatch that they were there. The lady on the phone said she was going to let me go because they were there and I said thank you and she hung up.
---
I've been trying not to lay blame anywhere, because in the end it all comes back to me. Well, to him, rather, but there were so many things I could have done, so many choices I could have made to not have allowed this to happen. I am secure in the fact that I made the best decisions I could in the moment the situation was happening, but ... but I wasn't there. I was gone. I didn't have him forcibly committed. I didn't have him arrested. I was scared, though, and trusted him to work it all out like the adult he was.
But I wasn't there and every so often it hits me and I think I could have prevented this somehow. I just don't know.
They found his empty phenazepam vial in his pocket, as well as a set of house keys.
I know it's not my fault but god dammit, god dammit, god dammit. gently caress phenazepam. gently caress escapism. gently caress everything.
gently caress you, Michael, for doing this to us. gently caress it all. God dammit.
edit: One comfort I have is that all his actions were the result of the phenazepam and not him. He would never have acted like this normally. Another small comfort is that he probably didn't remember 90% of any of this and so ... I don't know, I don't feel like the last three days of his life counted in our relationship. No last words of anger, no arguments, no nothing. The last three days were wiped clean and we ended on a good note, not this horribly lovely one. I'll take all the comfort I can hold onto.
