Jail Time

 Today, my nightmares came to life.

Today, my son was taken to the hospital and then moved to jail.

Today, I am not OK.

It started last night (4/13). Carson was upset about not getting to spend time with friends because he threw eggs at my garage Sunday (4/12) and I was making him clean it up. He would half-ass the job, them come in. I would then see that he wasn't done cleaning it up and make him go back out. Then it started raining so I told him it could wait until after school Monday. 

Monday after school, he went outside and claimed it was done on 3 separate occasions. Each time I told him it wasn't done, he threw a tantrum, screaming and cursing about never being good enough. I managed to stay calm. After he finally got the egg cleaned off the doors (banging the door and causing damage), I had to point out that the dirt on the garage door also needed to be cleaned off, since it was only there because it got stuck to egg residue. He grabbed the hose, and sprayed the entire driveway, front porch, and eventually cleaned off the garage. I asked him to put away the hose, clean up the eggshells on the ground, put away the cleaner and the scrubber. He threw another fit, cursing like a sailor, and slamming things around. But he finally did it.

I thanked him for getting it done, told him it looked good. Then reminded him he needed to finish his ACTUAL chore of the dishes/kitchen. He went to his room. After an hour, I reminded him again. He fell asleep, and another 2-3 hours passed before I told him to get it done or lose his phone. Another hour passed, and I took his phone. Immediately he was throwing everything he could get his hands on.

He shattered several glass bottles, knocked over shelves, kicked over a bucket of art tools, smashed up a box of crayons, drew on the table, emptied kitchen drawers, and cried and screamed. 

He never did the dishes but went to bed after he wrote me this note: 

Today (4/14) I came home and reminded him he still needed to do the dishes. He threw out several f-bombs and refused to do it. A salesperson came over, and I am terrible at getting rid of those guys. It's frustrating. While I was talking to her, Carson took a steak knife and tried to slam it into his fingers. He held it against his wrist while I looked over the shoulder of the salesperson and pretended to slice his wrist. Like he knew I wouldn't say or do anything in front of this stranger. When she left, he went downstairs and started slamming things around. I had no idea what, I didn't go down. Jason took over as I went to pick up my high schooler.

When I was at the school, I got a text telling me that Carson was trying to hang himself, and his face was turning blue. Obviously, I wasn't there, so I don't know how serious it was. But his twin sent me a video of Jason standing in front of Carson's closet, Carson on the floor of the closet. He was kicking the wall in front of him so violently that it was bending, and his backside went through the wall behind him. He had cords wrapped around his neck and was trying to choke himself. Jason kicked the cords as Carson screamed and cursed. His twin sobbing in the background and begging him to stop. The shelves in the closet are broken. There is still glass everywhere.

When I got home, I asked Carson to talk to me. I told him he needed help and I wanted to take him to the hospital. I told him he could go by himself, or he could be taken by police. He cried a lot. Finally, he said, "I'm not going!" and ran away. He went downstairs, knocked over the exercise bike, threw around food in the food storage area, threw the plastic cups around. He ran upstairs; I don't know what he did since I stayed downstairs to call the police. While I waited for responders, Carson ran outside and back inside multiple times, screaming about not going. Throwing things around. Cursing. Finally, he said he would go. Then he noticed I was on the phone and he ran outside again.

He climbed on top of the shed in our backyard. He jumped on it trying to break it. When he couldn't get it to break, he started trying to pull off the tiles on the roof. He jumped off the shed to get away from police officers, then jumped over the fence to get to the van and climbed on top of that to get away again.

I stayed back so I don't know what was said. As I talked to an officer, other responders talked to Carson. I just wanted him to go to a hospital, get some real help, stay there a while. But when the officers found out there was property damage, they immediately took him. I didn't get to say goodbye. He was evaluated at the hospital and taken to jail.

The officer that told me he was in jail said "he might be there a day, a week, or a month. No way to know. But if he gets released you will get a call."