And it gets worse

A day or two later, after our uneasy nap,  I learn that Don was “quite agitated” and even aggressive with the care staff. He is still, despite his aged disability, strong enough – and in any event staff can’t respond to force with force.

They had phoned me to come help, faint hope since i could never calm him at home, just drug him and endure, trying not to aggravate his paranoia, alone in the house, afraid to move, in the middle of the night.

It reminds me how i sometimes – often – feared for my own safety. I went to the police and told them the situation -“if i call, i mean it, but there are no guns in this house.” They nodded and to my gratitude i know they took it seriously and remembered.

So now in the care home an uneasy few days got worse and they had to use more drugs. It might be horrifying to those who haven’t been captive to paranoid rage, who somehow believe the use of drugs is evil, but i know it is a last resort. To me, looking from the inside, it seems a mercy. I know all the staff are trying to figure out what the triggers are, as i, untrained and inexperienced, also did.

And i remember how he whispered the other day when i was hoping we would nap, “You don’t know if there are any guns here, do you?”

Only the memories of other paranoid breaks remind me now, a couple of days later, of those forgotten, despairing words and my strange drop of the heart, the dread, (oh no, not that again) as i answered cheerfully, No, no guns here.

Thankful, to be honest, that i would not have to lie awake and fearful beside him that night, in case i became the object of his fear. I don’t have to do that anymore.

It is an amazing  great relief. I am so thankful that i do not have to do that anymore.