I'm still blown away by it. When I went out the door this morning to take the kids to school (7:15 a.m.) I turned on my cell phone and there were two messages from his retirement home, both saying that he had fallen at about 4:30 a.m. and was being taken to the hospital. I called the hospital and they told me that he said he had taken 18 Xanax in an effort to kill himself. Naturally I went straight over there. He woke up off and on during the day but mostly slept, which is normal after taking 18 Xanax. Turns out he had 6 glasses of wine before the Xanax to fortify himself for it, but around 4:00 a.m. he woke up, was alarmed to be unable to move and tried to hit the emergency button in his room and fell out of bed, hitting his head and banging up his nose in the process. I think maybe he forgot what he was trying to do at that point. When I went over to his apartment this afternoon to pack some clothes, I found his brief suicide note neatly on top of all of his financial information, so I knew he was serious about it.
I honestly had no idea he was depressed enough to be thinking about suicide seriously. He is a very anxious person who internalizes everything and we are getting ready to move my mom into a new nursing home (she has Alzheimer's) in preparation for applying for Medicaid in January. We were both a little down about that, but it's a nice nursing home so I didn't anticipate a problem. I talked to him last night and he was cheery because he was going out to dinner with his two retirement home buddies - no indication then of major depression.
He came to a couple of times today but was largely incoherent. The first time he woke up I greeted him with "what the hell do you think you were doing?" and he said something about "district conventions . . . nothing but hypocrites . . . then [Big Tex] quit going . . . you started having problems with meetings . . . not teaching your children anything . . . too many toys" and he fell back asleep. (I'll discuss the children and toys issues with him when he's feeling a little better.)
The C.O. visited his congregation last week and my dad talked with him about how lonely he was and how no one has ever invited him out for a meal or anything since Mom's been in the nursing home. The C.O.'s gracious response was, "Well, YOU should take the initiative and invite someone to dinner." Where? At his retirement home? Why the bloody hell is it HIS responsibility to encourage everyone else? When is it his turn? The poor man is 77 years old, he has ONE child (me), his wife is in a nursing home, and he's all by himself when he's not at my house. I was furious at that response (as usual). I told Dad a few weeks ago how I am feeling about the Witnesses and he has been very supportive of my decision not to attend meetings, but I guess on a primal Witness level it bugs him. And it's gotta be hard for someone who has been "in the truth" for 46 years, professes to be of the anointed, an elder since forever (until that hot affair with the 85-year-old cutie in his retirement home two years ago, which resulted in 1 year of DF'ing) to be seeing things in a different light, because he agrees with all of our concerns. I think it scared him and he wanted out - of everything.
He's in a psych ward tonight, and probably will be for at least a week while they evaluate him. They asked me if he should have any visits from his pastor, and I said a firm, emphatic "NO." The last thing that poor man needs is some hypocritical, holier-than-thou elder telling him how he brought this on himself and what a sin it is to contemplate suicide. I got so angry when I was telling the nurse about his religious history that I started crying. I will not willingly give them another victim.
Please say a prayer for him, my friends, if that is your belief, or wish him well. He is a kind man, though very weak in a lot of areas, and he doesn't deserve this.
P.S. If Big Tex hadn't been around today, I would've gone completely round the bend.
Nina