Sunday, April 19, 2009

Day 3

I've moved his phone into his room, so I wouldn't hear the buzzing. It's not ringing as often,however. We need to figure out the best way to tell the friends he has who aren't local. Most of his friends know, I think, as we called his closest friends' parents to let them know what was going on. One subdued boy came by to drop off some things our son had left at his house...and mentioned that he thought this was "pretty drastic". I guess that plays into the popular perception that it's "just weed." But, it's not just weed...it's the distance, the not caring, the pain, the disengagement, the depression...everything that the "just weed" was helping him hide from.

The assistant unit manager called us tonight to give us a summary of his day. He finished all of his writing last night, so he came off impact at 8am this am, and was integrated into the group. He was very sad and tearful most of the day, even resorting to cutting the back of his hand with a rock. The woman I spoke to said that she sat down and talked with him about it-- he said it was the only thing he could do with his feelings. She had him come up with a safety contract that identified some other things he could do, such as write to us, talk to staff, write in his journal, or ask to speak with a peer mentor.

She said that he was pretty tearful most of the day, but did seem better when he was assigned the job of preparing dinner with another resident. They made spaghetti with sauce from scratch, salad, and bread sticks. After dinner they are having a campfire with music, and there are a few residents with guitars he can borrow, which should help him.

The other thing she said was that he said he knew why he was there--he said that his parents though he was depressed and unhappy, and he had shut us out of his life, so we didn't know what was going on with him.

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